DEVOTIONAL
“For this reason I also suffer these things, but I am not ashamed; for I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day” 2 Timothy 1:12 NASBS True salvation that is birthed within the soul, by the miracle of regeneration, brings forth an assurance of God’s love that cannot be shaken. It is a love that is so steadfast and deeply enriched within the heart that it goes beyond the natural understanding of worldly logic. The apostle Paul brings more clarification to this understanding when he wrote to the church at Corinth, saying, “For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so, the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God, which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words. But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised. But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no one. For who HAS KNOWN THE MIND OF THE LORD, THAT HE WILL INSTRUCT HIM? But we have the mind of Christ.”
Therefore, to have the mind of Christ is not that you know God, but rather that God knows you, and has set His seal upon you, which is His Spirit. Concerning this, Ezekiel tells us, “Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.”
For this reason, and this reason alone, we can cry out as Paul no matter what circumstance we might be in, “For this reason I also suffer these things, but I am not ashamed; for I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day.”
Christian, what confidence we can have when we face death, knowing that we have trusted our entire lives to Jesus Christ, Who vanquished death when He was raised from the dead, by the Spirit of holiness. This is what separates us from the entire world, and from every other religion, that is, that salvation is a supernatural work of God intrinsically changing the nature of men to agree with His Gospel, concerning Jesus Christ.
Oh, what joy it is in this life to have the eyes of our heart unveiled from the lies of the deceitfulness of sin. Reader, do you have this hope? I assure you beyond any doubt that death is coming, and it will swallow you up in the grave. The only way to truly defeat death, is a simple concept when it is thought through. Someone had to come in the flesh, born of a woman and live a perfect life. They had to fulfill all the righteous demands of a perfect law that our conscience condemns us of every day. Then they had to lay their life down into that grave with no pulse and no heartbeat, and they had to be raised out of that grave in the flesh, with a pulse and with a heartbeat.
The scriptures tell us, “Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.”
So Jesus “had to be made like His brethren in all things, so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.” This is the only way to vanquish death, for the wages of sin is death, and we have all sinned. The only true hope is the gospel of Jesus Christ, for He is the one who entered into the grave and was raised on the third day, and this, my friend, is my confidence, “For I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day.”