the promise keeper

We are not used to living in a world where people keep their promises...at least not all the people...all the time.  We don't even keep our promises to ourselves.  As we launch into a New Year this weekend millions will make promises to themselves about losing weight and changing habit patterns but millions will not follow through to keep those promises.  Business deals are based on promises, often formalized by contracts, but they are often broken for a variety of reasons.  Marriages all start with a promise for a lifetime partnership...but many marriages crumble despite the promise.  We don't seem to always have the strength, courage or integrity to keep our promises.  In a sense we are conditioned to this and we build skepticism into our world view.  But there is One who absolutely keeps His promises.  There isn't a promise that God has made that He hasn't fulfilled (or is in the process of fulfilling).  We need a God who can be relied on because we cannot rely on ourselves, or each other, or society as a whole.  It just isn't in our nature to reliably complete what we start...In fact we don't even know what or where to start anyhow.  But God is the one who starts and who finishes.  He has started each of our lives and only He can bring our lives to the proper finish.  So, one daily resolution we might try to make this coming year is to acknowledge that we don't know what promises to keep and we don't know how to keep our promises...so we will bow before the One whose promises are always kept.   

Let's look for His promises as we walk with Him and build our actions on the basis of His commitments to us and through us!

1 John 2:²⁴ Therefore let that abide in you which you heard from the beginning. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father. ²⁵ And this is the promise that He has promised us—eternal life.