Daily Devotional

I was privileged to be born into a Christian family.  My father was a farmer as was his father and this went back several generations.  His early years as a farmer were much simpler and different than farming is today.  My father grew up in an era in which a man’s word was his bond.  There were very few written contracts and business deals were agreed on with a handshake.  One of the things I really appreciated about my dad was that he was a man of his word.  Through the years my dad made many handshake contracts that in most cases worked out well.  But there were some that deeply affected him financially in a negative way.  People took advantage because there was no written contract.  My dad’s word was his bond, and he fulfilled his side of the agreement even if it had negative effects on him.

God in a spiritual sense has made a contract with us.  It is called in Scripture the New Covenant.  Jesus spoke to His disciples about that covenant in His last Passover meal with them.  In that Passover meal, He raised a cup and said, “This cup is the new covenant between God and his people—an agreement confirmed with my blood, which is poured out as a sacrifice for you.”  (Luke 22:20 NLT) God bound Himself with an oath to fulfill His covenant given to us as His children.  Just as He made promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and fulfilled every one of those, so He will fulfill the covenant He has made to us.  When Israel entered the Promised Land under the leadership of Joshua, God fulfilled His covenant promises to His chosen people.  “Not a single one of all the good promises the LORD had given to the family of Israel was left unfulfilled; everything he had spoken came true.” (Joshua 21:45 NLT)

Along with the New Covenant come many promises that God makes to us.  We can think of a number of those promises.  Things like eternal salvation, the giving of the Holy Spirit, a future home in heaven, the provision of our needs, and that He will never leave us or forsake us, to name a few.  God has bonded Himself with an oath and as a result, He will do everything He has promised.  He will never change His mind and decide not to fulfill His promises.  All of this is based on the character of Who God is.  God does not lie, nor can He lie.  He is the truth, and His word is truth. (John 14:6; 17:17) He has given both His promise and His oath.  Based on Who God is, we can completely trust the promises He has given to us in Scripture.  Abraham waited patiently on the Lord and God fulfilled the promises He made to him.  So today, we need to wait patiently on the Lord, knowing that God will fulfill His promises to us.  God has never failed to keep His word in the past and He will not fail to keep His word any time in the future.  Today we can have complete confidence in what God has told us in His Word.  We need to wait patiently as God fulfills every one of His promises to us.  

Prayer:  God, I often falter in my faith and trust in Your promises.  So often I look at life only through the lens of my limited human understanding.  Throughout life, people have failed to fulfill what they promise to me.  But God, I know you will never fail to do what You have said.  Help me to live life with that perspective today.  Amen

New Living Translation (NLT)
Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.