How tenderly does the Lord lead us on step by step; and the very secret of all – kept by the power of God. Therein lies all our safety; not in our striving, not in our doing, but His keeping.
Duncan Matheson wished to have written on his grave-stone just his name and this one word, “Kept.” Will not that one word sum up the life of every child of God? More and more do I see that it is His gracious keeping alone that is our safety. Some think that it is our holding fast to the end; but God’s Word says that our holding fast to the end is just the proof that we are kept.
We know “whom we have believed.”
Then the Lord Jesus, when here, addressing the Father (John 17:1111And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are. (John 17:11)), said, “Holy Father.” Think of this, dear fellow Christian; our Father is a holy Father, and, consequently, He cannot go on with the world, for all that is in it the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of the Father. Consequently, His children must be holy, too; and, to please Him, are called to walk in separation from this present evil world. And how evil it is: it has cast out God’s Son; crying, “Away with Him,” and nailing Him to the tree.
Do you love the Lord Jesus Christ? Then you cannot love the world that treated Him thus, giving Him but a manger at the beginning, and a cross and a grave at the end of His path here, and it is the same world still, whatever change of face it may make.