By Dianne Kushniryk:
The enduring promises of God reach out to us and enfold us in a cloak of peace, certainty and comfort. He reassures us: “for I know what plans I have for you, says the Lord. They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope”: (Jeremiah 29:11). He guarantees that “[He] has come that [we] might have life and have it more abundantly” (John 10:10). He affirms that He will “not fail or forsake us” (Joshua 1:5, Deuteronomy 31:16 and Hebrews 13:15). His covenant declares “I have carried you since you were born. I have taken care of you from your birth. Even to your old age I am He. Even when your hair is gray I will sustain you. I made you and I will take care of you. I will carry you and I will save you” (Isaiah 46:4). He promises to provide for our needs: physical, spiritual, emotional and eternal. The same promise in many different ways from Genesis through Revelation.
In His final prayer with the disciples, before His crucifixion, Jesus declared of His father, “Your word is truth” (John 17:17). God’s promises are promises we can trust, rely on and count on. We can know beyond doubt that what He says will never change. How? In a world that seems to have gone crazy with a “look out for #1” “anything goes” mentality how can we be sure that those promises are a timeless truth? Because of the promises we don’t like to focus on.
The very first Biblical promise that I could find was to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden “you may eat freely any fruit in the garden except fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. If you eat of its fruit, you will surely die” (Genesis 2:16-17).
As we live in our own failing bodies how can we not know that He kept that promise. In Genesis 3:15 God told the serpent (Satan) that forevermore mankind and he would be enemies “He will crush your head and you will strike his heel” and so it has been. Humanity has been trying for generations to eradicate evil and evil has continued to hound our every footstep. Only a couple of verses further on God promises Adam that he will have to for “all your life sweat to produce food, until your dying day” (Genesis 3:19). I think that one becomes self-explanatory everyday as each of us heads off to work. Moreover as each of our life stories plays out with its share of pain, loss, struggle, discouragement and failure we are reminded of John 16:33 “in the world you will have tribulation”. It is in the painful promises, therein lies the certainty of all of God’s promises. If the God of John 3:16 keeps even His hardest promises how could we not believe all His promises and why shouldn’t we? God never changes. He is forever true to Himself.
“Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering for He who promised is faithful” Hebrews 10:23
Dianne Kushniryk is a Central Alberta wife, mother and grandmother who has been writing Christian columns since 2004. She is currently working on a compilation of her columns in book form.