This week, we’ve reached God’s reassuring gift of kept promises. Another word to characterize this gift is consistency. Some people have counted over 7000 kept promises in the Bible.
If you’re much like me, the prospect of spending time with someone inconsistent or unreliable isn’t appealing. All the cultures surrounding Israel and Judah practiced polytheism, worshiping many gods whose squabbles in their realms were vicious and fickle as those in any human city.
In contrast, Israel’s God, the Creator, though three in one, is stable. His characteristic of promise making and promise keeping is one he wants us to imitate. From the first prophetic promise of Christ’s victory over Satan in Genesis 3:15 to His promises about the seasons to Noah, which we also experience by His provision to this day, God gives us proof that he keeps us secure.
Abram received God’s reassuring gift of kept promises. Even when he chose to act during frustration and tried to accomplish the promise of a son by his own efforts.
To accomplish His plans and promises, God works in spite of the messes our disobedience brings. Of course, every agreement, or covenant, to use some Old Testament language, has two sides: by agreeing to the covenant terms, the lesser party receives promised benefits. However, a set of negative consequences also exists. People get enthusiastic about benefits, make rash promises they either don’t or can’t keep, and then meet the consequences head on.
When God’s reassuring gift of kept promises manifests as consequences and discipline rather than benefits, we’re frequently blind to the reassurance behind consequences.
Consequences exist because God loves us. If he didn’t love us, we’d be destroyed. Like the ancient Israelites, we lag at confessing our part in the situation. Over and over, God sent prophets to call his people to repentance, so they could be reconciled and restored. The Bible is full of such covenant history, culminating in Christ’s words from the cross: “Today you will be with me in Paradise,” and “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
Do people around you glimpse God’s reassuring gift of kept promises in the words you’ve said lately? Have you helped them rejoice? Because “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.” The Lord’s people do best when they keep the covenant stories, both scriptural and contemporary, fresh in their minds.
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Ruth DeMaat
Heidi Kortman
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