Are You Looking for a Keeper?

Charlene Ramstead, Layperson - Regina Beach, Lumsden, Craven, Southey

May 19, 2024

I think you will agree a good "keeper" is hard to find. Depending on what it is we want to be kept determines the kind of keeper we will be looking for. For example, there are housekeepers, bookkeepers, secret keepers, and gatekeepers, to name just a few. In essence, a "keeper" is someone trustworthy who will carefully guard whatever has been entrusted to them to keep. It could be as small as your spot in line or as precious as a very important secret no one else can know. Unfortunately, we often don't need to live very long to realize the value in a trusted keeper or the hurt incurred when we have misplaced our trust.

God graciously provided a wonderful keeper for us to trust. How did God know we would need such a person? Simply, because He knows there are things in our life which are much too big and precious for anyone to guard or try and keep on their own. Things like our comings and goings, our peace and our very souls are specifically mentioned in the Bible that the Lord in Heaven is willing to "keep" for us. Psalm 121:7-8 tells us, the Lord keeps watch over you as you come and go. The Lord will keep your soul. Isaiah 26:3 says," You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, all whose thoughts are fixed on you!"

What wonderful guarantees from the most reliable source, God himself. He is able to make such wonderful promises because of His flawless character. He is trustworthy. If in doubt of this, check his references. Numbers 23:19 tells us in the Bible, "God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent; hath he said, and shall he not do it? Or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good? God is as good as His Word. He will do it!

However, God will not keep what has not been entrusted to Him. He will not force us to trust Him but waits for us to do so. Then, if and when we place our trust in Him, we are given the extreme privilege of having the God of the Universe as our personal keeper. At that point, he invites us to entrust all these things and more to him. "Cast all your cares upon Him for He cares for you" (1 Peter 5:7). The first step is the biggest, trusting God to be the keeper of our very life, our soul. Can we trust Him with that? Yes, we can! "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved" (Acts 16:31).

Jim Elliot once wrote, "He is no fool to give what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose."

Jim met His keeper in 1956 when martyred for His faith.