The Promises of God

You often hear people tell you to remember the promises of God.

The thing is, we don't often seem to be clear on what the promises of God are.

Some folks seem to think that God's Promises apply when they want something, and they find a particular phrase somewhere at random in the Bible, appearing to address the thing they want, and they claim this phrase as God's promise to them, personally, without even taking the context into account.

For instance (I feel like I've seen this a lot), a person with cancer might gravitate to Jeremiah 17:14--"Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed; save me and I shall be saved, for You are my praise,"--and then claim that this is a promise from God, that He is going to heal the cancer.

Well, God does promise to heal the cancer.  When God brings down the New Heaven and the New Earth, everything will be completely healed.  Everything in the new creation will be free from the disastrous corruption of the sin that infects the old creation.  All things will be new, and there will be no more death, tears, or pain.

Please understand me.  I am not saying that people get cancer as a punishment for their sin.  I am saying that cancer exists because when the original sin of Adam came into the world, it tainted everything, and all the healthy, whole things became prone to disease, decay and death.  Some people get cancer as a result of making foolish lifestyle choices, and other people live careful, wise lives, and still get cancer.  Just as all people--the best and the worst--die, so all people--the best and the worst--are at risk of suffering cancer, or any number of other ailments and calamities.  This is the consequence that fell on creation, on the day when Adam and Eve decided it would be preferable to go their own way, rather than God's way.  Sin precipitated a curse on all creation.  We are all under the curse, regardless of how hard we may or may not try to escape it.  The only escape is deliverance by Jesus, who came to battle sin and undo the curse.

The promise of God was that He would undo the curse of Adam.  The grace of God, demonstrated when He sent Jesus, undoes the curse of sin.  This is the great promise.  This is why the Apostle Paul wrote that all of God's promises find their yes in Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians 1:20).  A time is coming when sin will be undone, and righteousness will reign, and we will live in health and life and light and glory, for all eternity (1 Corinthians 15, Revelation 21-22).

Promise #1:  God will undo the curse of sin, and make a new creation, a perfect Kingdom of righteousness.

Until then, those who believe in Him will experience grace, but grace is not always aligned with our natural desires.  It can't be, because our natural desires are selfish, and God's grace is perfect.  Our natural desires can be overwhelmingly strong.  Sometimes, when we dearly love a friend or family member, we don't even recognize our selfishness, because we think we are focused on the person we love.  But we are actually focused on our need for the person we love, or our goals for the person we love, or our relationship with the person we love.  Because we think we are focused on the person we love, we completely miss the truth of our selfishness.

God's grace doesn't indulge selfishness in His children.  God will do what it takes to purify us.  This is another one of His promises.

Promise #2:  God will discipline and teach His children, training and transforming them to become humble, and thus Christlike.  (2 Corinthians 3-4, Philippians 3-4, Hebrews 12)

This is both wonderful, and sobering.  It is painful to become Christlike.  I think it is something like athletic training.  I remember doing the uneven bars in gymnastics, in gym class at school, and getting huge, swollen, purple bruises on my inner hip bones.  I remember being so sore after certain stretches or runs in gym class, that I limped the next day.  I never pushed through to become an athlete.  But in God's Kingdom, He doesn't give up on us.  He who began a good work will be faithful to complete it.  Some days, in our process of spiritual transformation, we find ourselves lying on our faces in a pool of tears, because it is hard, very hard, to become holy in an unholy world.  But the Lord God sticks with His children, actually indwelling us with His precious Holy Spirit to keep us going.

Promise #3:  God will never leave nor forsake His children.  (Matthew 28:20, John 14-16, Romans 8:31-39, Hebrews 13:5-6)

The whole point of everything is that our connection with God, our fellowship with God, our relationship with God--whatever you want to call it--was disrupted by sin, and God is at work, fixing the problem, eradicating the sin, and restoring us to an intimate, fulfilling relationship with Himself.  His goal is to live with us in perfect love forever.

Unfortunately, sin placed an impassible chasm between us and God.  God created us to love Him and to be loved by Him.  Sin made us stop loving Him, and sin makes us unable to love Him.  We consistently choose sin; we consistently choose not to love God.  Yet, in spite of this, God has always continued to love us and to work for our good, to restore the fellowship humanity once enjoyed with Him.  "Happily ever after" is the true happy ending that we can confidently look forward to, in the Kingdom of God.

Here is a collection of additional promises:

God doesn't promise us a comfortable life in this world, but He promises to comfort us in the difficulties of this life, and to help us hold onto hope for the glory and goodness of our eternal life to come.

God doesn't promise us riches and prosperity in this life, but He promises us the riches of His glorious inheritance, the riches of His glory in Christ, the riches of His unfailing love for us.  He promises reconciliation through the blood of Christ, shed for us.  The Almighty Creator of the Universe promises to forgive our sins, to adopt us as His own sons and daughters, and to make us heirs with Christ, inheriting all the glory of heaven.

God doesn't promise us health in this world, but He promises perfect and complete healing in the next life, the life that lasts forever.  This healing goes far beyond physical ailments.  Our physical pain will be gone, but so will every disappointment, every trauma, every sin, and every emotional scar.  Our minds and souls will become as perfectly whole as our backs and our knees.

God doesn't promise beautiful homes or fancy vacations or jewels or cars or rising stock prices or good grades in school or fame or achievement or opportunities to complete bucket lists, but He promises to fulfill us.  He promises that we will find our perfect purpose and calling in Him, and He promises spiritual gifts from His Spirit, gifts that come to us through His presence in us, gifts of super-natural power that will enable us to live out the calling He has for us.

God promises that He hears our prayers, attends to them, and answers according to His perfect will.  God never promises to give us whatever we want.  He does, however, promise to give us exactly what we need, His best answer.  God's best might not be what we wanted, but it is best, and as we mature, we learn to trust Him with this.

God promises that we will find our joy in Him, that He is good, that He is full of love.

He promises that those who look to Him are radiant, their faces are never covered with shame.

God promises to forgive our sins if we will only ask, and He promises to cleanse us from unrighteousness.

He promises the power of the Holy Spirit and abounding hope.

He promises peace.

God promises that He is who He says He is,
the all-wise,
all-powerful,
omni-present,
eternal God
of light and life and love.
He promises that if we walk away from our selfish desires
and seek Him and follow Him,
it will be absolutely worth it, far beyond worth it.
We will not be disappointed.

We may face many disappointments, but we will not be disappointed in God.

It's that same old paradox that keeps rolling around:
You have to give up your desires to find fulfillment.
You have to admit your guilt to be found innocent.
You have to die to this world to live in the next world.
You have to admit you have nothing in order to gain everything.

God promises that He loves us,
and He has wonderful things planned for us,
things far beyond anything we could ask for or imagine.

That's what God promises.