None Is Lost

While I was with them in the world, I kept them in Your name. Those whom You gave Me I have kept; and none of them is lost except the son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled.  

John 17:12

How thoroughly does Christ keep His people? In His High Priestly prayer He speaks clearly of His preservation of His Own. As He puts it, ‘While I was with them in the world, I kept them in Your name.’ He declares what He has done, and if we look elsewhere we realize that His preservation of His Own extends far beyond the immediate context to which He refers in His prayer. One of the premier passages to which we look as an evidence of this is in John 10, ‘My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father’s hand.’ Consider the guarantee Christ gives in this passage. According to Him, He secures His people so they live for all eternity, never perish, and nothing can remove them from His care. This refers, not just to the disciples, as our text does, but to all those who are His. If this was the only passage proving to us that Christ will preserve us it would be sufficient. There are other passages which prove it. After a lengthy proving of it in Romans 8, Paul concludes with, ‘For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.’ Christ kept His disciples in time and for eternity. He promises to keep us as well. Whatever situations we face, we are secure in Christ.  

Our Great God and our Savior, 
we rejoice at Your power to preserve us. 
We praise You that we are secure in You 
for all eternity.  

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning