A Word that Restores Fatherly Confidence

“And when Jesus had cried out with a loud voice, He said, “Father, ‘into Your hands I commit My spirit.’” Having said this, He breathed His last.”—Luke 23:46

That broken relationship, that feeling of forsakenness Jesus experienced earlier, is for a moment in time, restored before Jesus expires. What tells us this? Well notice that Jesus refers to God as “Father” once again. His confidence in His Father that waned for a brief moment in agony, is now restored. He is about to give up His spirit or breath and die. And He commits His spirit, notice, into the hands of His Father.

We learn a lesson beyond what I can express here. Namely, that hands of the Father take over when the hands of the Son have been nailed to cross and are inoperable. And they are safe, trustworthy, powerful hands that are worthy of trust during life, and worthy of trust in the face of death. Jesus, the Son, knew that His life was safe in the hands of His heavenly Father. The moment He died, and His spirit left his body, the hands of the Father received the Son into His presence.

Do you know God as your Father to whom you can entrust your very life? You can only know the comfort and power of the Father, by trusting in His Son, Jesus Christ. What a privilege we have, to have a heavenly Father we can trust through all of life’s vicissitudes—joys and sorrows—and finally when it comes time to die, the privilege of trusting Him in the face of death itself, knowing that even in death, He holds our life in His hands, and will guide us safely into His very presence.

Kenny Damara