Jude 24 says, “Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy” (NAS). God is able to keep, carefully attend to, preserve, and guard that which we commit to Him. The secret is that we must commit the concerns of our lives to Him and refuse to remove them from His care.
What type of things are we suppose to commit to Him? First, we commit our life. Then our heath, our finances, our marriage, our children and our safety, we are to commit everything that concerns us to God. If God were unable to keep and protect us, then Jesus would have prayed very differently than He did. But notice a few of His prayers:
“I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one” (John 17:15 NKJV).
“Holy Father, keep through Your name, those whom You have given Me, that they may be one, even as We are” (John 17:11 NKJV).
“And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day” (John 6:39 NAS).
These are powerful prayers of intercession that Jesus prayed for you and me. They all have to do with God keeping and guarding us against harm, protected and safe, right up to the end! Hebrews 7:25 expresses for whom and through whom this protection is offered: “He is able to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them” (NAS). He rescues “those who draw near to God” through the “intercessory” prayers of Jesus.
Even though Jesus no longer walks on the earth, He still prays that His resurrection power will keep and guard His own from evil. One reason Jesus gave up His life was to equip us with the keeping power of God. Galatians 1:4 says, “Who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father” (KJV).
The same type of powerful prayer to keep and guard from harm was prayed by Jabez, and what a miraculous transformation he experienced: “Jabez prayed to the God of Israel: ‘Bless me, O bless me! Give me land, large tracts of land. And provide your personal protection, don’t let evil hurt me.’ God gave him what he asked.” (1 Chronicles 4:10 Message).
God will grant the requests of anyone who will ask in faith for His protection from harm. He did it for Jabez, Timothy and Paul. And He will do the same for you and me!
