Daily Manna · Day 179 · June 28
Delivered and Preserved
“And the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom: to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.”
Many of us fear finishing badly even more than we fear dying. It might be an illness, or the pull of an old habit you thought was dead, or a family situation with no way out in sight. Underneath all three is the same fear: that you will come apart before the end.
Read carefully what Paul claims here, and what he leaves out. As far as we know, this is the last letter he wrote. Earlier in the same chapter he says, "I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand." Two verses before today's verse he describes his first hearing in court: "no man stood with me, but all men forsook me." He is not writing from a good week, and he does not pretend to be. And he never says he will be spared from death. He says, "the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom." He expects to be delivered from evil work and kept safe all the way into the kingdom. He does not expect to escape the prison or the executioner.
That difference is the whole promise, so take it exactly as it stands. Nothing wicked can knock you off the road or stop you from arriving home, whether the evil comes from Rome or from inside you. The rescue Paul describes carries you through suffering, the whole way home. Rome could take Paul's life, but it could not touch where he was going. That is why he ends the sentence with praise: "to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen."
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 179 is Rend Your Heart (Joel 2:13).