Divine deliverance
- onedisciplesjourney
- Jan 22, 2022
- 2 min read
“He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us again. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us.” 2 Corinthians 1:10
God is often referred to throughout scripture as “Deliverer.” I’ve been thinking a lot about God’s identity and name as such.
In recently reading 2 Corinthians 1, I was struck by the Apostle Paul’s words in verse 10 that God had delivered them and that He would deliver them again. Their hope was in God’s continuous deliverance. In other words, God’s deliverance in our lives is more than a one-time favor or gift.
I’m learning to rely on the truth that life is all about God’s continuous deliverance. I don’t believe we should live however we wish with the notion that everything will be okay because we can simply ask God to deliver us again when we get ourselves into a mess (as though God were nothing more than that loyal friend who’s always willing to bail us out of trouble). While God can and should certainly be called upon in our times of need (self-inflicted or not), I believe we‘re called to so much more than this shallow, trivial kind of relationship with God.
We’re invited to live into the depth of God’s grace of redemption, which involves repentance—i.e., an acknowledgment of my wayward heart and an about-face turn from the direction my heart is headed. So yes, we can choose to live into God’s grace of redemption, and we would be wise to, but even still, it won’t negate the inevitable trials to come. For those, we must trust in God for who God is and know that even in every trial, pain, and hardship, God is working to deliver us once again.
I know my tendency is to desperately want to arrive, getting to a place where perhaps God’s deliverance in my life isn’t needed anymore. But that would set me apart from God. For as a child of God, I will always need His deliverance in my life. Not because God’s grace doesn’t extend to my ability to live into His invitation, but precisely because it does. For this invitation is not one that, in time, will make us self-sufficient. On the contrary. God’s invitation is one that ever leads us to complete dependence on Him. And while it may seem counterintuitive to the valued notion of independence (particularly in American culture), I believe it is a beautiful measure of grace for us.
We can rest in the fact that God has created us to need Him. And we can be assured He will deliver us again.
~em