In life, people are often unreliable.
So, when God makes a promise, it's understandable that we may have trouble believing it. After all, if most people don't keep their promises, why should God?
But there is so much evidence to the contrary in the Bible. The Lord has told us countless times how He always keeps His promises. However, it may not always be in the way we expect.
Today we’re going to discuss three promises of God in the Bible and their meanings.
Throughout religious history, God has made infinite promises to His children, both individually and on a global scale.
As God's people were held hostage in Egypt, one of His greatest promises in history was the deliverance of His people from slavery.
The Pharaoh was told by a man named Moses that it was the time to liberate God’s people. But the Pharaoh ignored Moses, and the outcome was devastation and destruction.
After the many plagues God sent in Egypt, the Pharaoh had no choice but to release God's people.
Though the Pharaoh sent his army to chase after the people who were fleeing Egypt, after 430 years of slavery, the Israelites escaped by crossing the Red Sea.
God made a promise to the nation of Israel that if they kept His commandments, He'd bless them abundantly. If they obeyed His word and truth, He'd set them high above all the nations on the Earth.
In Deuteronomy 28:9 the Bible says, "The Lord will establish you as His holy people, as He promised you on oath if you keep the commands of the Lord your God and walk in obedience to Him."
The Holy Spirit never failed to fulfill that promise, for He never breaks promises made to His children.
The promise the Heavenly Father made to Abraham is another great and well-known promise in the Old Testament.
During God's promise to Abraham, He said his descendants would be blessed, and great nations would grow from his offspring. As we see throughout God's word and history, this is exactly what happened.
"And God heard their groaning, and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel and God knew” (Exodus 2:24-25).
Covenants in the Bible usually refer to a binding agreement made between two parties, usually between God and someone else.
When God spoke to Abraham, there were three parts of the covenant of God’s promises.
In Genesis 12:1, Abraham, then known as Abram, was called by God to leave Ur and go to a place known as Canaan, which is also known as the promised land.
After Abram arrived in Canaan, the land became known as Israel, named after Abram's grandson. The promised land became a popular term for Israel because God promised to give the land to Abram's descendants.
The second part of the covenant is known as the promise of the descendants and can be found in Genesis 12:2.
This is where God promised Abram that He'd make a great nation out of him, “And I will make of you a great nation, and I'll bless you and make your name great so that you'll be a blessing.” God then changed Abram’s name to Abraham, which means “father of many nations.”
The third and last part of the Abrahamic covenant is known as the promise of blessing and redemption.
It can be found in Genesis 12:1-3, where God promises to bless Abraham and all of his descendants, “I'll bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you, I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
But these are just the promises that God made to people in the Bible. What about God’s Bible promises to us? Here are three promises through Bible verses that God has made us, His children.
“Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the Lord your God who goes with you. He won't leave you or forsake you.” (Deuteronomy 31:6).
Even during the darkest, most tumultuous times of our lives, we can rest assured that God's love is with us, even when we can’t feel His presence.
“And I'll do whatever you ask in my name so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.” (John 14:13-14)
In times of trouble, it’s the Lord God's promise that He'll answer anything we ask that fits within His purpose.
Although we don't always know when He'll answer our prayers, He always manages to do so one way or another. That's why we should always give thanks, and do good work throughout our daily lives.
“In this, the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent His only Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that He loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” (1 John 4:9-10)
Even though we can sometimes take the word love lightly doesn't mean that God has the same attitude. He's proven it through the sacrifice of His one and only Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, that His unfailing love for us is neither shallow nor superficial.
For we're all a part of the kingdom of God, and one day we're all blessed by the Almighty with eternal life.
As a Christian or any person of faith, trusting in God isn’t always easy, especially when everything seems to be going wrong in the world. But God doesn’t have anything to gain by misleading us, while we can lose everything by not trusting Him.
In Philippians 4:6-7, the Bible says, “Do not be anxious about anything but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
By remembering these promises, we can have faith that God is always looking out for our best interests.
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