“Now unto Him that is able to keep you from stumbling” (Jude 24).
This is a most precious promise. The revised translation is both accurate
and suggestive. It is not merely from falling that He wants to keep us,
but from even the slightest stumbling.
We are told of Abraham that he staggered not at the promise. God wants us
to walk so steadily that there will not even be a quiver in the line of
His regiments as they face the foe. It is the little stumblings of life
that most discourage and hinder us, and most of these stumblings are over
trifles. Satan would much rather knock us down with a feather than with an
Armstrong gun. It is much more to his honor and keen delight to defeat a
child of God by some flimsy trifle than by some great temptation.
Beloved, let us watch, in these days, against the orange peels that trip
us on our pathway, the little foxes that destroy the vines, and the dead
flies that mar, sometimes, a whole vessel of precious ointment. “Trifles
make perfection,” and as we get farther on, in our Christian life, God
will hold us much more closely to obedience in things that seem
insignificant.