DEVOTIONAL Header2023

Promises

March 21, 2023
Promises

“Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations…” (Romans 4:18, NIV).

“I got my hug!”

I had not seen her in a while. Her husband had been one of my dear friends with medical problems that complicated COVID and took his life last year.

“I was so blessed,” she said. “I was dreaming about him, just like when he was healthy. In that dream he gave me this wonderful hug.”

I told her, “That was no dream. It was a promise.”

There is that which we dream of and that which we should expect.

What’s the difference in a “wish,” “worldly hope,” “Christian hope” and “faith?”

When we wish for something, we open our hearts with a desire for something we want in the future.

Worldly hope would then take that wish and watch for it with longing, and with varied levels of expectation based on the evidence.

Christian hope is a desire born from a promise of God, infused with faith, leading to a confidence that it will come true.

Faith is trusting the One who gives us the promise.

We can so often get these confused when our hearts are involved.

I see patients in my practice who wish for health, and others, including myself, who wish God would fix very important matters without a promise from God. They then make themselves believe the wish will come true, calling that belief faith, using that “faith” as a switch to make God act in their favor. A wish cannot be made into Christian hope by wishing hard enough.

And there are Christians I know, including myself, who sometimes doubt the promises of God, transforming desires that should be Christian hope into wishes. Such a wish without faith may not erase the promise, but it may lead us to act more like the world than Christians who live with Christian hope.

And there are those who deny all promises of God because they do not know Him. Some of their wishes will come true, but like Omar Khayyam wrote:

“The worldly hope men set their hearts upon….
Like Snow upon the Desert’s dusty Face,
Lighting a little hour or two—is gone.”

God loves us and acts in our lives with that love. We are saved by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We are forgiven. We are welcomed at the throne of God. God will never leave us nor forsake us. When we die, we will live again. While we live on this side of glory, we live with purpose.

These are promises we can stand on. They lead to Christian hope that will not be denied. We must never let ourselves dilute that hope into wishes.

Dear God,
Let me trust in your promises and act like it.
Amen

Weekly Devotions

Bookend Stories

“For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor heigh, nor depth, nor ...
Weekly Devotions

Praying for Magic

“…the Egyptian magicians also did the same things by their secret arts: Each one threw down his staff and it became a snake...” (Exodus 7:11-12, ...
Pexels Markp 2790396
Weekly Devotions

Stopping the Train

“…a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side…But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to ...
pexels-sahil-raut-221100705-14588975
Weekly Devotions

Indispensable Me

“But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us” (2 Corinthians 4:7, ...
pexels-wanderingpickle-3692063
Weekly Devotions

Empty Vessels

“While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message” (Acts 10:44, NIV).   His father, a doctor ...
pexels-rdne-6670067
Weekly Devotions

A Compelling Argument

“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End” (Revelation 22:13, NIV).   I saw a patient ...
Weekly Devotions

Loving God

Loving God “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son…” (1 John 4:10, NIV).   “If ...
Weekly Devotions

Family

Family “For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name” (Ephesians 3:14-15, NIV).   He smoked ...