He is Able – Entrust Your Situations to Him
Posted by Sandy in Christian Living, Confidence in God, Experiencing God, Faith, God's Faithfulness, God's Love, God's power, God's Protection, God's ways, Gospel Message, prayer, Trusting God, tags: 1 John, 2 Timothy, Hebrews, Job, Philippians“Yet I am not ashamed, because I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him for that day.”
2 Timothy 1:12b
As I read that Scripture today, my mind drifted to the topic of needless worry. Even as I type the phrase, I realize that the word “needless” is…well, needless. It’s not necessary – because it is true of all worry. It’s not like some worry is needed and some is needless. All worry is needless. There is no worry that is justified.
What captured me about this verse is that it gives me both:
- the reason that worry is never justified, and
- the method for achieving a “don’t worry” lifestyle
The reason – He is able
“He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him for that day.”
God is able. Period. He is able to guard whatever we’ve given to him. What value is worry? It doesn’t add one inch to my height (Matthew 6:27) and it doesn’t make me happy or content. More likely the weight of the worry slumps me over, gives me gray hairs and wrinkles, and fills my day with negativity.
You already know lots of verses about God’s faithfulness and capability, but let me remind you of just two:
My God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory. (Philippians 4:19)
5Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” 6So we say with confidence, “The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?” (Hebrews 13:5-6)
The method (1) – Entrust your life and life situations to Him
“He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him for that day.”
What is He able to guard? That which I have entrusted to Him. What are you worred about today? Have you entrusted it to Him? Have you cast your cares upon Him (1 Peter 5:7)? Or are you holding them in your heart…so that they leave no room for God? God’s perfect love casts out all fear (1 John 4:18)! Use that perfect love to cast your fears back upon the Lord.
The method (2) – Know God
“I know whom I have believed, and am convinced…”
Do you really know God? Do you know Him well enough to be convinced that He is able? Further, do you allow that knowledge to convince you of it? Knowing something is different from being convinced of it. Being convinced of something generally requires either a testing of the knowledge we have to prove it as fact or an overwhelming stack of evidence that make the knowledge irrefutable.
I’ll be honest – the first time I said “yes” to God I didn’t know him very well. I knew the central points of the Gospel:
- God was a reality (a major stepping stone for me because I had rejected that point most of my life)
- That the Bible was the Word of God (not a book of Grimm’s fairy tales as I had been referring to it)
- That I was a sinner (that was a pretty easy one)
- That Jesus paid the penalty for my sins by dying on the cross
- That I needed to accept Jesus’ gift of forgiveness of my sins in order to spend eternity in heaven (I didn’t quite know what this meant, but the alternative wasn’t at all appealing)
- That if I rejected Jesus’ gift I would spend eternity in hell
For about a month before accepting Jesus as my Savior, I was convinced of all of these central points except the first one! I had read enough of the Bible and enough about the Bible that I was convinced it was not a book simply written by men to tell a story we wanted to hear. It was too full of fulfilled prophecies and the realities of life for that. The evidence was stacked up so high that I could no longer deny that Scripture is valid and true. Once I was convinced of that, the points that follow were no-brainers.
Yet still I struggled with that first point – truly believing that there is a God who existed before time began and will exist forever. Such a concept was (and still is) outside my ability to comprehend. It took an experience with God for me to be fully convinced that He existed and that He cared for me. I found myself in serious danger one night – in a situation in which I was totally defenseless. When I emerged from the situation totally unharmed, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that God had intervened. At that moment I became convinced that He was real and that He had intervened in my life, even if I didn’t understand or acknowledge His existence. (It has since dawned on me that if I could comprehend this God I serve, He wouldn’t be worth serving – duh!)
Since that time God has shown Himself to be real and alive and strong over and over again. Each experience I have with Him enables me to say as Job did “I know my Redeemer lives and that in the end He will stand upon the earth.” (Job 19:25) Often when this verse is quoted, the last half of that verse is left off. Let’s not do that! It is an affirmation just as Paul’s affirmation in 2 Timothy. Job knew that no matter what happened on this earth that one day his Redeemer would “win.” Paul says that he is convinced that His Redeemer is able to keep everything that he entrusts to Him – in other words, that Jesus will win over any and all that the devil throws at Him.
Do you know Him well enough to know that He will hold what you have entrusted to Him? I hope so. Yet we all have times when our faith waivers. Whether you’re just getting to know Him or have known Him for years but find your faith waivering, the process of knowing God and becoming convinced of His awesome power are the same: Spend time with Him in many ways every day.
- Read His word.
- Talk to Him.
- Listen for His response.
- Worship Him.
- Serve Him.
- Talk about Him with your friends.
Frends, I challenge you to give God a chance to further convince you of His faithfulness, power and great love by entrusting your biggest concern in life to Him today. Yep, today.
- Stop for a moment here and consider what is the most pressing issue in your life.
- Now take a few moments to entrust God with that issue. Go ahead – say it out loud so that you hear yourself giving it to God.
- Now, rest in your confidence that He is able and begin to look forward to watching God move in that area of your life.
I think I’ll close and do that myself. Let me know how it goes for you!
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It is so very evident to me that there is a God, as this is EXACTLY what I needed to hear today. I can hear God whispering to me… “Come get to know me, not just know about me”. Thanks, Sandy!
Thanks for sharing, Eileen. May God bless you with His awesome as you draw close to Him this week.