Faithful or Guilty

 DEVOTION

1^ST SAMUEL

 FAITHFUL  OR GUILTY

1 Samuel 2:8-10

"For the foundations of the earth are the LORD's; upon them he has set the world. 9 He will guard the feet of his saints, but the wicked will be silenced in darkness.

"It is not by strength that one prevails; 10 those who oppose the LORD will be shattered. He will thunder against them from heaven; the LORD will judge the ends of the earth.

"He will give strength to his king and exalt the horn of his anointed."

NIV

The last three stanzas of Hannah's song or prayer have prophetic references to Jesus. Although these first words were part of a verse we last dealt with, we included them here because they provide a springboard to the absolute creative power of the LORD, and we know that all things were created by Jesus, and without Him, nothing would have been created. In fact, Jesus is the image of the invisible God, and all things both in heaven and on earth were made by him and for him. Hannah understood because of the power of the Spirit inspiring these words. The LORD is the all-powerful, all-sovereign, and all-knowing who gave us life to be in fellowship with him. This was the main reason God made Adam and breathed life into him. God wanted a man to be his companion, so to speak. It is not that God needed anything, for he is God and has always been the triune God, three person who could be one with each other, yet He decided to create a world just to put a man who they created in their own image to have a relationship with, koinonia, to be one with Him. After all those years have passed and our time on the earth has come, and because we have been born again or from above, and are in Christ, the Lord will guard our feet, or footstep, or the path he has laid out before us. Because the wicked will be silenced in darkness, and our feet are guarded, we have another comparison between the righteous and the wicked. What we should consider is the reason they are wicked and we are the saints. The two Hebrew words mean the guilty and the faithful. The guilty are those who sin against God, while the faithful are those who have accepted his grace, Jesus, and live under his guardianship. Of course, this also means we walk with Him and talk with him along life’s narrow way,  as Adam first did in the garden. What does walking with Jesus look like? It is certainly different than having Jesus walk with us. Our focus is walking with him, going where he leads us, not expecting him to bless the path we lead, although He will guard, or keep, or watch over our steps, but it is because we are the faithful and we have decided to follow Jesus, no turning back, no turning back. It comes down to who is faithful and who is guilty.