Security

Once we have set ourselves to be pilgrims and strangers on the earth, which is what Christians are meant to be, it is incongruous for us to continue to insist upon the sort of security the world tries to guarantee.  Our security lies not in protecting ourselves from suffering, but in putting ourselves fully into the hands of God.  The desire for physical and material security makes us sly and hard.  No.  We must be like little children.  The child in its father's arms is not worried.  It lies quietly at rest because it trusts its father.


We disobey sometimes because we say it is impossible to do what God asks.  Impossible?  Perhaps what we mean is impossible to do that and keep our security, impossible to obey without tremendous cost, or at least tremendous risk.  Where, then, will we find safety?  Is it likely that we will find it elsewhere than in the arms of the Father?


Teach me to rest in your everlasting arms.  Make me know that all other security is illusion.
~ Elisabeth Elliot

The eternal God is your refuge,
and underneath are the everlasting arms.
~ Deut. 33:27a

An Antidote for Pride

The basis of all sin of whatever kind is pride. This was what inspired the disobedience of Adam and Eve, and it is always with us. One very common form it takes is the pride of privilege. When a man is given a special position, he forgets that it was given. He becomes proud, as though "his own arm" had gotten him the victory.

God knows well the heart and made provision for this sin of pride when He instructed the Israelites about appointing a king. He was to make a copy of the law. This would be the antidote, necessary for him and likewise for all of us (for "law" read "Word").

...The attempt itself to keep the commandments, one by one and day after day, will be sufficient to humble us, for the "straightedge of the law" (Rom. 3:20 JBP) will only show us, as Paul found, how crooked we are. We will find, in fact, that we cannot keep it. "The whole matter is on a different plane--believing instead of achieving" (Rom. 3:27 JBP). Pride won't find much foothold on that plane.

"The real test of being in the presence of God is that you either forget about yourself altogether or see yourself as a small, dirty object. It is better to forget about yourself altogether" (C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity).

~ Elisabeth Elliot

When he [the king] takes the throne of his kingdom, he is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of this law, taken from that of the priests, who are Levites. It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to revere the Lord his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decrees and not consider himself better than his brothers and turn from the law to the right or to the left.

~ Deuteronomy 17:19-20