Have you ever known one who was held in the clutches of a spirit of keeping? I ask this with a specific model of behavior in mind—not one who is interested in or given to the need to grasp everything selfishly, but a person who just cannot release anything once they get it in their hands. This person seems to never have gone beyond the childish behavior of yelling “MINE! MINE!”

When the scriptures speak of keeping it has more to do with maintaining for use in the future—by the self or by others. Saint Paul speaks in 2 Timothy 1.13-14: ‘What you heard from me, keep as the pattern of sound teaching, with faith and love in Christ Jesus.’ What makes the difference for Paul is making use of what is kept from a position of faith and love in Jesus.

When one loves and serves Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit it is all but an impossibility to clutch to oneself anything! Jesus lives in the presence of the Spirit of giving, of sharing, of blessing, of keeping until just the right time, circumstance, or word from God which releases what is kept into the hand of the one needing it.

The purpose of the believer is to entrust what is entrusted to you to another that they, too, would align themselves with the divine plan of God. Paul concludes: ‘Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you; guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us.’ We are entrusted to keep for—not from others.