Jude 17-25 BibleGateway.com
Just 25 miles from Ft. Defiance, Virginia, where I served in my first pastorate, was the Synod’s conference center, Massanetta Springs. A two-week Bible conference, held there each August, offered great preaching and teaching from the masters of their craft. In 1964, the crowd was overflowing as the great Scot pulpiteer James Stewart began to preach. His text that first night was today’s passage: “To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you without fault.”
In that masterful sermon, Stewart stressed that the trumpet note of triumph in the New Testament was never “we are able,” but, always turning from self, the authors proclaim, “He is able”: He is able to “help those being tempted” (Heb 2:18); “save completely” (Heb 7:25); “keep you from failing” (Jude 24); “bring every thing under His control” (Phil 3:21); “guard what has been committed to Him” (II Timothy 1:12); “do immeasurably more than all we ask or think” (Eph 3:20).
Advent preparation means recalling that the One whose birth we celebrate is the One who breaks forever our human habit of translating into a vague future tense what He came to offer us now. Advent reminds us that when He comes there is no such thing as irrevocable defeat, no tangle He cannot straighten out, no wounds that do not yield to His healing, no lonely outcast not welcomed, no tongue that does not at last confirm Him “Lord of all.”
Thanks be for the Advent reminder that He, born in Bethlehem, is the One who is able.
Prayer: Even so come Lord Jesus, in this glad season. Come with your mighty ability, and bring faith for fear, courage for cowardice, strength for weakness, victory for defeat. Burnish our ideals that the fingers of the world have tarnished. And grant us peace and joy in our believing.
Amen
Louis Zbinden
Trustee Emeritus
Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary
CLICK HERE to listen to each day's devotional.
Just 25 miles from Ft. Defiance, Virginia, where I served in my first pastorate, was the Synod’s conference center, Massanetta Springs. A two-week Bible conference, held there each August, offered great preaching and teaching from the masters of their craft. In 1964, the crowd was overflowing as the great Scot pulpiteer James Stewart began to preach. His text that first night was today’s passage: “To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you without fault.”
In that masterful sermon, Stewart stressed that the trumpet note of triumph in the New Testament was never “we are able,” but, always turning from self, the authors proclaim, “He is able”: He is able to “help those being tempted” (Heb 2:18); “save completely” (Heb 7:25); “keep you from failing” (Jude 24); “bring every thing under His control” (Phil 3:21); “guard what has been committed to Him” (II Timothy 1:12); “do immeasurably more than all we ask or think” (Eph 3:20).
Advent preparation means recalling that the One whose birth we celebrate is the One who breaks forever our human habit of translating into a vague future tense what He came to offer us now. Advent reminds us that when He comes there is no such thing as irrevocable defeat, no tangle He cannot straighten out, no wounds that do not yield to His healing, no lonely outcast not welcomed, no tongue that does not at last confirm Him “Lord of all.”
Thanks be for the Advent reminder that He, born in Bethlehem, is the One who is able.
Prayer: Even so come Lord Jesus, in this glad season. Come with your mighty ability, and bring faith for fear, courage for cowardice, strength for weakness, victory for defeat. Burnish our ideals that the fingers of the world have tarnished. And grant us peace and joy in our believing.
Amen
Louis Zbinden
Trustee Emeritus
Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary
CLICK HERE to listen to each day's devotional.
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