Verse By Verse Devotional On 2 Corinthians By Pastor Jack #14

Building Present Faith on Past Faithfulness

1:10 "[God] who delivered us from so great a peril of death, and will deliver us, He on whom we have set our hope. And He will yet deliver us..."

The reason Paul is so confident that God will deliver him in the future is because He has been so faithful to deliver in the past. This is one major way God works to grow our faith: the more we see Him act in delivering us from our perils, the more we are able to trust Him to deliver us from the next peril.

There is no more important time to remember God’s faithfulness in the past than when faced with a crisis. That is the time to not allow our fear to run out of control but to rein it in by reminding ourselves of all the times when we were rescued from similar perils in the past.

This pattern of finding peace in trouble by remembering God’s past faithfulnesses can be observed frequently in the book of Psalms. For example, when David’s own son Absalom invaded Jerusalem and ran his own father away from the throne, David fled into the wilderness. Waking in the morning there, he prayed:

" You, O Lord, are a shield about me, My glory, and the One who lifts my head. I was crying to the Lord with my voice, and He answered me from His holy mountain. I lay down and slept; I awoke, for the Lord sustains me. I will not be afraid of ten thousands of people who have set themselves against me round about. Arise, O Lord; save me, O my God! For You have smitten all my enemies on the cheek; You have shattered the teeth of the wicked. Salvation belongs to the Lord; Your blessing be upon Your people!" (Psalm 3:3-8)

Notice how his comfort in God and his confident prayers for deliverance are based on the fact that God has "smitten all my enemies on the cheek" and "shattered the teeth of the wicked" in the past. This is the way we should pray too: "O God, You have always helped me in the past, You have shown Yourself worthy of trust. You are my Deliverer, O Lord. Please help me now."

Unfortunately, the effect of past faithfulness upon our faith is not inevitable. It is very possible to watch God provide faithfully for all our needs many, many times and still not trust Him to meet our needs the next time, isn’t it? Like Peter, we often forget about Jesus when the waves surge around us. And taking our eyes off of Him, we begin to sink. It is not enough that God has been faithful in the past. We must USE His past acts of faithfulness to secure our faith today.

Father, You have proved Yourself over and over again to me. You have rescued me from many a peril, pit and pickle. You have shown Yourself trustworthy. May I not be forgetful of Your faithfulness in the day of trouble, O Lord. May I stand upon Your faithfulness so that the tides of trouble do not overwhelm me.