Kept...by the Power of God

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith." 1 Peter 1:3-5a

Peter was a man who was a devoted disciple of Christ but as we read of his life in the scriptures we see how he needed to learn more. He learned that the secret of the spiritual life was to give up everything, all of self, for Christ.

When everything grows dim before our eyes and we understand nothing...and we are helpless in our own efforts...its when we then bow down in helplessness that we learn that God 's presence through the power of the Holy Spirit will be enough and He will become our all. It is in believing that we are kept by the power of God through our faith. It is by His mercy that we have a living hope. Not a hope as the world defines hope because the worlds hope is built upon sand and always tottering. But a living hope given to all believers that guarantees our inheritance and does not fade away but also this living hope meets us and comforts us through all our pain. Our hope is built on our faith...a faith in the evidence of things not seen, and it realizes the presence of the Lord in our life and it holds on tightly to God for strength that is made perfect in our time of weakness.

God is Sovereign. God is God. His ways are past our finding out. We live so often assuming that since we are children of the Almighty God that He will keep us from all kinds of suffering. Usually when it comes we are not prepared and we become undone. Peter when first called to follow Christ was strong in his faith and believed....but as a devote disciple of Jesus he still could not understand when Jesus spoke of how He would suffer many things. Peter in his lack of insight and understanding and being led by his flesh took Jesus aside and even rebuked Him and said, "Far be it from You, Lord; this shall not happen to You!" Matthew 16:22. Peter knew the Lord, but more he needed to know.

When God tests us He reveals what it is our heart and this shows us the real strength of our faith. This man of God who would come to learn much through his own sufferings and the suffering of Christ would eventually write 1 Peter, the Book on Suffering! Peter experienced his overwhelming share of testing as his walk with God grew. In the beginning he knew nothing of a faith that suffers as he still lived for self. Peter learned that trials and testings are inevitable but are needed and ultimately they shape us into a vessel for God's Eternal glory as we die to self and take up our cross to follow Jesus.

God is trusting us with the burdens we carry and as we endure through them all He will bring glory to His name and He is not asking us to understand it all but to only trust in Him. As we surrender we learn so much more of who God is and who we are...Peter writes of the various trials that grieve us, that the genuineness of our faith being much more precious than gold that perishes, though tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ, whom having not seen we love.

I am reminded of Jobs life as he tried to understand his trying circumstances as he came to God with questions but God did not answer those questions and instead wanted Job to learn something even greater, much more important than the answers to all that God allowed to come against him...and that is 'God is God' and there is a mystery in all of His purposes. The Lord humbled Job and this brought him to repentance concerning his sufferings as he asked Job to compare him from what is everlasting to everlasting and to Gods knowledge of all things. God spoke of His almighty power comparing it to Jobs own weakness. A humble faith, a heart of obedience and total surrender does not guarantee that our difficult circumstance will instantly change or go away but it will bring us under the control of the Holy Spirit and into the will of the Lord and we will find internal peace despite our external circumstance as we come to learn that God is God.

I have been reflecting much and being still before the Lord much of this month as I have thought of May 2018...praying on what to share as I have not written for the last couple weeks. I am learning more of the art of waiting on God...learning more and more to obey His will and allow the Holy Spirit to manage me. The Holy Spirit has had this work given to Him and God's church is called to cooperate with Him because God has planned for the work and growing of His kingdom and He desires to use us all...to use our circumstances as He bids us to come out of the world and be set apart entirely to have God take full possession of us for God's working in us not for us only working for Him.

As I write this I remember so clearly our last and the final trip to Duke in May. Praying continually for God to take full possession of me...that I would believe in His perfect will at all costs...that I would lay my thoughts, plans and desires for what I thought best on the altar of sacrifice and in exchange for Gods plans and purposes...to give up myself entirely as I knew my husband whom I loved so dearly was in Gods hands and I had to lay him at God feet and trust God who loved him so much more than me.....I was in a place where I seen myself as nothing and totally helpless as I bowed my heart to a God that was in control, sovereign, and still on the throne. I knew the King was on the throne and I was to be found on the footstool...waiting and crying out to Him. At Duke I remained in the waiting room as the Doctor told my husband the latest prognosis, the returning of his tumor and that it was growing...and he had only six weeks to live. My husband came out and assured me that what we were doing was good and we would continue and that God is in control. He kept me from the grim report...he kept my eyes on Jesus. His character never changed, despite the words of man. He never complained or questioned God ...he trusted God as His Shield and Defender and knew God had never let him down...he would continue to be so faithful even if it meant that his ministry here on earth was finished knowing God had prepared for him a greater home that was awaiting him.

We left that day and he continued living each day to the fullest and it was a miracle to see him function each day despite the sickness he had...Gods grace carrying him and giving him the absolute fullness of each day he was given. Through this time he continued to protect my heart as he always had...never wanting to burden me with the things he was carrying...or allowing Satan to have a foothold...but only wanting us to stay together, and to have me by his side and the Lords presence always being enough for him despite all things that are out of our control. He knew the art of waiting on God and being still in Him. He lived his life as an example of a man who learned more and more with each passing year of a life fully surrendered to Christ...a man anointed with the peace of God and when you were by his side you felt this anointing upon him.

His journal he had stopped writing in as writing became harder...and going out was becoming more difficult. However he loved fellowship and always welcomed the body of Christ to come and visit and share with him and pray. He continued to press on in the things he could do....and still loved reading the Bible and highlighted those promises that spoke so clearly to his heart. Lamentations he began reading and he loved chapter 3...In it Jeremiah writes of his own afflictions and allows the Lord to search his heart and examine his ways as he writes of his distress, his hope, and his counsel through prayer. Randy had tears running down his face as he prayed confessing to God for not being more thankful for the Lords goodness in his life and that he would finish his race well. He spoke of how Jesus is enough...and believed greatly in the quote that says…"If you look at yourself you will be depressed, if you look at your circumstance you will be distress, but if you look up you will be blessed". He knew that "Through the Lord's mercies we are not consumed...the Lord is my portion....great is Thy faithfulness!"

Lamentations 3 still resonates greatly with me today as it encourages us all to know that 'it is God who has laid this upon us' no matter where our circumstances find us....and God will do what is right in His eyes. Its always more of Jesus we need. This Word reminds me that God is God. God is the blessed controller of all things. I dethrone Him from my heart the minute I demand answers or explanations to give me justice...and in doing so the rebellion of unbelief begins to rise in my heart and wants to occupy the throne of my heart...the place where God alone belongs.

This is the place where the fork is in the road...with each test we face...where Gods way sometimes seem unclear by sight and before us we have a path we are so unfamiliar with...but...in our way with life as we know it things often seem very clear and therefore very certain according to our own understanding but we are so mistaken to think our way is right and better and that we know more than God. This attitude I must often repent of first...for not leaning on the Holy Spirit but on my own understanding. "To live by faith is to live one step at a time with no certainty of what will come in our life between now and eternity but believing that Jesus knows and that is enough".

A good question to ask is 'What would I loose if I trusted more to the spirit? What would I then gain? I would loose my will in exchange for Gods.

This is what Peter learned. Peter was fully devoted to Christ as he let down his nets and left his boat to follow Him. His faith was great as he wanted to walk out on water to be with Jesus, as he healed others and casted out demoms...as he followed Jesus for three years hearing and learning from Him. Jesus told him that, "you must take up your cross and follow me". Deny self. Or deny God. His faith was strong but his life was still strong in self....Jesus knew his heart and knew that there was more he needed to know.

Peters assurance in self made him certain that he would never deny Christ...but indeed he did, three times. To deny self or deny Christ, one of these must rule within us. Two great forces warring against each other...self in the power of sin and Christ in the power of God. Peter loved Christ and was devoted to him but still there was more that he needed to know as he was often being led according to self.

With Peters failings God made him knew....Luke 22 tells us that Jesus looked at him when Peter denied Him and then Peter remembered Christ's words to him...that before then rooster crows you will deny me three times. Peter remembered these words and Jesus' look on His face and he went out and wept bitterly...but there was still more he needed to know.

Jesus' look broke Peters heart and his heart at that point became open to the sin that he committed. His godly sorrow was the turning point in His walk with Christ as he was learning more of Gods workings and more of his need to die to self. How sad he must of been to know he denied the Lord and then he seen him mocked and handed over to Pontius and being crucified on the cross...remembering Jesus' look and love for him even through all his suffering. And later after Jesus' resurrection they are together at the Sea of Galilee and Jesus asks him if he loves Him....by then Peter is more and more convinced and says 'yes You know I love you...You know all things.'

God knew that Peter needed to learn more..as do we. The work that Christ began to do in Peter continued on the Day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came upon him and filled Peter with boldness and power and we see a new Peter. A Peter who will continue to learned what is means to die to self and give himself fully to the Lord and he now is understanding the weight of glory that there is in suffering for Jesus' sake. To proclaim truth through the breath of the Holy Spirit now speaking through him and others were saved. We see him writing now a Book of suffering as he penned I Peter. He will learn understand and believe in a faith that says the fiery trials are to test us but don't think them as to being strange....and this new Peter now writes that if you are reproached for the name of Christ blessed are you, for the spirit of the glory of God rests upon you. And this new Peter wrote of Jesus' surrendered heart and how this is our example to follow in, for to this we were called. This new Peter now writes to let it be the hidden person of the heart, a gentle and quiet spirit that is very precious in the sight of God. Truly through all God allowed him to endure and witness and through his failings ad shortcomings...how much he learned.

We see a new Peter no longer denying Christ because of the weakness of his flesh and in the dependency on his self...but we see Peter who found joy in self denial, crucified to his own understanding and yielded to the workings of God. Christ made a new Peter by the Holy Spirit....and how much more God had for him since the day he dropped his nets and left his boat to follow Him....and how much he still needed to learn.

The teachings and corrections Jesus gave to Peter were a part of His purposes and training and Jesus pursued him and led him to Pentecost for the Holy Spirit to take full possession of him because his heart was yielded and he was willing to surrender to Christ fully.

I prayed continually as I walked with Randy through this time and even up to today...for my faith not to be shortsighted ….as was seen in the old Peter. But to take up my cross and follow Jesus in all my ways...denying self, my own goals and interests...for the sake of knowing Him more. To not just lay down my nets and leave my boat to follow Jesus but to let go of anything that I am holding on to...anything of myself...to give myself over as a living sacrifice to Him...to embrace the sufferings the God allows for Gods glory.

Only Jesus can deliver us from the power of self as we trust in Him and humble ourselves to Him and put Him on the throne of our lives. I am so thankful for my husbands example who taught me and prepared me for this time and along with Peters example; a faith that endures, grows and becomes stronger despite all things and how God continues to use us in great ways despite our sufferings...and mostly for Jesus example who suffered for us all and what His life looked like being surrendered to Gods will for Gods glory and for the sake of others. Lives given up entirely to the Father for God's pleasure and purpose...and this can only be done by a work that comes down from heaven.

May we live day by day by God's grace with a heart fully given over to Christ....entirely at His disposal believing that there is always so much to still to learn as we yield more and more of our hearts to God in the denying of self. Jesus has given Himself fully to us...and may we give ourselves fully to Him.

"We are kept by the power of God through faith"....thank you Jesus for keeping me by your power, through faith.

Michelle Ann Guerra