The Promises of God

It reminds me of being a child that lived in a neighborhood full of children. We would play at each other’s houses and sometimes one of the mothers would invite kids to have lunch. Sometimes they may have a dessert in the kitchen reserved for later. That wasn’t on the menu for the neighborhood kids, that was reserved for the family to enjoy. It’s the same way with God. While there are blessings that God bestows upon all creation, some things are reserved for His family.

The promises of God are not available to everyone. The promises of God are reserved for those who call upon the name of the Lord as Savior. Some blessings apply to the just and the unjust, but God has a secret place where a believer has access to and can receive the special blessings He withholds for His children.

I wonder how many people are not under the umbrella of the Lord's special blessings? How many think that it's a farce? Maybe it's because of a lack of belief. Maybe they experienced a time when they believed for a time and were hurt in some way. I'd challenge that person to consider whether it was a pain caused by God or by another person. As God's design provides grace to the believer, believer's are then called to extend grace to one another. Scripture is full of examples that God knows exactly what His creation is...Fallen. God shows us grace because He is love, but also to teach us how to treat one another. If He being God, full of perfection, chooses to extend grace to us, how can we, full of im-perfection, withhold grace from one another?

More often than not, it has something to do with pride. Once we receive the grace and blessings from God, we quickly forget the state of depraved desperation we were once in when we came to Christ. It resembles the state that King David was in after falling. Being in a state of blessing, he was led away into temptation by his own desires, which led him to committing adultery and having her husband murdered by way of placing him on the front line in battle. Pride had crept in and convinced him that he was untouchable.

Thankfully David cried out to the Lord in desperation recorded in Psalm 51(see below). Part of that Psalm reveals that it was against God that David sinned. It also reveals what was at the root of the sin, David had forgotten the joy of his salvation. He requests for God to restore the joy of his salvation and to sustain him with a willing spirit.

Sometimes we forget the blessings that God bestows upon mankind. Some times we forget that those of us who have acknowledged Christ as Lord, have been given the ultimate blessings of being called children of God. We grow weary of this life and things not going the way we think they should. Could it be that our spirit has become unwilling because we've lost the joy of our salvation?

I don't pretend to know where you are in this current moment. Where life and the circumstances of life have taken you. Or maybe the decisions that you have made in the past. What I am convinced of, is that God loves you and wants to give you salvation and He wants to sustain you by giving you a willing spirit to continue to race. You may feel like you're in last place, but God is on the sideline waiting for you to call out to Him for instruction. He will provide the instruction for you to continue and gain some ground. To get back in the ranks and be counted as one of His treasured followers.

Don't let pride or anything else stand in your way. Run to the Father, ask Him to create a clean heart in you, and see what He will do. He always desires the very best for those who hear and accept His call to be one of His own.

May His blessings be upon you, wherever you are.

'Be gracious to me, O God, according to Your lovingkindness; According to the greatness of Your compassion blot out my transgressions.

Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity And cleanse me from my sin.

For I know my transgressions, And my sin is ever before me.

Against You, You only, I have sinned And done what is evil in Your sight, So that You are justified when You speak And blameless when You judge.

Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, And in sin my mother conceived me.

Behold, You desire truth in the innermost being, And in the hidden part You will make me know wisdom.

Purify me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

Make me to hear joy and gladness, Let the bones which You have broken rejoice.

Hide Your face from my sins And blot out all my iniquities.

Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me.

Do not cast me away from Your presence And do not take Your Holy Spirit from me.

Restore to me the joy of Your salvation And sustain me with a willing spirit.

Then I will teach transgressors Your ways, And sinners will be converted to You.

Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, the God of my salvation; Then my tongue will joyfully sing of Your righteousness.

O Lord, open my lips, That my mouth may declare Your praise.

For You do not delight in sacrifice, otherwise I would give it; You are not pleased with burnt offering.

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.

By Your favor do good to Zion; Build the walls of Jerusalem.

Then You will delight in righteous sacrifices, In burnt offering and whole burnt offering; Then young bulls will be offered on Your altar.'

Psalms 51:1-19