His Constant Watch-care

June 19

“…who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,” Hebrews 1:3.

Sometimes we might not to give God His due by failing to comprehend what this verse is saying. The word "upholding" does not give the impact of the Greek; it gives us the impression of God as an Atlas figure or as a watchmaker who wound His creation up and then walked away.

Wuest's Amplified New Testament translates this word as "sustaining," indicating an ongoing operation. Sustaining not only gives the impression of support but also of continuous maintenance and providence. The Amplified Bible also catches the essence by adding "maintaining, guiding and propelling."

What this statement illustrates is the continuous, minute-by-minute, year-by-year, century-by-century, eon-upon-eon generation of the enormous, awesome, prodigious amounts of power necessary to keep His creation operating. The very stability of the creation speaks of His continuing involvement. He did not just create and walk away with everything operating according to impersonal law…” John Ritenbaugh


What isn’t mentioned in this description of God’s abiding involvement in the matter of keeping the earth and the universe operating according to His specifications is the reality that He is also profoundly involved in the things that touch the lives of His people.

From earliest creation, He was about the business of providing a covering for Adam and Eve when they had fallen into sin; in fact, He personally provided the garments to cover their nakedness.
When the children of Jacob were starving in a severe drought, God, who had already spoken to Joseph, had stored away the grain that would save them from sure annihilation.

When a pharaoh who “knew not Joseph,” Exodus 1:8, enslaved the people of Israel, it was God who personally chose Moses to lead them forth from bondage into their own land. Because of their disobedience, they wandered for 40 years in the wilderness, but the promise was never far from the heart of God to restore them to the country He had promised to them.

The Old Testament is replete with tales of God’s intervention into the affairs of His people that evidence His unwavering desire to do them good, to deliver them from the oppressor.

The New Testament is a continuation of His goodness and mercy to His children; however, the deliverance discovered here involves the lostness of man’s spirit rather than the entanglement of his way with the ordeals of life. The fact of Jesus’ entry into the realm of men conveys God’s perfect love for His fallen creation—and His supply of man’s only deliverance from the sin that separates him from his God.

As we consider God’s continual involvement with the maintenance of the universe in its correct order, may we also ponder the amazing reality that, “He keeps us as the apple of His eye; He hides us under the shadow of His wing,” Deuteronomy 32:10, Psalm 17:8.

May we never be distraught, for we “know whom we have believed and are persuaded that He is able to keep all that we have committed unto Him,” II Timothy 1:12. As Jesus said, “He watches over the sparrow—and you are of more value than many sparrows,” Luke 12:7, 8.

Let us never waver in our confidence that He who keeps the earth spinning on its axis also minds the affairs of those who lay their lives at the feet of Jesus and trust Him to mind everything that touches their lives so He may be glorified in them.