Friday, November 2, 2018

The Sure Foundation



2 Timothy 2:19 “ Nevertheless the solid foundation of God stands, having this seal: “The Lord knows those who are His,” and, “Let everyone who names the name of Christ depart from iniquity.”

A short devotional on this Bible verse points out that God is unshaken by whatever man might do. Deuteronomy 32:4 tells us, “He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he”. Isaiah 45:6 declares, “I am the LORD, and there is none else.Malachi 3:6 proclaims “I am the LORD, I change not”, and James 1:17 announces, there is “no variableness, neither shadow of turning” in the God of creation. God’s sovereign Will is absolute and as Isaiah 40:8 asserts: “The word of our God shall stand for ever”. Isaiah 46:10 decrees, “My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure”.

John 3:3 Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

We who are twice-born, (once from our mother and once from above by the Holy Spirit) and thus the children of God, can stand firm and steadfast in the knowledge that He who is “sure” is the One who is working in us “to will and to do of his good pleasure”. Ephesians 1:5 pronounces that He has adopted us as His children “by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will”.

In Matthew 7:21-27 Jesus stated, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’ “Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. “But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.”

It is no random act of erratic, impulsive, unpredictable and unreliable fate that has secured us. It is the sure foundation of the great Creator God. It is His divine power that has “given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue.” That calling rests on “exceeding great and precious promises” that enable us to participate in the “divine nature” and escape the awful “corruption that is in the world through lust” and ungodly desires of the sin nature within the natural man (those born once).

Blessed by a rock-solid, sure foundation in Christ.

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