“From the Heart” teaching by Drs. Rodney & Adonica Howard-Browne.
22 The crowd joined in the attack against Paul and Silas, and the magistrates ordered them to be stripped and beaten. 23 After they had been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison, and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully. 24 Upon receiving such orders, he put them in the inner cell and fastened their feet in the stocks. 25 About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. 26 Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everybody’s chains came loose. 27 The jailer woke up, and when he saw the prison doors open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself because he thought the prisoners had escaped. 28 But Paul shouted, “Don’t harm yourself! We are all here!” 29 The jailer called for lights, rushed in and fell trembling before Paul and Silas. 30 He then brought them out and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” 31 They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved-you and your household.” 32 Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all the others in his house. 33 At that hour of the night the jailer took them and washed their wounds; then immediately he and all his family were baptized. 34 The jailer brought them into his house and set a meal before them; he was filled with joy because he had come to believe in God-he and his whole family. Acts 16:22-34 NIV
Verse 31, in the Amplified Bible, says, “And they answered, Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ [give yourself up to Him, take yourself out of your own keeping and entrust yourself into His keeping] and you will be saved, [and this applies both to] you and your household as well.”
When you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, in essence, you are giving yourself up to Him and into His care. You are no longer in your own care – you are in His care. You take yourself out of your keeping and entrust yourself into His keeping. From the moment you trust Him with your life, He begins to watch over you in earnest. You are now His and He takes that very seriously. He watches over those who are is – to bless them, to keep them, to protect them and to provide for them.
22 Then Jesus said to his disciples: “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. Luke 12:22 NIV
31 So do not worry, saying, `What shall we eat?’ or `What shall we drink?’ or `What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Matthew 6:31-33 NIV
When you give yourself into the Father’s keeping it means that you cease to worry yourself about your own keeping and you now completely trust Him to take care of you. Before you were a believer, you spent all your energy worrying about and working to take care of your basic needs, but as a believer, God says to you, “I will watch over you and provide for you!” We tend to think that we are responsible for the basic things and God is responsible for the bigger things. We want to decide when to invite God to participate in our lives, but that is our pride manifesting! He wants us to know that we can depend on Him from the smallest things to the biggest things and that wemust depend on Him from the smallest things to the biggest things!
Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 20 you were bought at a price. 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 NIV
We are not our own. We belong to the Father, the Son – Jesus – and the Holy Spirit. We must honor God by trusting Him with our lives. By allowing Him to lead us, guide us, protect us and provide for us. We must trust His Word that says we are His and that we must “cast our cares on Him because He cares for us” (1 Peter 5:7).
Hebrews 12:2 says that Jesus is the “Author and the Finisher of our faith” and in Philippians 1:6, Paul says that he is confident of this, “that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” I can trust Him with every aspect of my life, from the smallest to the greatest, because, “I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine.” (Song of Solomon 6:3) and “He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love.” (Song of Solomon 2:4)