“To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy— to the only God our Saviour be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and for evermore! Amen.” Jude 24-25
One
of the most wonderful things about the good news of Jesus is that He is the One
who guarantees that those who trust in Him will not fall.
Around
the middle of last year, a good friend and I were helping put a roof on a
shed. I have to admit that for a lot of
the day this friend was on the roof doing most of the helping and I was simply
passing up the sheets. However, toward
the end of the day I went up on the roof as well and began helping secure the
roof, as were doing our best to finish most of the job that day.
And
with that goal in mind, we kept on working, even as the sun went down and the
dew began to make the corrugated iron we were standing on very slippery. But determined to finish the more difficult
parts of the job that day, I climbed over the gable and onto a steep section of
the roof where there was nothing to catch me – except the ground below – and
slowly continued putting in screw after screw as I made my way along the
roof. By this time the dew had made the
roof so slippery that I could no longer stay on it without sliding.
And
so to prevent myself from falling (and having a very different story to tell) I
tied a rope around my waist while my friend, standing on the other side of the
gable, was holding on to that rope to keep me from falling.
It
takes a lot of trust in someone to hang on the side of a slippery shed knowing
that they are the only thing that is keeping you from falling. I did my best to motivate this friend to keep
holding tightly onto that rope, by making sure that he knew that he would be
preaching that week if he let me fall. I
remember he laughed at the time, but I think he may not have realised I was
serious.
If our faith is in Christ, we do not need to fear that we might fall. Sure, having a healthy fear of falling off the roof is a good idea. But as those with faith in Christ, we do not need to fear that we might fall away from God’s mercy. For Christ will keep those who trust in Him from falling, and present us before His full glory without spot or blemish and with great joy.
We
might stumble, we might lose our way at times – and even doubt His ability to
keep us in Him. But the One who has
called us to faith in His life, death and resurrection, will not let us fall.
Therefore,
to Him “be glory, majesty, power, and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord,
before all ages, now and for evermore! Amen.”
In Christ, Anthony
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