Word of Encouragement (9/7/2020)

Today, let’s dwell on the faithfulness of God’s promises. By faithfulness here, the authors mean “immutability.” They speak of four bases of God’s faithful promises.

“This faithfulness if based first of all on God’s truthfulness. The One who has promised will be faithful to fulfill what He has promised because He is true to His Word and true to the covenant by which He has bound Himself to us and upon which the promises are founded” (p. 47). Andrew Gary says, “Must not the promises be unchangeable, that are received and merited by the Son, who is truth himself, and the faithful Witness, and Amen…, applied by the Holy Ghost, who is the Spirit of truth…, made known to us by the gospel, which is the word of truth” (p. 47)?

“Second, this faithfulness is based on God’s willful debt to us in the promises. When God makes a promise to us, He makes Himself our debtor; therefore, we may humbly sue for what He owes us by virtue of His promise. Spurstowe says that although God’s free grace has made Him a Promiser, ‘his promise has made him a debtor’” (p. 47). What an amazing point! A good example of this is God’s promise of forgiveness to those who believe in Jesus’ name. The moment He promises to forgive us, we are freed from the burden of guilt and fear. But He must bear the burden of keeping that promise for all eternity by never bringing a charge against our sins, ever! How gracious God is to make that promise and how faithful He is to keep that promise!

“Third, the faithfulness of God’s promises is based on His fulfillment of the first promise concerning Christ in Genesis 3:15…. In other words, the promise of salvation, the promise of deliverance, the promise of provision, and even the promise of glory are all branches of that first promise of Christ” (p. 48). Since God did send the Seed of the Woman to crush the head of the serpent, we can be assured that all the other promises that branch out of this first promise will be fulfilled without fail!

“Finally, God assures us of the faithfulness of His promises by reminding us of His faithfulness to His covenant with creation (Gen. 8:21-22). As the sun rises every morning, we can take that as God’s assurance to us that He is faithful and He will not fail to fulfill all His promises. “The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness” (Lam. 3:22-23).

As you start the day with the rising of the sun, give thanks to God for His faithfulness and live in confident expectation of His steadfast love and mercies for you!