Review
If you want to love God more, begin with resolve – resolve to prefer Him above everything else. Then work on your appetite – convert all the thirst of your soul to thirst for God. Then do all you can to satisfy those desires. Seek God. Follow hard after Him so you can feast upon Him. And when you find Him, behold Him. Seeing God transforms the soul. And last week we looked at a fifth principle: Remember.
Sanctify your memory by…
1. Making much of your experiences of God’s love
2. Taking advantage of night time
3. Filling your life with review and reminders
When times are good, celebrate that with however much celebration it takes to imprint the experience of God’s love in your long-term memory. And when times are hard, and when you feel bad – remember that you haven’t always felt bad. There have been times when you have felt great, and have been full of energy and hope and joy. Those times were times when God smiled on you and was trying to show you love. Reach back into your memory and retrieve the memories of wonderful times with the Lord.
Psalm 143:4-6 So my spirit grows faint within me; my heart within me is dismayed. 5 I remember the days of long ago; I meditate on all your works and consider what your hands have done. 6 I spread out my hands to you; my soul thirsts for you like a parched land. Selah
Remembering will make your soul thirst for God in times of sorrow. If you remember the wonderful times, you will thirst for them. But if you stored those wonderful times in your mind as times of sweet fellowship with and enjoyment of God, ten you will thirst for God.
Introduction
Praise is Joy
The final three lessons I would like to devote to the subject that is the most dominant theme in this psalm – joyful praise. David speaks more about that in Ps.63 that about any other subject. Even though he is miserable, he is in the desert, he is dry, thirsty, weary - still the consuming topic on his mind more than anything else is joyful praise.
3 Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you.
4 Therefore I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands.
5b …with singing lips my mouth will praise you.
7b … I sing in the shadow of your wings.
11 the king will rejoice in God; all who swear by God's name will praise him
It is all about joyful praise. Actually, the phrase “joyful praise” is redundant. All true praise is joyful because praise is nothing more than the expression of joy in God. Praise is what happens in your mouth when you are happy. Scripture associates the the singing of praises with feelings of gladness.
Jas.5:13 Is any one of you in trouble? He should pray. Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise.
When you are thrilled or moved or amazed or enthralled with something – the things that come out of your mouth are called “praise.” When you are walking out of a theater after seeing the best movie you have ever seen, or standing there in awe at the rim of the Grand Canyon or at Niagara Falls, or getting up after a fantastic meal - after any experience that has caused joy in your heart, the things that come out of your mouth at that moment are called “praise.”
Praise is simply the expression of joy in the heart. That is why I say the phrase “joyful praise” is a redundancy. It is kind of like saying “happy laughter.” You don’t have to say “happy” to describe it because all laughter is happy.
But I say “joyful praise” anyway because we tend not to be as aware of the definition of praise as we are of laughter. Our legalistic hearts tend to reduce praise to a mere duty that can be done regardless of how we feel. So I will use the term “joyful” to remind us of what praise really is.
When David says he is going to praise all the time; that means he is going to be joyful all the time. So these last three weeks of this study are about how to be happy in the Lord all the time- even in the midst of pain and sorrow (and that is not a contradiction).
The Basis for Joyful Praise – God’s Promises
This lesson will focus particularly on the basis for joyful praise. If you are going to be happy in the Lord all the time – so happy that praise comes out of your mouth, something is going to have to generate all that joy. And that something is delight in God’s great and precious promises. If you look carefully at v.7 you will get a peek at what was behind David’s joy in the Lord.
7 Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings.
The singing comes because God is his help. Now keep in mind, David was still waiting for that help. When he wrote this psalm he was running for his life. He was in the desert. He was dry and thirsty in a weary land. He was needy. He was in trouble. He had not experienced God’s rescue from that circumstance yet, but still he is singing because God is his help. How can you sing over God being your help when you haven’t received that help yet? You can do it because God has promised to be your help. You can sing for joy if (and only if) you believe that promise.
The central role of the promises
Our joy in the Lord comes from believing God’s great and precious promises. For a most of my life I think I have been guilty of failing to take God’s promises seriously enough. God’s promises are not just little encouragements to give you a boost here and there when you get a little down. Peter’s words about the importance of the promises are staggering.
2 Pe.1:3-4 His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. 4 Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.
Are you are interested in escaping the corruption of the world caused by evil desires? How about participating (koinonos – having fellowship with) the divine nature? According to v.4, how do we escape the corruption of the world and participate in the divine nature? Through His great and precious promises.
The promises should be right there at the center of the way you live your Christian life. If you are trying to overcome some sin, or to develop some virtue, or to seek closeness with God or guidance from God or anything else in the Christian life, if you are not using God’s promises in such a way that you succeed in what you are trying to do by means of the promises, then something is wrong.
This method glorifies God
God has made His promises the key to living the Christian life, and He did it that way for an important reason. He set it up that way so that when you have success in the Christian life, God gets the credit for it. If success came through the “try harder to be good” method, then whenever I resisted a temptation I would get the credit. So God developed a system where we won’t have success unless we have it in a way that gives Him all the glory. Christ is glorified when you have success because you were relying completely on His promises – the promises that are all yes and amen in Him.
Hebrews 8 talks about how the New Covenant is so much superior to the Old, and in v.6 he tells us why it is superior.
Heb.8:6 the ministry Jesus has received is as superior to theirs as the covenant of which he is mediator is superior to the old one, it is founded on better promises
The New Covenant is better than the Old because It is based on better promises. So you can see that both the Old and the New Covenants were based on promises – all of God’s dealings with us as His people are founded upon promises. God’s great and precious promises are right at the very core of all His dealings with us.
How does it work?
2 Cor.6:16 What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said…
(and then he lists several Old Testament promises.)
"I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people."
17 "Therefore come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you."
18 "I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty."
The very next verse is 7:1, where he draws a conclusion from the fact that we have all those great promises.
7:1 Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness in fear of God.
Why doesn’t he just say, “Purify yourself”? Why does he connect it with the promises? I would suggest a couple reasons. The first one is obvious enough – we purify ourselves because that is a condition for some of the promises.
17 “come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you."
In order to receive the promise of being received by Him we have to touch no unclean thing.
v.1 perfecting holiness in fear of God.
The promises help us because they are so wonderful they make us afraid to lose them – that is one way they help us live the Christian life. But there’s another way the promises enable you to walk with the Lord. When your eyes are opened to the beauty and wonder of one of God’s promises – so you can really see how great it is, that causes joy in your heart. And that joy becomes the power that enables you to live a godly life and to walk with God. The power for living the Christian life rises up out of the joy that comes from relying on the great and precious promises. We learn that from the amazing comment God made to David after he committed adultery and murder. David had covered up his sin. He thought he got away with it, but now he is being exposed by God’s prophet. Here’s what God said:
2 Sam.12:8 I gave your master's house to you, and your master's wives into your arms. I gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if all this had been too little, I would have given you even more.
He didn’t given David the women of Saul’s household for David to marry them. It just means He gave David Saul’s entire kingdom including control of his own house. But however you deal with that problem, the point of the verse is clear. God was telling David that if all that he had been given were too little (surely “too little” means too little to satisfy), God would have given him more.
Isn’t that amazing? When what I give my kids isn’t enough, I am inclined to take it away from them for being ungrateful. But God will just keep giving and won’t stop until He has given as much as it takes to satisfy us! Just sit back in your chair and let that sink in for a minute. He doesn’t say to David, “You should have been satisfied with what I gave you.”He says, “If what I gave you wasn’t enough to satisfy, I would have given you more.”
The words “would have” are sad. They must have been a painful reminder to David that the offer was forfeited. God did not give him more. He would have if David hadn’t tried to find satisfaction another way.
If this strikes you as being not quite right – I assure you, it is quite right. So just sit there for a moment and let your conceptions of what God is like to adjust. God’s promises to you are His Word that He will supply you with all you need for satisfaction – how many times have we seen that in this study? That means if there is ever a moment when you do not have enough to satisfy the desires of your soul, God will give you more.
And why wouldn’t He? He has unlimited resources. He has unlimited love. He has unlimited generosity. If He didn’t withhold His own Son, why would He hold back on anything else?
Do you see the implications of what God said to David? Essentially what God is saying is that if David would have just rested on God’s promise of generosity, he never would have fallen into the sin. If David would have trusted in God’s promise to give to the point of full satisfaction, David would not have fallen into that sin. We only sin when we decide that God isn’t going to be satisfying and something else is. Look at the next verse.
9 Why did you despise the word of the LORD
The word “despise” means “to think little of.” When we sin, we are thinking little of God’s promises. That means when we think much of God’s promises – when we take them seriously instead of lightly, we won’t sin. If David would have thought much of God’s promises to satisfy – the very promises that David wrote so many psalms about, he would not have fallen to that sin. If you want to conquer sin in your life you will need to train your heart to make much of God’s great and precious promises.
So this is another way you use the promises to live the Christian life. Any time you are tempted just tell your soul, If you don’t have enough, God will give you more until you are satisfied. Let God’s words to David ring in your head all the time, “If that were not enough I would have given you more.”
Now the question is, more of what? What will God keep giving me more of until I’m satisfied? Does He give you more of some idol – some thing you look to for your joy that isn’t God? No. God will not finance adultery against Him. Will He supply more some something that will harm you? Of course not. He will only supply you with more of what it takes to satisfy your soul. And what does that? His presence. God promises to keep giving us more and more of Himself until we are satisfied – if we just don’t seek satisfaction from another source.
So God has made His promises the central engine of the entire Christian life. He made it so if you want to be successful at resisting temptation, doing what’s best, following God’s will, becoming more holy, loving God more - it will only happen when you know His promises, believe His promises, and love His promises. Only then will your soul latch on to them and rest on them enough to generate joy.
Knowing the promises
First, you have to know them. Obviously, you can’t take any joy in promises you don’t even know. I look for more promises in Scripture every single day. Every passage I read or study or memorize I am on the lookout for promises that are stated or implied. Make it a habit every day to find at least one promise in Scripture. God wants us to know His promises, so He gave us the Bible, and loaded it up with a stated or implied promise in almost every paragraph.
Believing the promises
If all you do is learn what they are, however, they will not help you live the Christian life. You must also believe them. God wanted us to be able to believe them, and so Jesus Christ came into this world and died in order to make those promises yes and amen for us.
2 Cor.1:20-22 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.
Because of the cross, in Christ all of God’s promises are yes and amen – absolutely certain and guaranteed and reliable. Jesus died to make sure all God’s promises would be fulfilled. So all of God’s promises are “yes” in Christ Jesus. Do we get peace? Yes. Love? Yes. Wisdom? Yes. Joy? Yes. Victory,Yes. Strength, Yes. Power, Yes.
Just the right amount of suffering and the privilege of bearing on our bodies the marks of Christ? Yes! Knowledge, righteousness, truth, forgiveness, guidance, provision, spiritual gifts, His Word, spiritual riches, adoption, the Holy Spirit? YES! Love that is better than life at its best? God’s river of delights? Living water? A satisfying feast? Fellowship with Him? Knowledge of Him? Union with Him? Yes! Every spiritual blessing in Christ in the heavenlies? Yes.
And in the future, eternal life? Yes! Heaven? Yes! Reigning, Honor, reward, ruling, a seat at His table? Yes! Every tear wiped away? Everlasting, exuberant, rich, deep, profound, perfect joy? Total deliverance from the presence of sin forever? The privilege of seeing God face to face?
God the Son stripped off His eternal, heavenly glory and became a man and suffered and died so He could make the answer to every one of those questions “yes” and “amen” for us. He set these promises in stone and then put them at the center of all His dealings with us.
But that is not all. After all that, God swore; He swore an oath. Hebrews 6 tells us about God’s promise to Abraham.
Heb.6:17 Because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, he confirmed it with an oath.
(An oath is when you say, “May some horrible thing happen to me if I break my promise.” – like “Cross my heart, hope to die, stick a needle in my eye”) God did that – He swore and oath that said, “May I be chopped in half if I break this promise.” Why? Why make an oath when you are God and Your word is perfect by itself? Why did God do that?
18 God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged.
He did it to encourage us – to help us believe Him. Everything God says should be fully believed. God should not have to make an oath to help us believe. God is not a man that He has to swear oaths to make Himself believable. And yet in His amazing mercy, He did! He will do anything to help us believe. You may be thinking, If I already believe everything God says anyway, how can I be more encouraged by Him making an oath?
Here’s how: The fact that God made the oath encourages us because it shows us how earnest He is about desiring that we be encouraged. God want you to know how powerful is His desire that you believe. He wants you to get it. He really, really, really, really, really wants you to be encouraged by His promises. And to show you just how much He wants that – how powerful is His desire that you be encouraged by His promises, He is even willing to condescend and make an oath. His oath does not make His promise more certain – it was as certain as it could possibly be all by itself. What the oath did was underscore for us how intense is God’s desire that we be able to believe.
So God gave us His Word and filled it with promises so that we might know the great and precious promises. Then He sent His Son to die on the cross in order to make all those promises yes and amen for us, and He swore an oath to help us believe the great and precious promises.
Loving the promises
It is important to understand that when God talks about believing, or faith, He means a lot more than just agreeing that something is true. Having faith in something means not only agreeing that It is true but embracing it and loving it as a wonderful, trustworthy thing. I said there are three things – knowing, believing and loving the promises. But really those are not three different things. They are all part of one thing – faith. When you know God’s promises, and you are persuaded in your soul that they are true, and your soul delights in that, then His promises will anchor you to the presence of God.
They anchor us to the presence of God
God swore an oath because He wants our hope in His promises to serve as an anchor for our lives – an anchor that attaches us to the very presence of God!
19 We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain 20 where Jesus, who went before us, entered on our behalf.
It used to be no one could enter directly into the presence of God. But then Jesus came and entered for us, and He died on the cross so that all God’s promises could be yes and amen for us and those promises could be like anchors that attach us to the presence of God! You not only escape your own evil desires and the corruption of this world through His great and precious promises, but you also participate in the divine nature through them, because they anchor your soul to the very presence of God.
Every relationship has its special expressions of closeness. For some relationships, the most intimate expression of closeness might be a high five or a good, firm, two-handed handshake. For others it might be a hug. In marriage, the closest of all human relationships, the most profound and most intimate expression of closeness is the one-flesh union in the marriage bed. There are a lot of ways a man and wife relate to one another, but that is the closest and most intimate of all.
What about between us and God? The Christian’s relationship with God is even closer than that of husband and wife. And it has a lot of expressions of closeness and intimacy. But the closest of all, and the most intimate and profound of all of them, is when you are trusting in and relying on and leaning on one of His great and precious promises. That is when you are the closest to Him. That anchors your soul to His presence and lets you participate in the divine nature.
Trusting in God’s promises is an act of intimacy because trust is an expression of love. If my wife decides to trust me in some area, she is showing me love by doing that. And we all have our favorite ways to be loved. Some people like gifts, some like acts of service, some like physical touch, some like quality time – God’s main “love language” is faith. More than anything else He loves it when you just let your soul rest in one of His promises. You are never closer to Him than when you are delighting in one of His promises. So a huge key to living the Christian life is treasuring God’s promises – learning to really love them. Like the psalmists.
Ps.119:140 Your promises have been thoroughly tested, and your servant loves them.
With the psalmist we say, “I love it that Your promises have been thoroughly tested. I love it that there is no question whether they will be reliable. I love it that if I just seek after You instead of something else, there is a 100% chance of me being satisfied – I love that! I love it that for thousands of years people from all over the world in every culture and every walk of life - rich people; poor people, powerful people weak people; smart people, dumb people; famous people, nobodies; old people, young people, men, women - every one of them who has tested Your promises has found them to be fully trustworthy. Not one person who has ever relied on one of Your promises was ever disappointed. I love it that You are a God who can promise satisfaction.”
No one else can do that. When the world tries to guarantee something, the best they can do is say, “Money back if not completely satisfied.” But they can never say, “We guarantee you will be completely satisfied.” Can you imagine how rich someone would be if they could invent something that was guaranteed to satisfy the longings of the human soul? But there is no earthly product like that. There are species of depression that are absolutely untouched by the biggest pleasures this world has to offer. There are times when your favorite activity, your favorite food, your favorite person – does nothing to satisfy the longings inside you. Giving to the point of satisfaction is something only God can do. If I want to give lavishly to my kids, I can give them all I have, I can persuade others to give them more, I can borrow money and give them still more; but I can never guarantee they will be satisfied. If I gave all I could possibly find to give and they still were not satisfied, I wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. Only God can guarantee full satisfaction,
What if He couldn’t? What if God were like this world – He could offer lots of wonderful things; but with no guarantee that they would satisfy? What if God’s presence were like money or a vacation – it might satisfy you and it might not. And if it doesn’t – too bad. Nothing can be done about it. What if God were like that?
I think many times I have been guilty of acting as though God were like that. I go to spend time with Him in the morning, and I read the Bible, and it leaves me flat. Nothing in there really generates joy in my heart. I know it should, but on this particular day it just doesn’t. And I pray and try to commune with Him, and I feel nothing. I’m still down. I’m still depressed. I’m still worried. I’m still bored - I’m just not satisfied. And instead of saying, “Lord, I know Your presence will satisfy me if I just persist in seeking You,” and instead of rejoicing over the fact that that is an absolute guarantee, I give up. Cut my devotion time short, and start looking around for other things to mask my pain a little bit. I look to my wife or my work or some project or the Internet or the news or a movie or food, searching for something in this world to mitigate my boredom or depression or anxiety. I turn to comforts that are non-comforts. They are bankrupt. They don’t give lasting comfort. They don’t give any real comfort at all. They only mask the pain with a short-lived sensation of pleasure. They don’t give life. They don’t preserve life.
Ps.119:50 My comfort in my suffering is this: Your promise preserves my life.
When I walk out of my prayer room unsatisfied, and then start looking to earthly things to satisfy my soul, I am acting as though God were bankrupt, and God’s promises didn’t preserve my life – but earthly things did. In the insanity of our forgetfulness we turn things around, and we invent a horrible, horrible world - a world where God can offer some great stuff from time to time but He can’t guarantee satisfaction.
And my question for you is this: Aren’t you glad that world does not exist? Aren’t you glad God is a spring of living water that ALWAYS has the ability to satisfy your soul? If that thought is bringing you any joy at all at this moment, do you know what’s happening? Do you know where that joy is coming from? Remember we found that joy comes from experiencing God – having a personal experience of one or more of God’s attributes. If there is joy in your heart right now over what I was just describing it is because you are, right at this moment, in God’s presence personally experiencing one of His attributes – an attribute we call “faithfulness.”
It is a celebration of His faithfulness
Remember – the only experience of God that is possible to have is an experience of one of His attributes – there is no other way to experience God. The only way to have any kind of communion with God is to experience one of His attributes. You love God more only when you have greater and greater experiences of His attributes. And the most profound communion of all comes when you experience the attribute of His faithfulness in His promises.
When it comes to our experience of God, I would go so far as to say that His faithfulness is the most basic and essential of all His attributes. And the reason I say that is simple – whatever attribute of God you are experiencing, by experiencing and enjoying that attribute you are experiencing and enjoying God’s faithfulness. Any time you enjoy God’s love, you are enjoying God’s faithfulness to love. Any time you enjoy God’s justice you are enjoying God’s faithfulness to be just. Any time you enjoy God’s mercy you are enjoying God’s faithfulness to be merciful. God isn’t just loving – He is reliably loving. He isn’t just merciful – He is reliably merciful. And It is the fact that we can rely on those things that brings us such joy. That is what preserved the psalmist’s life in the midst of his affliction – that he could absolutely count on all the attributes of God benefiting him. And the only reason he could count on that is because of God’s promises.
Think about what an amazing thing it is that faithfulness is one of God’s attributes. We ought to be faithful to God because we are obligated. We are obligated out of duty to Him. Faithfulness is reliability with respect to an obligation – someone is faithful if you can count on him to do what he is obligated to do. But what obligates God? Only His promises. If God had not made any promises He could treat us in any manner and it would not be unfaithfulness on His part. His only obligation to treat us in any good way is self-imposed by His own promises – promises He didn’t have to make.
It almost seems like it should be blasphemous to say, “God must show me love and bless me enormously – and if He does not He would be unfaithful.” That sounds like an absurdity, and yet by making he promises He has made God turned that into a true statement!
What glorious things His promises are! Think about this – God could have just given us all the same good gifts as He give us without promising them to us. He could have just shown us love and kindness and mercy and justice and forgiveness and patience and strengthening and guidance and all the rest without promising to do those things. Why promise? Why not just do them?
If God had done it that way, and just gave us all the good gifts without promising to do so, that would not be as good as getting the promises and then getting the good gifts. Without those promises we would not have anything to serve as the foundation for our trust in Him. When I am crushed by some sorrow – It is not enough for God to be up in heaven planning to comfort me. What I need between now and when He actually does it is a promise that I can cling to for my hope. It is not enough, when I am enticed by some worldly pleasure, for God to be up in heaven planning on satisfying me with some greater satisfaction. What I need at the moment of temptation is to know that that satisfaction is guaranteed. It is not enough, when I am afraid because I lost my income and I don’t know how I’ll pay my bills for God to be up in heaven planning on providing for me. What I need is a promise that I can latch on to that points me to God’s care for the birds of the air and then guarantees me that I’m much more important to God than them and He will absolutely, positively take care of me. I don’t want God to just wait for Judgment Day to surprise me with the gift of heaven instead of hell. I need to know that I am bound for heaven right now.
The world experiences a lot of God’s great gifts, but not as promises. They can’t count on them. They can’t take delight in God because they know they are coming.
God’s promises enable us to take great joy in His gifts prior to receiving the gifts. He is like a generous uncle who calls you in October to tell you about this amazing Christmas present he bought you because he wants you to be full of joy right now. He can’t wait until Christmas to hear you laugh. That is how God is. There are reasons why certain blessings have to wait, but God doesn’t want to wait until then to hear you laugh. He can’t wait for you to rejoice in Him, so He gives you everything in promise form right now.
Ps.33:20-22 We wait in hope for the LORD; he is our help and our shield. 21 In him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in his holy name. 22 May your unfailing love rest upon us, O LORD, even as we put our hope in you.
And He did that because He cares supremely about His own glory. Nothing glorifies Him more than when you delight in Him and rejoice in Him as a supreme all-satisfying treasure. Nothing is better for you, and nothing glorifies Him more than that. And so He gave His great and precious promises, and swore and oath and put them in cement, so they are utterly reliable. And He has provided us with a 6 thousand year track record of faithfulness on His resume so that we might be greatly encouraged.
1 Kings 8:56 "Praise be to the LORD, who has given rest to his people Israel just as he promised. Not one word has failed of all the good promises he gave through his servant Moses.
Not one has failed. Not one. Who else can say that? What, in this life, is that reliable? Nothing.
When you are experiencing the pain of God’s rod because of your sin, and His chastisement has torn you to pieces, and you are tempted to think He has abandoned you for good, He says things like this:
Hos.6:1-3 "Come, let us return to the LORD. He has torn us to pieces but he will heal us; he has injured us but he will bind up our wounds. 2 After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will restore us, that we may live in his presence. 3 Let us know the LORD; let us press on to know him. As surely as the sun rises, he will appear; he will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth."
As surely as the sun rises. Let that sink in – as surely as the sun rises. When you are thinking, “In my case, it may not happen. I think I have gone too far. I have been too unfaithful. I have been astray too long. My affections are too deadened. I don’t know if I’ll ever be restored to closeness and intimacy with Him.” He says, “As surely as the sun rises.” It may not be today. It may not be tomorrow. You may have a long winter. But keep pressing on to know Him, because if you do, as surely as the sun rises He will come to you. You need to know the certainty of that promises in those times when heaven seems like brass and your prayers seem to be bouncing off the ceiling right back into your face. And 2 Pe.3:9 says He is never slow in keeping His promises. He might wait a year or 10 years or 50 years, but He is never slow. I love the line in that praise song that says, “He is never early; never late.” Praise God that He is never early. He doesn’t do things too soon and short-circuit His own good purposes in delaying. Nor is He ever late. His timing is always perfect.
Promise Warfare
So I want to urge you –
1 Tim.6:12 Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called
It is a fight. This is warfare that has to do with faith – trust in God’s promises. Our struggle is against the rulers and authorities and powers of this world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. We are involved in big time spiritual warfare, and our enemy has all his guns trained on our faith. He knows he can’t touch us unless he can somehow get us out from behind the shield of faith. He will do anything he can do to get you out from behind that shield so he can destroy you. He will get your friends or your own heart to tell you that God’s promises don’t apply in your case. His promise to treat you as a loving father – does not apply to you. You have sinned too much. Satan will try to trick you into thinking that fellowship and intimacy and joy in God are out of your reach. It is too hard for you. You just can’t do it.
How do you fight against thoughts like that? You take up the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, and you start reading the promises and believing them. You read the promise in Dt.30 that what God calls you to is not out of your reach. You read that same promise quoted by Paul in Ro.10. You read Ps.103 and find that God remembers that you are dust and so He deals with you gently as a loving father. You read the promise in Isa.45:19 where God says He didn’t tell us “Seek me in vain.” You read all those and then trust and delight in God’s faithfulness. And joy and hope fill your heart and Satan is defeated.
When Satan tempts you with covetousness at the mall you run to God’s promises of lavish provision and generosity and satisfaction. When he tempts you with anger you run to God’s promises of justice and vindication and reward for patience. When he tempts you with laziness you run to God’s promises of reward for diligence. When he tempts you with despair you run to God’s promises that our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal weight of glory so that our present sufferings are not even worthy to be compared. When he tempts you to be angry with the circumstances God has sent into your life you run to God’s promise in Ps.119:175 in faithfulness You have afflicted me. When he tempts you to be stingy you run to God’s promise in Lk.6:38 Give and it will be given to you, a good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over into the lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured to you.
The problem is it is tough to recall God’s promises right at the moment when you need them. And so I put together a bookmark to help you with that. It is in the appendix. I put together 26 of my favorite promises from God’s Word and arraigned them by the letters of the alphabet. On the way to church my family plays the alphabet game – but each letter they have to say what promise it stands for. We are also working on memorizing all the verses. That way you can recall a promise whenever you need it. If you mind is blank, you can just look at whatever is in front of you – “a chair. Chair starts with C. C is for “Comfort me.” (the 23rd psalm – Your rod and your staff they comfort me.) It is a great way to recall a promise in those moments when you don’t have time to think much.
Another thing we do is focus on one promise each day of the month. Today is the 14th, and the 14th letter in the alphabet is N. N is for New heavens and hew earth.
Isa.65:17-19 "Behold, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind. 18 But be glad and rejoice forever in what I will create, for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight and its people a joy. 19 I will rejoice over Jerusalem and take delight in my people; the sound of weeping and of crying will be heard in it no more.
That is today’s promise. If you have all the letters memorized and all 26 passages down solid, then even on days when you don’t have your devotion time or you can’t remember the passage you studied, you will never be at a loss to have at your immediate recall one of God’s great and precious promises.
