Promises:
- a declaration that something will or will not be done, given, or kept by one
- an express assurance on which expectation is to be based.
We have all received a promise, made a promise & sadly, broken a promise.
There are many sayings about promises. To share a few:
- Promises are like babies: easy to make, hard to deliver. ~Author Unknown
- Promises are like crying babies in a theater, they should be carried out at once. ~Norman Vincent Peale
- Eggs and oaths are easily broken. ~Danish Proverb
- We must not promise what we ought not, lest we be called on to perform what we cannot. ~Abraham Lincoln
- Let God’s promises shine on your problems. ~Corrie Ten Boom
Promises are a funny thing. Once it is said, we expect it to be done. Yet we doubt.
When Abraham was 99 years old (check that out for yourself – Genesis 17:1), God appears to him & says:
 “I will make a covenant with you, by which I will guarantee to give you countless descendants.” (Genesis 17:2 NLT).
Abraham was 99 years old. His wife, Sarah, about 10 years younger. Any way you slice that, it is an impossibility. Sarah was well beyond the years of child-bearing. Yet we are told in Genesis 21:1 –
“The LORD kept his word and did for Sarah exactly what he had promised. She became pregnant, and she gave birth to a son for Abraham in his old age. This happened at just the time God had said it would.” (Genesis 21:1,2 NLT).
Did you catch it? EXACTLY what was promised, God delivered (no pun intended!!! OK, maybe a little.) Not only did He keep His Word but He did it in the exact timing that He had declared He would. In other words, the promise was not only kept, it was kept with precision. Every detail in the manner in which He had stated to Abraham.
There are times I am no different than Abraham & Sarah. I doubt. There I said it. I know what God has said, what He has promised. Yet I wonder, “Will He really do that for me?”. Or sometimes, “Can He really do that for me?”
This morning as I read this familiar story about Abraham & Sarah, these verses came to my mind:
“For 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.” (2 Corinthians 1:20 NIV).
“God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind.
Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill.” (Numbers 23:19 NIV).Â
People may make promises that they cannot keep, will not keep, maybe never even intended to keep. But my God is not like man at all. He keeps His Word. He keeps His promises. Each & every one of them. He keeps them….
   fully….
            totally………..
                             and with perfection.
