The Promise

Warren Wiersbe once wrote, “We live by God’s promises.” This is an undeniable truth, that is present in all of our lives. As humans we are unique among all creation. In the beginning God gave mankind dominion over the earth and blessed mankind. He continues that blessing to this day as the earth he has created provides for our needs. He made a promise to Noah that he would never destroy the earth again and reminds us with his rainbow. And he made a promise to Abraham that he would make a great nation out of his descendants and that all the world would be blessed. All of God’s promises are of a supernatural nature that could and have and can only be fulfilled by him. When we seek God’s promises with our own power and in our own flesh, we will always fail and only disappointment and despair will remain.

Galatians 4:22-23

For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and one by a free woman. But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through promise.”

Not all people who call themselves Christians believe themselves to be sons and daughters of God most high are speaking, living and hoping in the same truths. Ishmael and Isaac both called Abraham their father and while this is true both took different paths. One was a son born of the flesh the other was a son born from supernatural means and was the son of God’s promise. There are many today who say they have been born again, but their birth was not supernatural but was of human origins. They seek to do better on thief own, putting faith on their own actions and efforts in seeking God. They are focused on a human region, based on human thought and desires. Charles Spurgeon describes this human religion, “It is human nature dressed up with a thin layer of what is thought to be grace.” There sadly are many who have cleaned themselves up and brushed of the dirt and out on new cloths and a new nature, trying to convince themselves and others that they have put thru old nature to rest. These human attempts to gain our own righteousness based on our own works and actions will always fail. They are short lived, temporary at best. Jesus said, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh.” It is long those that have sought salvation and God on their own power will return the sinful ways of their past self. When try and rise up from our corrupt human nature on our own we can only rise as far as our own flesh will allow. Jet as water will only rise as high as its source, so it is with human nature it cannot reach thru heights of God’s divine nature. The flesh will always fall short, as it is only from God that the promise flows. If you sore seeking salvation in the power of your own flesh you are an type of Ishmael a child born of nature not of God.

Jesus tells Nicodemus, “You must be born again.” Upon hearing this Nicodemus response, “How can a man be born again when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” Nicodemus like many people was thinking like a natural man, failing to realize that this act of being born again is not natural but supernatural. Ishmael was born of the flesh, so he lived by the flesh, Isaac was born to Abraham and Sara in their old age and was a supernatural act that could have only been accomplished by God. Isaac was to be the son of the promise made to Abraham and Sara. The promise that Abraham would be the father of a great nation, a nation that would bless all nations. To partake in this promise, we to must be born into the promise, for there is no grace, and no salvation apart from the promise and the grace found in the promise. We cannot come to God under our own power the promise an only be fulfilled by God. We come to him as like beggars at the gate of the King, weeping over our sin seeking his grace. Charles Spurgeon said of this, “My hope lies only in the promise of God. He has set forth that promise in the person of his Son Jesus, to every sinner who believes in Him. I do believe in Him; therefore, I trust and believe that the Lord will fulfill His promise and bless me. I look for heavenly blessedness, not as the results of my own effort, but as the gift of God’s free favor. MY hope is set only and completely upon the free and gratuitous love of God., to guilty men, by which He has given His Son Jesus Christ to put away sin and to bring in everlasting righteousness for those who deserve it.”