What does it mean that God is our sustainer?

In Colossians we learn that the glory of His Person demands the place of exaltation. If He is "the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation," the One by whom all things were created, who is before all, and sustainer of all, then indeed He must "in all things" have the preeminence.

Christ's maintenance of the universe presents His divine glory in a striking way. "By Him all things consist," as the apostle affirms in Col. 1. They were created by Him and for Him, and they subsist together in virtue of Him. This becomes all the more remarkable because He deigned for the deepest purposes to become true man. This, however, trenched not on His deity … As He therefore brought all into being, so does He sustain all the universe, and ever did so.

Yes, the very Man whom they crucified by the hand of lawless men, who was crucified through weakness! At the moment He bowed His head and expired, He was sustaining all creation. It were absurd to think or say so, had He been only man; but He was God; and the dissolution of the tie between the outer and the inner man in no way touched His almighty power.

Great and varied are the glories that He bears in this chapter, glories upon which no creature could lay his hands, or claim a title to. He is the Redeemer; the Image of the invisible God; the Creator of all things, and the End for which they were all made, and He sustains the universe that He has made by His almighty and undiminished power.

In natural things bread only sustains life and in no sense gives it; but the spiritual always transcends the natural. The material figure serves to direct our thoughts to the Divine fact, but can never contain its fulness. Jesus was here as both the Giver and the Sustainer of life.

The life that is received has to be nourished and sustained; hence the one who has eaten still eats; in other words, he who has received the life by the original appropriation of faith now lives on the same principle — "The just shall live by faith." He has believed, and he goes on believing.

Therefore to sustain us and sympathise with us in our weakness He has given us a great High Priest, whose love to us we have already proved when there was nothing to love in us, whose blood cleansed us from every sin, whose death and resurrection set us free … We are not yet as He is in the heavenly land. We are journeying through the dry and howling wilderness.

We need to be sustained and succoured in this way of faith, for we are beset with infirmities and the road is not always easy to travel; we need a great High Priest, to sympathise with us and to succour us and to save us to the uttermost as we come to God by Him … He is Jesus, that tells us of the tender sympathy of His heart for us. He is the Son of God, that tells us of the power of His arm; the tenderest love and the greatest power in the universe abide in Him.

The priesthood of Christ is founded on His death and resurrection. His priesthood sustains His wilderness people till the heavenly Canaan is reached in association with Christ, the High Priest of our profession.

The shed blood of His cross gives us boldness to enter, and then His priesthood sustains us whatever our infirmity may be, so that we may, and can, draw near.

In this portion the Apostle give us the answers, as he sets before us the great Shepherd of the sheep — the One Who alone can lift us above every trial, meet our every need, and keep our feet in the heavenly path. The Lord had said to His disciples, "Without me ye can do nothing;" now the Apostle, having experienced the Lord's sustaining grace, can say, "I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me."

The Psalmist not only realised the sustaining grace of the hand of the Lord, that kept him in the presence of snares into which he was in danger of slipping, but he found that the "comforts" of the Lord sustained his soul when he was in danger of being overwhelmed by a multitude of "anxious thoughts."

If, however, instead of allowing all these things to come between our souls and the Lord, we make them occasions for drawing near to the Lord, we shall learn what it is to be strong in the Lord, while realising our own weakness; and we shall learn the blessedness of the word, "Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and He shall sustain thee" (Psalm 55:22).

Thus, the godly are encouraged to cast their burden on the Lord, with the assurance, "He shall sustain you." Wonderful indeed is the certainty that "He shall never permit the righteous to be moved."

Art thou, at this moment in any pressure, in any trial, need, or difficulty? If so, let us entreat thee to look simply and solely to the living God. Turn away thine eyes completely from the creature … Cast thy burden, whatever it is, upon Him. Let there be no reserve. He is as willing as He is able, and as able as He is willing, to bear all. Only trust Him fully. He loves to be trusted — loves to be used. It is His joy, blessed be His name, to yield a ready and a full response to the appeal of faith. It is worth having a burden, to know the blessedness of rolling it over upon Him.