Kept by the Power of God

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jan 20, 1916

Kept by the Power of God

THE apostle Peter speaks of a class who are “kept by the power of God through faith.” I Peter 1:5. How greatly we need this keeping power! We are living amid the perils of the last days. Satan has come down “having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.” Rev. 12:12. Many and varied are his devices and allurements to lead us from the path of integrity. Through “the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life” (1 John 2:16) he is endeavoring to lead us to enrol under his banner.

Of ourselves we are unable to meet his specious and subtle temptations. Many times have we been overthrown. We cannot succeed in the fight unless we take hold of a power outside of ourselves, even the mighty power of the Lord Jesus Christ. He has vanquished Satan on every field. In every conflict he has come off victorious, and his help he guarantees to every one who will engage on the side of truth and righteousness against the forces of error and iniquity.

The heavenly Father calls us to become sons and daughters of his. With the call to this relationship he promises the power whereby we may enter it. The record is, “As many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name,” John 1:12. But this transformation cannot be wrought by the power of the will, or by the deeds of the flesh, for the apostle declares of the sons of God that they “were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” Verse 13.

The Lord provides that we shall be not only justified by his blood, but that we shall be kept from sinning by his indwelling life. “For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.” Rom. 5:10.

Possessing this indwelling life the apostle Paul was able to declare, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” Gal. 2:20. For this indwelling life of Christ we need to constantly pray and believe. Through confessing and forsaking sin, through surrender of the will to God, through asking and believing, Christ is brought into the heart and held as the motive power of the spiritual life.

As a result we shall become “rooted and grounded in love,” and we shall come “to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge,” and shall experience continually the keeping power of him “that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think.” See Eph. 3:17-20. Let us make that daily consecration, that will enable us to be kept in these evil days “by the power of God through faith unto salvation.”