promises, promises (thank you Burt Bacharach for this title)
2 Cor 1:20-22_”For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. And so through him the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God. Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come. “
I’ve been thinking about promises this morning. Maybe I just heard Burt Bacharach in my subconcious last night, but it might also be because i’ve been reading a lot of promises in Scripture.
Can you remember a time when you were promised something and it was not delivered upon? I can remember a time when I was promised something when I was 15 years old (ouch – that was 16 years ago) – I was so expectant that I told my friends about it and when it didn’t get fulfilled, I was devastated. (okay – deep breath, still a little pain).
What about you? Can you remember an unfulfilled promise? Of course you can; there’s probably even still a sense of disappointment (stop crying now, it was kind of rhetorical).
Unfortunately, our human experience with unfulfilled promises has tragically marred our picture of God and we are unable to believe that God has/is/will deliver on His promises. (not incidentally, this happens with most areas of our human experience – love, a father, justice, etc.).
This becomes tragic for a few reasons:
1. We stop faithfully believing that promises will come to pass. After being disappointed in a lack of fulfillment, we roll our eyes when a promise is made, not in the least expecting it to be fulfilled. We take the posture of “i’ll believe it when i see it”, but the Kingdom of God works the other way around – “when we believe it, then we’ll see it”.
2. We stop pursuing the idea of promises themselves. When we don’t believe promises will come to pass, we stop looking for promises in the Scriptures, in prayers and in conversations with others. We rob ourselves of the vast array of promises that are in the Scriptures in which we can discover hope, purpose, redemption and restoration.
Today, look for the promises of God and wherever you find them, based on your standing with Jesus (see above verse) claim them as part of your inheritance as his son or daughter.
