The Grip of God Will Hold
To those who are called, beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ
Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.
Jude 1b, 24-25
One of my favorite places in the world is a hiking trail in Virginia though trail may be too strong a word. Boulders piled upon boulders lead strong-willed hikers up into sparse trees and eventually, to the peak of a small mountain. The Devil’s Marble Yard is it’s name.
There is usually a point in my hike where all of my weight is held by two hands on a rough boulder with no steady ground below. It’s at those points where I always think about the idiom “taking my life in my hands” because, obviously, it’s relevant to my situation.
Man seeking God might be described in much the same way. It is by the strength of your grip that you cling to your god, salvation, peace and all other blessings. That is why a works-based salvation is doomed to fail: eventually, you can’t hold on any longer. Eventually, you let go.
The Bible paints a vastly different picture of salvation. In Christianity, man does not seek God; God seeks man. Jude describes the Church in three ways: chosen, beloved, and kept. All three are passive, meaning they are done to us, not by us.
Instead of us holding to God, relying only on our grip strength to keep us safe, God grips us with mighty hands. According to this line of thought, the mighty hand of God will never let us go.
Jude says that as Christians we are kept in the faith, going so far as to say that God will keep His people from stumbling so that they will endure to the end and enter into the heavenly kingdom.
His defense for such a provocative statement is simple. If God chose us and He loves us then of course He is going to preserve us! From the beginning of the world, God chose His people (what we commonly call election). He regenerated their hearts out of love, and He keeps them from apostasy (permanent rejection of the faith).
What confidence do we have that we’ll make it? Where does our assurance come from, especially when sin seems to be getting its way in our lives? The grip of God will hold! He chose us. He loves us. And we can be certain that He will keep us in His love to the end.
