August 10
“I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that day,” 2 Timothy 1:12.
Our Christian faith is not just an expression of empty words or wishful thinking. What we believe in our hearts and confess with our mouths in the Christian Creed is not based upon human feelings or ideas. Our human feelings are very limited with reference to things for this life, and our human feelings and ideas have nothing to offer when we are talking about the life that is to come.
Our Christian faith is an expression of trust, which rests upon a sure and unmovable foundation. To the Ephesians, Paul wrote, “You are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the Chief Cornerstone,” Ephesians 2:19-20. “No other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ,” 1 Corinthians 3:11. Our faith rests upon the unchangeable promises of our gracious, almighty God, which are revealed for us in Holy Scripture.
When we are born, our spiritual condition is one of ignorance of all Christian truths and teachings. We do not know how anything came into existence, and we do not know where we are going after this life.
However, in spite of our ignorance, by nature we think that we really know something. We are proud of our knowledge. We are afflicted with sinful pride or arrogance. In that arrogance, we regard the Word of the all-knowing God as being foolishness. In his First Letter to the Corinthians, the apostle wrote, “The natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned,” 1 Corinthians 2:14.
With a firm Christian faith, we can say with the apostle, “I know whom I have believed.” In the heart and mind of a Christian there is the feeling of certainty. We know in whom we believe. Our trust is in our heavenly Father, who in His love and mercy sent His only Son into the world to sacrifice Himself on the cross at Calvary to pay the price for our redemption. Jesus did not die to save perfect people. He died to save sinners. Paul wrote to the Romans, “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us,” Romans 5:8.
With the apostle, we can say, “(I) am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that day.” By faith in the Lord Jesus as God’s Son and the Savior, a Christian has committed the care of his soul into the hands of our gracious, forgiving God. Peter writes, “(We) are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time,” 1 Peter 1:5. Scripture assures us, “Being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ,” Philippians 1:6.
Our Christian confidence and certainty is expressed in the words, “I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord,” Romans 8:38-39.
“How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
Is laid for your faith in His excellent Word!
What more can He say than to you He hath said,
Who unto the Savior for refuge have fled?
‘Fear not, I am with thee, oh, be not dismayed,
For I am thy God and will still give thee aid;
I’ll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand,
Upheld by My righteous, omnipotent hand.’” Amen.