“upholding all things by the word of his power” (Hebrews 1:3).
UPHELD (Pt 2)
Previously we saw that we ourselves are upheld by the Lord. To be upheld means to stay upright and avoid falling.
Jude 1:24 states, “Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling”.
Praise God, he is able to uphold us. And we know this because he upholds “all things”: the universe is held in place because of God’s good word. So we also are kept from falling by his goodness.
And should it be that the Lord has something important to teach us by allowing us to stumble, we know that we do not fall by accident but with his safe hand beneath us showing us a lesson that we need to know. King Hezekiah was tested so he could see what was within him: “to try him, that he might know all that was in his heart” (2 Chron 32:31).
For “The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, And He delights in his way. Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down; For the Lord upholds him with His hand” (Ps 37:23–24).
Yes, there are lessons for us to learn, we cannot walk in our own pride of life, we cannot have one foot in the world and one in God’s kingdom, we cannot preach and not practice what we preach. We cannot feed our sinful nature and ask God to bless us. All these, and many more sins need to be addressed, and the Lord loves us with a great heart, a heart big enough to alert us to the danger that we are in by not walking according to his law.
Because once our lesson is learned we can say with the psalmist, “It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees” (Ps 119:71).
There are lessons throughout the Scriptures of a similar sort, “But as for me, my feet had almost slipped; I had nearly lost my foothold. For I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked… When I tried to understand all this, it troubled me deeply till I entered the sanctuary of God; then I understood their final destiny” (Ps 73:2–3,16).
The psalmist, who in this case was Asaph, arrived at a position where he “understood”. And we too will get to that position. But ultimately we remember that underneath us are the everlasting arms.
He will uphold us, establish us and anoint us to serve him at our best.
“Now it is God who establishes both us and you in Christ. He anointed us, placed His seal on us, and put His Spirit in our hearts as a pledge of what is to come” (2 Cor 1:21–22).