No Broken Promises

            Don’t you hate it when people break their promises?  You get your hopes up and then they dash them to pieces by neglecting to do what they said they would.  It’s difficult to trust them afterwards. 

            God, of course, has never gone back on any of His promises.  This is what Joshua reminded the people of during his farewell address (Joshua 23:14).  Yet there was a time when one of our biblical heroes experienced what appeared to be a broken promise from God.

            The account is found in Genesis 22:1-18.  Abraham is told by God to offer his son Isaac as a burnt sacrifice to the LORD.  Now just wait a minute!  Since when did God allow human sacrifices?  And not only that, but His promise to Abraham was that he would become a great nation through Isaac.  How can this happen if Abraham kills him?

            What’s amazing to me is that Abraham obeyed God without raising any objections.  My first reaction would be to accuse God of breaking His promise.  But not Abraham.  Notice what Scripture says about this man’s faith:  “Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead, and figuratively speaking, he did receive Isaac back from death” (Hebrews 11:19).  Wow!  That thought would have never occurred to me.  What faith he had in God that he would have considered a drastic idea like resurrection.

            And now the lesson comes home to me.  How do I react whenever God requests that I give up something in order to rely more fully on Him?  Am I willing to give my children to Him?  Am I willing to give my marriage to Him?  Am I able to trust Him to carry me through life?   God has promised take care of my needs (Matthew 6:33-34) and that he will bring good results out of all the chaos I create (Romans 8:28).  But do I believe these promises?  Is my faith strong enough that I can truly trust them?          

            The answer to all of these questions is “Yes” in Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians 1:20).  And this will become clearer to me the more time I spend with Him.  It will become as apparent to me as it did to Abraham the closer I grow toward the One who has never failed on a promise.

Doug