Monday 18 January 2016

Promises...

You know how it is,  right? When you promise somebody and you know you  have to keep your word. Not always can you stick to that promise, neither can you always fulfill it completely. The Bible is full of amazing promises. But unlike us, the LORD keeps each and every one of them.

At our church, we have a watch night prayer service, where we end the year (31st of December) with prayer and thanksgiving and begin the new year(1st Jan) with worship and thanksgiving. Towards the end of the prayer meeting we have this small tradition of picking up promises. The various promises of the bible are individually printed out and we pick one of them. We prayerfully pick up one of these and we believe that the LORD has promised that particular verse to us. You might say, if the bible has all those promises and I claim that each of those promises apply to us then why select one? Well, to answer that, we believe that by doing so, we get to claim this chosen promise in our prayers to the LORD. This encourages us through different stages of that year and you know what........ The LORD fulfills those promises. Moreover, we are to remember that these promises tend less to the materialistic needs and caters to our spiritual requirements. It constantly reminds us of our heavenly Father who would never forget the promise he made to us.

What is so special about these promises of the Bible? If you are an unbeliever you would think that the Bible is just a book of stories or if you are a believer then you would wonder why would we pick promises at all? I’ll answer both. The Bible is a book inspired by the Holy Spirit which encompasses all that has happened and all that is to come. It revolves around Jesus Christ and how and why one needs to accept him as their personal Saviour. We pick promises because we believe that we can claim this one special promise in our prayers to the Heavenly Father.

The promise that I picked up this year is “ ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people- Exodus 19:5”. Awesome and amazing , isn’t it????

I know the Lord would fulfill this promise in my life because of the following reasons:-
1.      His promises are good. 1 Kings 8:56 “.... Not one word has failed of all the good promises he gave..”
2.      His promises are Holy. Psalm 105:42 “For he remembered his holy promises...”
3.      His promises are great. 2 Peter 1:4 “ Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises so that .....”
4.      His promises are precious. (same verse as above)
5.      His promises are better. Hebrew 8:6 “ But the ministry of Jesus  has received is as superior to theirs as the covenant of which he is mediated is superior to the old one, and it is founded on better promises.”
6.      His promises are unchangeable. Hebrews 6:17 “Because God wanted to make the unchangeable nature of his purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, he confirmed it with an oath.”

If these promises are unchangeable, good and precious, why would the Lord not keep it? He keeps his word. Did you pick up your promise? If so, what is it? If not, go ahead and select one and let me know........


Have a blessed week!!!!!

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