Hold Fast

"Because he holds fast to Me in love, I will deliver him;

I will protect him, because he knows My name.”—Psalm 91:14

When times of trouble come, and they will come, hold fast to God. Cling to the cross. If you hold fast to the Lord in love, God will be your deliverer and protector. Notice what it means to hold fast to God. It must be in love. We cannot come to God any other way, except in love. Which is why Paul could write,

“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing”—1 Corinthians 13:1-3.

If we love God, we will do what He says. As Jesus said, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments”—John 14:15. John restated this truth when he wrote, “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome”—1 John 5:3.

Holding fast means trusting God in love. And when we love Him, we are guaranteed that God will protect and deliver us. He delivered us because we love Him and know His name. In other words, it is because we are His children, as Paul so affectionately wrote:

“For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him”—Romans 8:14-17.

What did Paul mean when he said, “provided we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him”? He meant that we will be saved if we throw in our lot with Him. If we choose to follow Him and accept all that goes with it, God will save and deliver us. This doesn’t mean that we won’t experience pain, go through suffering, or die. It means that God will give us grace in the midst of our difficulty and that He will go through it with us (cf. Psalm 23:4)—showing Himself to be God in such a way that His name will receive glory.

How about you? Are you holding fast to God in love? Or are you buckling under the sheer weight of your circumstances? Are you giving your problems and pains over to Jesus? Or are you running away trying to handle them yourself? Go to God, cling fast to Him, and He will deliver you. As the Psalmist wrote, “Commit your way to the LORD; trust in Him, and He will act. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday”—Psalm 37:5-6.

God will deliver you. And He will not do it because of who you are, but because of who He is. Hold fast to Him and ask Him to show Himself to be God on your behalf. And He will do it. He has promised to do so. Amen.