For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory. 2 Corinthians 1: 20
By nature, God is a promiser. He's made a ton of them to His children. A promise is the assurance that God gives to His people so they can walk by faith while they wait for Him to work.
We don't realize how much we need God's promises until our smooth and easy life suddenly turns sideways. This is the time to dig into God's Word and get something to wrap our faith around.
Now the Christian life would be easy if the space in time is small between when we claim God's promises and when we receive what He promised. Read it one day and get it the next. Wow - wouldn't that be great!? But life's not like that. The hard part is in the waiting between the promise and the answer; and even harder, when the waiting comes with uncertainties. Where's this going? Where am I going to end up? What's my future looking like?
The reality is, we just don't know and it's this not-knowing that crushes us. We doubt because we don't know. We worry and despair because we don't know. We falter and sometimes fail - all because we don't know. If only we knew how this trial was going to play out, we would be OK. But we don't.
I can take a bad day. I can take a bad month. I can even take a bad year or bad decade, if I have to, as long as I know how it will end up. For some of us it's a health crisis. For another, it's a question about your marriage or an uncertainty with a child. For someone else, it's a restlessness in your soul. We all have areas of uncertainty where we need to hold on to what God has said. His promises are what we cling to while we wait for Him to work. Our faith is in God. He knows what He has promised, He can't lie, and He can't forget. He will deliver on time, all the time. Who else can make promises like that?
Now I wish I could tell you that it always figures out perfectly in our lifetimes, but I would be lying to you. You cannot make sense of the promises of God with this life only. You must factor the reality of eternity into the equation. Eternity brings it all together. The promises of eternal life and the assurance of hope in heaven are what make God's promises exceedingly great and precious. Name a promise that God has made to You in His Word that You need to remember today. What promise do you cling to that will only make sense in eternity?
Name a promise that God has made to You in His Word that You need to remember today. What promise do you cling to that will only make sense in eternity?
God, forgive us for thinking that everything must make sense today in the economy of our human satisfaction. Give us faith to believe that we're here for a purpose that is greater than ourselves, greater than our personal enjoyment, even greater than our participation in building Your kingdom. Our lives are about a legacy-Your glory. In the name of Jesus, Amen.
�You can speak life or death into your situation.� What I mean by that is, what you speak is what it shall be. If you roll out of bed and say: This is going to be a messed up day; then guess what? Prepare to shovel S@#! However, if you sit up in the bed, thank the Lord for waking you up, and say: It's going to be a great day, then you've taken the first step to do just that.
What I am saying to you, no matter what people say, you have to be equipped, regardless of what your circumstances say. You gotta speak greatness into existence, walk in the greatness. When someone says How are you doing? You say, I walk in greatness. When someone asks how you doing? You say, life couldn't be greater. When people ask, What are you doing? Where are you going, brother or sister? You say, I'm going into deep waters, because big blessings don't come in shallow streams. See, sometimes the blessing God has in store for us, the streams or ponds or lakes we're fishing in won't accommodate them. That's why big fish don't stay in shallow waters.
Stay away from relationships with shallow folks doing shallow things, talking shallow stuff. God is waiting for us to take that first step of faith, and the closer you get to the prize, the farther away you move from where you started. Before you know it, you are swimming in deeper waters and you can't see any land and the ships you are passing are getting bigger and bigger and the blessings......well, they're getting bigger and bigger too, because you have launched into deeper water. You can't get deep blessings in shallow waters.
The "law of visitation" Bruce spoke of has certainly been fulfilled here today. You posted this in July; here it is almost September; and these words were exactly what I needed to hear ! Feel like God has spoken to me RIGHT NOW; through what you've written. He's so Good to us !
It seems like doubt is a result of us dismissing the depth that God has brought into us with in our new nature. It is that new element of faith that begins AND ENDS with God. We cannot have faith by ourselves! (I don't have Scripture for that...) Those who are not in God's Kingdom seem to be adhering to God's princibles indirectly when they hope in something they can't see. Because it is illogical, and irrational to the world's system of logic. We lean on a God we cannot see for Promises that seem to be MUCH too great to ever come to pass because we KNOW God and His character so well! We know His "track record"! But can we still doubt sometimes - but they are influences from the devil! I think this verse illistrates it perfectly: "There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love." 1 John 4:18
