A Blessed Assurance
The Bible is full of assurances that we can walk through this life knowing that God is on our side. He is watching over us and because He knows the end from the beginning, we can trust His leading to take us to green pastures. One such assurance is found in 1 Thessalonians 3:3-4:
But the Lord is faithful, who shall stablish you, and keep [you] from evil. And we have confidence in the Lord touching you, that ye both do and will do the things which we command you. (2 Thessalonians 3:3-4)
This assurance speaks not only to the faithfulness of God, but Paul in his wisdom spoke to the Thessalonians by reinforcing his confidence that they would be obedient to the things of God. It is a two-way street. If I know the lay-out of a city and I give you specific directions to get to your destination and then you decide to go in a totally different direction, can you fault me for you not arriving there?
Yet, isn’t that what we do. We go about our days making our own plans, driving our own cars in the direction that we choose; selecting our own friends and deciding where and when we are going to hang-out where, and then when something negative happens, we hurl our fist at God accusing Him of messing up our lives. I can hear Paul’s words again, this time to the Galatian church:
You crazy Galatians! Did someone put a hex on you? Have you taken leave of your senses? Something crazy has happened, for it’s obvious that you no longer have the crucified Jesus in clear focus in your lives. His sacrifice on the cross was certainly set before you clearly enough.
Maria