JEFF TURNER
When hardship arrives, and it will arrive, the first thing the enemy of your soul will do is attack the foundation. He will work to make you feel that your security before God depends on how you are performing in the trial, how strong your faith is holding, how well your responses are measuring up. And if he can get you believing that, he has succeeded in replacing the solid rock with sand beneath you.
Here is the truth that must be reaffirmed in the middle of every storm. You are not secure because your conduct has been exemplary or because your faith has been strong. You are secure in the person of Jesus Christ, on the basis of his sacrificial, all-sufficient, death at Calvary.
The moment you received him, having been chosen by him, a new birth took place and God himself assumed the responsibility of your protection. This is not a matter of holding on to him, because in our weakness we sometimes, honestly, let go. He holds you.
In the valley, when the weight grows heavier the longer you carry it, the place to begin is not with a fresh assessment of your own strength. It is with a reaffirmation of his.
My sheep listen to My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give them eternal life, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand.
John 10:27-28
