CONTAGION

MERRY MONDAY- “Free from the Contagion of this World!”
I love to spend time mediating on verses in the Bible, last week it was I Peter 1:5 “who are kept by the power of God through faith”. The word “kept”means to garrison, fortify, guard, and preserve. Clark says; “By the power of God, by the mighty and miracle-working power of God; for nothing less is necessary to keep and preserve, in this state of continual trial, a soul from the contagion that is in the world. But this power of God is interested in the behalf of the soul by faith; to believe is our work, the exertion of the almighty power is of God. No persevering without the power, and no power without faith.” Haha, I am so glad that I am preserved from all the “contagion” of this world. Today is Lundi Gras and this becomes such a great word for today! Calvin said our salvation is being guarded or kept even though we are “tossed about in the world on a troubled sea in the midst of a thousand wrecks”. We can have comfort knowing that Christ has gone before us to prepare a place. Christ my shield and exceeding great reward is my protector and this shelter is impregnable. Sometimes I truly feel that I am going to “jump” out of my skin, I am surrounded by the grace of God in my life. He defends me, protects me, brings me fresh life everyday. James Faucet speaks of God living organically in us, “The believer lives spiritually in God, and God lives in him. “In” marks that the cause is inherent in the means, working organically through them with living influence, so that the means, in so far as the cause works organically through them, exist also in the cause. The power of God which guards the believer is no external force working upon him from without with mechanical necessity, but the spiritual power of God in which he lives, and with whose Spirit he is clothed. It comes down on, and then dwells in him, even as he is in it.”
Gills goes on to say, “Just think Christ prays for us, that our faith fail not; and we are kept not by our own power and might, or that of any other creature, but “by the power of God”; as with a guard, or in a garrison. We not only have angels encamp about them, and salvation is for walls and bulwarks, all around them; but God himself, in the perfection of his power, is a wall of fire to them; he is round about them from henceforth and for ever; their place of defense is the munition of rocks; his name is a strong tower, where they run and are safe.”
As we go through another miserable Mardi Gras watching New Orleans “do things” they would never do elsewhere, we can rest assured “we are being kept” through all the contagion that is going on. Lange said, “Fear not the enemies of your soul, for you are surrounded by a strong protecting body guard.” Now that’s worth shouting over!