Faith Abiding Under His Wings

FAITH: ABIDING UNDER HIS WINGS

(God’s Got You Covered)

By: Mae Shurow

The whole world lies in wickedness (I John 1:19), but Scripture tells us FAITH is the victory that overcomes the world! Faith includes love and trust, and love for God will overcome the pleasures of the world, while trust in God will overcome the cares of this world. For most of us who are Christians, the pleasures of this present evil world don’t have too much of a pull on us. But those cares! Oh, my, that’s a different matter! There is nothing that can get our eyes off of God and diminish our faith as quickly or as thoroughly as the cares and worries of this earthly life.

Jesus told the Pharisees that they could look at the sky and tell what weather was coming, but they couldn’t discern the signs of the times. People today

(many Christians!) start the day by checking the weather and watching the

news to see what they will have to face in the day ahead. Yet they never look to the Heavens to see or understand what is approaching in the spiritual realm! It shall be as in the days of Noah when the end shall come, when people were eating and drinking and marrying – in short, they were occupied with earthly concerns and the cares of this life!

Luke 21:34-36 says:

· And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares. [35] For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth. [36] Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.

We are admonished all through Scripture to watch and pray. If we don’t watch, we will be caught in the snare (deception) that comes on the whole earth, and we will be naked and ashamed at His coming (Rev. 16:13-15). We watch so we can see things for what they are spiritually, we are to be alert and vigilant, sober. The two things that can cause us not to be clearheaded are having our senses dulled, as with drink, because the great whore makes the inhabitants of the earth “drunk” with the wine of her fornication (Rev. 17:2, 14:8, 18:3, Jer. 51:7); or to be weighed down with the “cares of this life” (Luke 21:34, Matt. 13:22). I Peter 4:7 says, “But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer.”

The deception that is coming on the whole earth, THE GREAT LIE, began in the Garden. Adam and Eve were under God’s covering there, and He provided for their every need and desire. They looked to Him and trusted in Him for everything, until Eve “looked” to the wrong tree and believed a lie. Romans 1:25 says “Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshiped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.” Adam and Eve were the first humans to change the truth of God into a lie. In believing they could become like God, they believed they could take care of themselves, thus they worshipped themselves – and became self-serving and self-centered.

In believing the serpent, Adam and Eve did not believe what God had said and entered into unbelief. This is the original sin that leads to all other sins, for it is in unbelief that we depart from the living God to rely on the arm of the flesh. When they lived with (abided in) the Lord in the garden, they were safe, secure, and loved. But when they believed the lie instead of trusting in what the Lord had told them, they were the ones who left the protection and provision of the Lord (they no longer had a covering – now they were really naked) and so could no longer live in the garden. Now they had to fend for themselves, and the outworkings of sin are the result of mankind trying to provide for his own safety, security, well-being and happiness. Of course, all of our fleshly efforts to do so are in vain – just as useless as were the fig leaves that Adam and Eve made.

Believing A Lie

At His coming, those who have believed a lie will be ashamed and confounded before Him, but “Whosoever believeth in Him shall not be ashamed” (Rom. 10:11).

Ashamed means "to fall into disgrace, normally through failure, either of self or of an object of trust. Come to shame, and stresses the sense of horror over idolatry. Its’ primary reference is to the shame brought by the divine judgment. (Israel and the nations will be shamed by their idols when they fail them.) The result of defeat at the hands of an enemy, involving all the nuances of confusion, disillusionment, humiliation, and brokenness which the word connotes. If Israel seeks to insure her own glory by refusing to trust in God but rather trusts in idols or in foreign nations, she will not get glory, but shame and disgrace. On the other hand, if one will humbly submit to God, he will find his true glory, for God will not let that person come to shame” (Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. 1964-c1976).

Isaiah 28:15-20 describes those who have trusted in the lie: They enter into a covenant with death in believing that when the scourge passes through, it won’t come unto them, “for we have made lies our refuge [God is our true refuge], and under falsehood have we hid ourselves [and God is our true covering, for our lives are hid in Christ]….hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place…For the bed is shorter than a man can stretch himself on it: and the covering narrower than that he can wrap himself in it.” Any covering that we provide for our own safety is totally insufficient! George Davis of “A Wilderness Voice” hit it on the head when he said, “Christ the last Adam came to call us out of hiding and remove our fig leaves and cover our guilt and shame with a new covering” (Centered on Self or Lost in God).

The word of God is choked out in us by the cares and riches and pleasures of this life. Worry about the cares of this life cause us to try in our own strength to protect and provide for ourselves, even though it is merely an illusion that we could even do so. So, we struggle, we strive, we push and shove, we hoard and save, we build walls around our hearts – all in our own efforts to be safe and secure; loved and accepted.

It is the fool who trusts in his own provision and protection, or in the provision and protection of any other man (Luke 12:15-21). Sin springs from our thoughts for the morrow. Is our hope in what we have laid up in storehouses and barns, or are our treasures in heaven? Is our hope, not in our own security, but in His coming? In His provision?

Christ Is Our Covering

1 Corin. 11:1-16 is meant to illustrate to us our need of a covering – the man stood and prayed uncovered to represent Christ, naked because He had nothing of which to be ashamed. But His Bride DID have something to be ashamed of, and needed to be cleaned up and covered (Ezk. 16:4-9), which Christ did for His Bride. It is only Christ who can stand naked and unashamed before the Father, but in Him – as His Bride – covered with His righteousness, we can, too!

That’s why in I Corin. 11:3, the man that prayed or prophesied with his head covered dishonored his HEAD, Christ, for the man in the marriage is symbolic of Christ. It was like saying Christ needed a covering because He had something to be ashamed of. It was a shame, though, for the woman, symbolic of the Bride of Christ, to pray or prophesy with her head uncovered. This reflects the fact that unless we are IN CHRIST, covered by Him as His Bride, we would only be ashamed before Him. YES! It is only Christ who can stand naked and unashamed before the Father! But hid in Him, we can, too!

How wonderful when He enters into covenant with us and once again becomes our covering (Ezekiel 16:8)! We enter into a wonderful place of abiding under the shadow of His wings (this word means covering) where we have nothing to fear! We can take those fig leaves off and tear down those walls we have built around our hearts in order to keep ourselves safe! Isaiah 58:9-14 tells us that only by delighting in the Lord and laying down our lives for others will we find rest for souls that are weary from our own efforts at self-preservation. By honoring the Lord, not doing our own ways, nor finding our own pleasure, but extending ourselves to the hungry and afflicted souls, then, “the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not…and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father…. This is the only pathway to this place of great blessing where we will be as a well-watered garden, satiated with His goodness.

Dying to self is not done by deprivation, as the ascetics believed. Dying to self is trusting in God to provide for our safety and security rather than trusting in ourselves to do so. Thus, the man who tries to save his own life by his own efforts will lose it, and find himself naked and ashamed before God when his man-made refuge will not keep him safe. But the man who is willing to lose his life in Christ will find life abundant – and be satiated and satisfied with the goodness of God.

The outcome of living in faith – abiding under the shadow of His wings – is the glorious freedom of resting in Him! And here in this place is where we experience the freedom to love others. We can't truly love and serve God or others if we're consumed with trying to meet our own needs. When we surrender, when we learn to abide, trust, and depend on God, then we are free be used of God to help others. In surrender, we realize God takes care of us and we trust Him to do so. We can use the time, energy, and effort previously spent taking care of “self” and spend our very selves on loving and serving God and others.

And when we realize that we are in God’s hands even when others treat us badly, we are free to love those people (no matter how they treat us) with that Romans 12 and Matthew 5 kind of love, trusting in Him to provide love in our hearts for them, trusting in Him to shield us from or sustain us through the hurt others can bring to us.

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*All emphasis mine.
Written June, 2007

Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. 1964-c1976. Vols. 5-9 edited by Gerhard Friedrich. Vol. 10 compiled by Ronald Pitkin. (G.
Kittel, G. W. Bromiley & G. Friedrich, Ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.