Promise of Steadfastness

"Surely he will never be shaken; a righteous man will be remembered for ever. He will have no fear of bad news; his heart is steadfast, trusting in the Lord" (Psalm 112:6-7).

The King James Version of this passage says "his heart is fixed." Similarly, Isaiah 26:3: You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is fixed on you." This "fixing" of our hearts is the essence of steadfastness.

Job was unwavering in heart when he cried out, "Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him"
(Job13:15). To be fixed is to be like Abraham of whom it is said that when all hope was gone, he still hoped, knowing that God would never let His word fail. God's promises will always be kept.

A story goes that a man walking along a cliff slips over the edge. He clings to a sapling and is hanging over a sheer drop, hundreds of feet. He yells, "Is there anyone up there? Help! Help!" He hears a voice saying, "This is God. Just let go! I will catch you and set you safely on the ground." There is silence and then an even louder, frantic cry: "Is there anyone else up there?"

There is no one else up there and no one else anywhere as steadfast as He!

Promise to Blot Out Our Sins

"...Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to His cross"
(Colossians 2:14, KJV).

I am no computer whiz, but apparently experts have ways of retrieving old memory which has been cancelled on the computer. Some trace is always left behind.

It is not like that for us. The Lord says in Isaiah 1:18, "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow." We might suspect that these days forensics might be able to reveal some staining! Not so, however, because the Lord removes all possible suspicion of that. The Greek word for "blotting out" means wiping a slate, totally obliterating what was there before. Our sins do not belong to us anymore. Our slate is clean. God took them on Himself, nailing them to the cross.

Always ready to beat ourselves up, we then say what about our on-going sinfulness? Martin Luther said, "The remnant of sin is not laid to our charge but freely pardoned. Sometimes we fall into sin, yet we are not discouraged and must not think that our state of life displeases God lest we despair, but we raise ourselves up through faith!"

Poor Promises, Good Promises

The essence of trusting God's promises is trusting the God who makes them. In the rather nihilistic film "Revolutionary Road," someone says to the principal character, "You have put your trust in
a promise no one ever made to you." That is a broken reed indeed!

Many put their trust in human promises. For instance, the remedies from self-help literature promise the earth and do not deliver. The thing about God is that He is the only one who can always deliver. He has the will, and He has the power to perform His promises. The 18th Century English writer, William Romaine, wrote to a friend, "As I was going along the road, I heard a voice saying, 'CEASE YE FROM MAN, from yourself, from others: put no confidence in them. Put not your trust in princes, not in any child of man, be he wise, or great, or good. Nay, look not at them, but with a single eye, look unto Jesus.'"

He set out on a new path of not heeding other promises but only the promises of God.

God's Gracious Promises

"For if those who live by law are heirs, faith has no value and the promise is worthless...Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace..." (Romans 4:14, 16).

Human promises are fallible. All denominations of English pound notes bear the caption "The Bank of England promises to pay the bearer on demand the sum of __ pounds." Especially in the current economic climate, they are unlikely to be of the same value in the future as they are today.

God's promises are gracious. That is, there is nothing we can do to earn them. God's gift of eternal life in His Son is all of grace (Great
Riches At Christ's Expense).

The new covenant with us is not a contract: God does something for us if we do something reciprocal for Him. I spent a large part of my early career in a business based on contractual relationships. No, Christ loved us and died for us when we were still sinners. That is the graciousness of God's dealing.

The Christian life is all about God's promises to us, not about our promises to Him. He is the Promise Keeper while our New Year resolutions fade before January is out! "If we are faithless, he will remain faithful" (2 Timothy 2:13).

He Works Through My Weakness

"Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, 'So shall your offspring be'" (Romans 4:18).

God promised Abraham that He'd bless him and make his descendants a great nation which would be a blessing to all nations (Genesis 12:2).

Then Abraham had to wait until he and his wife were very old before the promised heir, Isaac was born. Imagine Abraham's feelings when he was then asked by God to sacrifice Isaac as an offering to God. How could that be? Was God breaking His promise that his descendants would bless the world?

But Abraham trusted in God. He didn't know how, but one way or another God was going to honor His promise. And God did just that. This faith, credited to him as righteousness, is the saving faith of Galatians 3:6-9.

The blessing is ours when we put our trust in Jesus as our Savior; we believe He is whom God's Word declares Him to be, and we receive Him into our hearts and are born again. His is the foundation promise, the gateway for us to become heirs of the promise of eternal life (see 1 John 2:25).

Difficult Directions

"All those who were in distress or in debt or discontented gathered around him, and he became their leader. About four hundred men were with him" (1 Samuel 22:2).

It's easy to expect God to simplify our lives when we're trying to serve Him. Burdened by the weight of our problems, we think God's leading is only evident when He lightens our load. Yet King David's life became increasingly hard while he followed God. God led him through long periods of waiting and seemed to send additional challenges in the meantime.

God chose David to be Israel's second king, but He didn't create an easy path to that position. Not only did David have to wait years before becoming king, he also had to run for his life much of that time. We might expect God to at least give David strong, powerful, and respected men to lead while fighting enemies. But God assigned David the distressed, the indebted, the discontented.

There's no record of David questioning if he had misunderstood God's leading. He willingly worked with those God placed in his path. David followed God - and led God's people - confident in the character of God even when life was hard.

God's First Promise

"...a faith and knowledge resting on the hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time" (Titus 1:2).

This is stupendous! God promised before the world began to give his people (not yet created) eternal life - everlasting joy in His presence! This was His purpose in creating us. And this was given us in Christ before all time.

This promise makes me keenly aware that my future is not dependent on my past or my present. Nor does it rest on any aspect of my life - my shortcomings and misdeeds, any virtues I may have. My future is founded entirely and securely on God's promise eons before I ever was. My eternal being is rooted in God's ageless plan. What security that gives us!

My destiny, therefore, is founded on God's character not on mine, on His promise, not on any I might make. And our aim in sharing this good news is that others might also become heirs of this promise, made before time began, in Christ.

As our hearts are warmed to Him for His tremendous love, we say with Paul, "O, the depth of the riches of wisdom and knowledge of God!"