God’s Promises

 September 22, 2023

“[Abraham was] fully convinced that what [God] had promised He was also able to perform.” —Romans 4:21 

I’ve changed the wording as noted for clarity’s sake, but the message here remains. As I read these words this morning, it occurred to me that we tend to make two mistakes when it comes to believing God’s promises.

The first is distinguishing between God’s promises and what we would like God’s promises to be. This is an easy mistake to make. When I was praying for my brother-in-law’s healing, I was absolutely convinced that God had spoken in my spirit that he would recover. I drove down to see him in the hospital. The next day he died. I wanted his physical healing so much that I wasn’t able to distinguish between my desires and God’s promise. 

I am far from the only one who has made this mistake. I’ve listened to countless Christians tell me with absolute certainty that God had spoken to them, and listened again when their dreams fell apart and they were struggling to understand why God didn’t keep his promise. The real problem wasn’t God’s integrity, but their understanding.

The second mistake in this regard has to do with this business of being “fully convinced;” in other words, How strong is my faith? We generally do pretty well with matters we can figure out, or with problems we deem solvable, but Paul isn’t speaking here of things likely to occur. He speaks of Abraham “hoping against hope,” facing a humanly impossible problem. I have lots of faith if I can see possibilities in a situation. It gets a bit dicey when I’m facing something that seems entirely impossible. 

When it comes to faith, it’s important that we know what God has and hasn’t promised, and it’s critical that when it comes to those actual promises, we have absolute confidence in our God who does the impossible.