Who
do you trust? On what or on whom do you bet your life on? Do you put all your
faith in things you can see and hold on to? Who, what do you trust?
Solomon, the psalmist, Paul, and Peter
all put their trust in the One who they believed would care for them forever,
the One who as Peter said, had “…the words of real life, eternal life.” They
all made a commitment to stay with God, the Son of God sure that they were one
and the same although how was a mystery to them. They trusted God because he’d
always been faithful in keeping the covenant he’d made with their ancestors and
with them.
Who do we trust today? Jesus’ disciples
found his words hard to swallow. Some couldn’t believe or didn’t want to make
the commitment to give their whole lives to Jesus and so they left him.
Who do we trust? Is the pull exerted
on us by the world too strong? What have we done to protect ourselves, to keep
our souls safe, and prepare ourselves for this life and the one to come?
Paul used the metaphor of putting on
armor. Today he might have said that we need to don our bullet-proof Kevlar
vests. What can we do to protect our
souls from the wiles of the worldly one, the evil forces prevalent all around
us? What bullet-proof vest can we use to keep our souls from being destroyed or
stolen?
Paul told the Ephesians that they
should be prepared. They were up against
more than they could imagine. I don’t think anything’s changed today. I also
believe we can’t imagine all the forces that are against those who have
committed to being followers of Jesus and believe in God and his promise of
eternal life.
Maybe we’ve become de-sensitized to
the dangers that surround us. We need something to protect us, something we can
trust to keep us safe. Paul said, “Take all the help you can get, every weapon God has issued, so
that when it's all over but the shouting you'll still be on your feet. Truth,
righteousness, peace, faith, and salvation are more than words. Learn how to
apply them. You'll need them throughout your life. God's Word is an
indispensable weapon.”
He reminds us that
prayer is an essential piece of protection in this conflict with the evil
forces in the world. We should pray long
and hard and prayer for all our brothers and sisters. We are to be alert to how
our friends are doing and when we notice changes that we get on our knees and
pray for them. Paul didn’t want anyone
to be lost and we don’t either. So, we should heed his advice and pray, pray
long and hard.
I never was much of
a fighter. In fact I would do whatever I could to stay out of the way of any
conflict. So, it’s hard for me to imagine putting on something as cumbersome as
armor.
Today we’d imagine
someone being clothed in the latest armor and weapons that the greatest
military engineers could think of, cluster bombs, AK47’s, and Kevlar vests and
helmets. But what if we went another direction and instead of physical combat
we employed the best thinking minds in the world to resolve conflicts? What if
we relied on minds that are skilled in International Laws and courts of
justice? What if we used the technology
at our disposal to alleviate poverty and hunger? What if we listened to those talking about
climate change and tried some of their suggestions? Would that maybe be one way
to protect this world we live in and at the same time love others as Jesus
taught us?
Could that be what
Jesus meant when he said, “Only insofar as you eat and drink flesh and blood,
the flesh and blood of the Son of Man, do you have life within you. The one who
brings a hearty appetite to this eating and drinking has eternal life and will
be fit and ready for the Final Day… By eating my flesh and drinking my blood
you enter into me and I into you. In the same way that the fully alive Father
sent me here and I live because of him, so the one who makes a meal of me lives
because of me. This is the Bread from heaven...Whoever eats this Bread will
live always.”
Is this what he
meant when he asked us to eat and drink the flesh and blood of the Son of Man? Is
this the armor Paul was talking about?
Truth,
righteousness, peace, faith, and salvation are the pieces we need to place our
trust in to protect us. God is the one who provides them for us. We can trust
He will come through for us because he has kept his promises, his covenant.
So, you say you
want to but you have doubts. Friends, you’re not alone. The evil forces in the
world don’t cause those who don’t believe to doubt because they’ve already made
their decision. But those who are being assailed by doubts are still following
the Way of Jesus and the world’s forces are trying to pull us away by making us
doubt. And that’s why we need to protect ourselves with prayer, one of the most
powerful pieces of armor God has given us.
So, now who do you
trust, God or the other forces at play in the world? I pray that you will put
your trust in God, the One who gives good things to those who walk with
integrity. Those who trust in Him are truly happy…and their souls are safe from
the Evil One.
Thanks be to God for his saving
grace. Amen.
