Promises Made

“The Promises of God” – R. Nelson

BIBLE MEDITATION:

“Blessed is a man who perseveres under trial; for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him.” James 1:12;

ENCOURAGING WORD:

If there is one thing there is no shortage of, it is the promises of God throughout the scriptures. There are numerable verses throughout the Bible where the promises of God have already been fulfilled. But with that being said, there are many more that are on the near horizon of being fulfilled. I believe that one of the biggest problems we face today in our world is the fact that a promise or even a hand shake virtually holds no water. There are not too many people anymore that can be trusted based on their word alone. There was a day, and really not to long ago I might add, that a handshake was a bonded commitment between two gentlemen. If they were working on a business deal or some kind of agreement that they were making, a handshake was a bonded commitment, you could count on it. Today, we move forward about fifty years and we find that not even a signed contract is a binding document anymore. Even a signature means nothing because of all the ridiculous rules that have been put in place. Promises have come to the point where they have absolutely no meaning whatsoever. In other words, “a promise means nothing.” I don’t want to apply this to everyone, because there are still some very honorable people that can still be trusted. I personally know a few of them and I thank God for them every day. But the majority of people in this world have no character or decency about them all the way from the top offices in our country to even the smallest businesses throughout America. It has gotten to the point where very few people can be trusted. People will promise things and lie to your face to get what they want without ever considering the consequences.

We are all asking, what in the world is happening to our country. Here is a promise that we find in 2 Timothy 3: 1-5; that will explain what is taking place based on scripture, “but mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.” Without having to go into too much detail, I think this verse speaks for itself. We see these things happening at an unprecedented pace in our country. The days that are spoken of in these verses above are upon us. It is not a pleasant topic to discuss, but it is necessary that people understand Gods Word and where we are on His prophetic timetable.

Even though there are many Bible verses in the scriptures describing yet future events, some are not so pleasant, and some are very comforting to say the least. But we will focus on the wonderful promises of God that share His love and commitment to His children. When I say, His children, I am referring to the born-again believes that are spoken of in John 3;3; “Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” This is not a request to be born-again, it is a command. “You must be born again” If we are going to say that we believe the Bible is the true and inherent Word of God, then we have to take every verse literally, not figurative, not allegorically, but literally. When we start to take Gods Word and allegorize verses because we don’t quite understand what they men, then we get all kinds of different doctrines and beliefs. Therein lies a very big issue of our Christian denominations.

2 Peter tells us; “Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble; for so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.“ This is definitely a promise from the scriptures that we should all take to heart. “If we are obedient to Gods commands, all the promises that are in the scriptures, all the promises that are written are for us who believe, so we can find comfort in God’s Word. The diligence that is spoken of in the verse above is found in 2 Peter 1:5-7; But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. These are certain changes that should be evident in our life once we truly accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior and have also received the Holy Spirit into our heart. It is then that we become born-again.

Let us move on to a few more Bible verses that will open our eyes to God’s promises about the great rewards that we will receive if we fight the good fight faithfully. Then when our earthly lives are over, we will be able to say together with the Apostle Paul as He wrote in 2 Timothy 4:7-8; “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing.” Like Paul is saying, if we keep the faith, there is a promise for us that is clearly stated in the previous verse. “A crown of Righteousness.” Though many promises are promises of the life to come, we also have some wonderful promise that pertain to our lives here on earth such as we read in Jeremiah 29:11; “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.”  God really wants to give us a life of hope and prosperity, but the life that He is describing here is for those that have truly given their life over to Jesus Christ. But with this being said, there is another side to this coin that is not so pleasant, and we read this in John 16:33, “These things I have spoken to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” God is basically promising us that we who have given our life over to Christ will suffer persecution. The tribulation that God is speaking of here are the trials that we will go endure throughout our Christian walk. These are the trails that are necessary for our spiritual growth. Nobody enjoys these trials, but, nonetheless, when you make it through you will understand why it was necessary for you to go through them. One thing that we can be sure of, even if it doesn’t seem like things are working out for the good, I can promise you based on one of my favorite scriptures that they are, Romans 8:28, “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.” For those of you that have been following my posts, you notice that I quote this verse very often. It is because no matter what happen in my life, I know that it is Father filtered and working out for the good because it is a promise from God.

Now let us go to another verse with a wonderful promise from God. We find this verse in John 3:36; “Whoever believes in the Son (Jesus Christ) has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them.”  This is a verse that is cut and dry and really should need no explanation, but I will give it to you as simple as I can. If you believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior and accept His free gift of grace which He purchased for you on the cross, you will have eternal life if it is a true confession of your faith. On the other hand, if you reject Jesus Christ, you will remain in your sins and you will stand before God at the white throne judgement and be found guilty as charged and the price of sin is eternal death and separation from God forever. It’s quite obvious that there are only two choices and the choice is yours. This is conformed in 10:9-10; “If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.” Words alone in this case do not save you, it is the combination of confession of faith and the fullness of heart as we read in Ephesians 2:8-9; “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.” There will be many people that will miss heaven by 18 inches, the difference between the brain and the heart. Head knowledge will not save you until it reaches the heart. We read in 1 Samuel in the Old Testament in chapter 16:7b; “Forthe Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” There will be extremely intelligent people that will not enter the kingdom of God because they did not apply their wisdom to actions.

ACTION POINT:

We could go on and on with all the promises of God in the scriptures, but I’ve only touched on a handful. The bottom-line friends is this, we all need to read the Bible so we can hear the promises of God firsthand. If you hear them from someone else, how do you really know it is a real promise from God or someone’s version of what they might think it means. Please do not take someone’s word for it, let God speak to you. He does not need an interpreter to speak to you, all His words are written in plain English or whatever language you prefer. I have heard today while listening to a Bible teacher that the Bible is still the bestselling book every year by a long shot. No other book even comes close. My question is this, how many people are actually reading it? If you own a Bible, do not just hide it somewhere in the corner or a closet, keep it out in the open and make yourself a commitment to read at least a page per day! You will eventually be glad you did. Jesus Christ loves you and He is waiting to speak to you. Are you willing to listen…that is the question you need to ask yourself? I hope the answer is an astounding “YES.”     

A Commentary from our Chaplin – R. Fritz

The Promises of God

I often think that we are cynical of people that promise something. I look around at people that promise things and then wonder, are they sincere. What we are looking at are the “Promises of God.” You need to try to understand who God really is. It may be hard for us because all we know are the people around us. I believe the only way to understand God and His promises are to read about them and study them throughout the scriptures. The other way is to read and then believe what you read and apply Gods Word to your life. That is what I did first. You have to believe in something. We all have something that we believe in throughout our everyday lives. It is either what our parents or mentors have taught us or very likely something that we learned as a result of an unpleasant experience. It is time for us to do things in a different way. That is what I found out. I could not overcome the issues that I had in my life and I had no idea how I could change things. I had no “hope.”  About thirty years ago while I was working, I actually hated my job and my life and when people would come up to me and say, “Good Morning,” my reply would be, “what is so good about it”? At that point, I had no hope whatsoever. I understand more clearly now when I see people in the same situation that I was in. I did not know of a better plan than the one I was living, but when all was said and done, I really had no plan at all. I just wanted to get through each day. Life is hard with no hope and not having any plan for your life. We start taking on extra work to get away from the things we should be working on like our family. One thing I learned, is that we need a purpose in our lives. That purpose gives us hope. I also learned before I retired last year that I needed to take a good look at my purpose in life. Which would change because now I would be seeing a lot less people once I retired. This gave me a reason for waking up every morning. I believe that purpose comes from Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. For me, He is my hope and the purpose I needed in my life and the “The Promise” when I found him. I found I could not trust in the life I was living or the people I knew. I finally understood that the Lord wanted for me to trust in Him. Proverbs 3:5-6 says “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.”

I started to associate with people that could show me verses in the Bible to help me understand that would also pray for me to overcome the spiritual battles I was experiencing. This is how I was able to overcome the issues in my life. The Spiritual gifts that God has given each of us are tools for us to help others. That is why we need to find people that can help us get a closer relationship with Jesus Christ. Jesus is the “The Promise” that was prophesized in the Old Testament when Jesus Christ entered His creation to take our sins away, and now we can be with Him and have Eternal Life.

You see, God has made many promises. We continue to go through life the way we always have, thinking things are good, but actually having a feeling that life is not the way it should be. If we turn our lives over to Jesus Christ, we can live the life that He had intended for us to live. Everybody that reads this should know and understand that to have a great life you need Jesus Christ. No matter how wise we think we are, we do not have all the answers we need. You can take the mental and physical beating that the devil wants to give you, like I did, and eventually it will take a toll on you and your family or you can trust in the Lord. Allowing the devil to have his way in your life is when divorce and other issues in life start to show up. Life always looks better when looking through rose-colored glasses, especially when looking at somebody else. The truth is, we need to look in the mirror at that person that is looking back and that is where we need to start. When that person in the mirror changes, God will then use you to deal with the unpleasant circumstance that are destroying your family. We do not really know what it will take to change those circumstances, but God will show us the way. One thing that I learned over time was to treat people better than they deserved to be treated. After a few weeks or more, they will believe you have changed and that is where you can begin to change your significant other and family. Men let us be the spiritual leader of our family battles and the issues that affect our family. I learned that the issues we have, come from the devil through thoughts. With that being said, we need to learn to fight in the spirit to win the battles that come from the devil. I chose Jesus Christ to win those battles for me and all my battles have been won because I have given my life to Jesus Christ. You now have a choice, you can choose “Win” which comes with a trusting relationship with Jesus Christ or choose “Status Quo” and live your life just like you have been.

In Conclusion – R. Nelson

When all is said and done, we all have a choice to make like our Chaplin R. Fritz has stated above. There are only two choices. Either you believe the Bible is the true and inherent Word of God or you do not. There is no middle ground. If we truly believe that the bible is the Word of God, then it would only make sense to me that all who those who choose to believe it would want to read it to hear what our Lord, Jesus Christ has to say to us. Like Rick also said above, we need to know who God really is. He is not some spirit in the sky that we believe is just floating around in the universe or some imaginary god that really doesn’t exist. This should give you better prospective of who God really is. If we were to travel from one end of our universe to the other end it would take us twenty-eight billion light years. God can do it with a thought. So, keeping that in mind, why would we doubt anything that is written in the scriptures that God has promised us. Everything that God has promised from the beginning of time has either come to fruition with 100% accuracy or it is about to come true. Whether you choose to believe or reject, you will stand before God in judgement. Just because you may not believe, does not change the truth. You either accept the truth now when there is something that you can do about it, or you will find out the truth when it is too late. Proverbs 3:5-6 tells us; “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.” This is one of hundreds of promises of God that you should keep in your memory bank. If you believe this promise, all the other promises will be easier to believe. Those of us that are part of “faithinchristjesus.net” believe that God has called us to share the wonderful blessings that God wants us all to have. It is our commitment to God to plant the seeds of salvation to whoever we can reach, and it is up to Jesus Christ to bring those people to faith. If you feel a tug at your heart, don’t fight it, give in to the Holy Spirit and let Jesus Christ bring to you the joy that awaits all those that believe. Please join our team in reaching the lost with the true Word of God. “Written To the glory of God.” Amen!