The Power of Promise, Part 2, The Process of Promise

Hebrews 10:35 Therefore do not cast away your confidence, which has great reward. 36 For you have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise

Hebrews 6:13, When God made his promise to Abraham, since there was no one greater for him to swear by, he swore by himself,

2 Peter 1:3-5, As His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, 4 by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust,

Today, I would like to talk about one of the greatest blessings in our lives. That is, the blessing of a promise.

The best things in life come as fulfillment of a promise from someone who has the power to make and fulfill promises. A promise is a covenant agreement between the promise maker and the receiver of the promise. We are aware of many promises that have been made to us and kept. But we’re not aware of many more promises that people, like parents, have made on our behalf that have resulted in blessing and provision in our lives growing up.

Anybody can make a promise, but that’s not what is most important. What is most important is this: Does the one who makes the promise have the will and power to fulfill promises. In life, we have to navigate a landscape that is full of promises fulfilled and promises broken. We learned about the of a promise and we grow to appreciate the power of promises, or what a promise can produce in our lives.

The Bible talks about many severe problems in our day. We know about violence, neglect, abuse, cheating, lying, and much more. To that list we add problem of covenant breaking or breaking promises. What makes promise breaking so troublesome is that the promise maker raises the faith, confidence, and expectations of others, only to dash those hopes. We are not talking about something we are unable to do, for which we apologize. We are talking about empty promises that had not potential of being fulfilled.

The basic ability to trust is something people learn as children. When promises are made and broken, this actually hinders a persons concept of trust and faith in God.  We also understand that broken promises can inflict emotional trauma on a child. What we sometimes interpret as bad behavior is actually the conditioned response of a traumatized child or youth.

One of the great lessons in going to school is that we gain the skills of responsibility and keeping promises in the areas of our school assignments. In going to school or taking training, we essentially promise to study, learn, for complete assignments and become both skillful and confident in our learned abilities. We’ve had parents, mentors, teachers and coaches who helped us understand that we have the ability to keep our promises, including promises to ourselves. 

 

It’s always important to have faith in God and to have confidence in what God has giving you. We don’t have faith in ourselves because we don’t have to power to do what God can do. We should have confidence in what God has given us and what He has asked us to do. For all of this He gives us grace.