A Promise Made, A Promise Kept

"You've got my word on it.

"Yes, I will be glad to."

"First Thing tomorrow."

"I commit to......"

"I promise."

Words that should carry weight but unfortunately end up hollow if not followed through. We as humans have constant opportunity to "follow through" with commitments and yet we fail in so many ways.

For instance,

do you tell someone you will meet them at a certain day and time and show up as
promised?

do you every day honor and cherish your spouse as stated
in your wedding
vows?

do you reach all those deadlines you set at
work or home?

have you broken any of those new year's resolutions
you made eleven
months ago?

Join the club, sweet sister

Why is it that sometimes our commitments and declarations come up short? One is because integrity of word is not what it use to be. A hand shake with "You have my word on it" was more than enough to trust another person years ago.

Another reason is because, quite frankly, we in our humaness are not capable of following through on every promise and commitment we make. We are fallible human beings. We fail. Yes that's right, we fail. And others fail us as well, be it our loved ones, politicians, business partners and even other Christians. Apart from Christ working in and through us we are incapable of even coming close to living a consistent life of integrity.

In fact, God alone is the only One who always has and always will keep His commitments, his promises, His word. His greatest promise of all was in reference to His Son coming to this earth. He spoke thousands of years ago to the prophets of the Old Testament about the Son who would be the Savior of humankind;

Isaiah 7:14 states (700 years before Christ arrived on the scene)that

"a virgin will be with child and have a son and his name will be
Emmanuel (God with us)."

Matthew 1:18-24 confirms Isaiah words,

This is how Jesus the Messiah was born. His mother, Mary, was
engaged to
be married to Joseph. But before the marriage took place,
while she was
still a virgin, she became pregnant through the power of the
Holy Spirit. Joseph,
her fiance, was a good man and did not want to
disgrace her publicly, so he
decided to break the engagement quietly. As he
considered this, an angel of
the Lord appeared to him in a dream. “Joseph,
son of David,” the angel said, “Do
not be afraid to take Mary as your wife.
For the child within her was conceived by the Holy Spirit. And she will have a
son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save
his people from their
sins.” All of this occurred to fulfill the Lord’s
message through his
prophet: “Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She
will give birth to a
son, and they will call him Immanuel, which means ‘God
is with us.’ ” When
Joseph woke up, he did as the angel of the Lord
commanded and took Mary as
his wife. But he did not have sexual relations
with her until her son was
born. And Joseph named him Jesus.

The prophet Micah in chapter 5:2 tells us (about 750 years before Christ) where the Messiah would be born,

But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah,
are only a small village among all the
people of Judah.
Yet a ruler of Israel will come from you,
one whose
origins are from the distant past.

Once again it is confirmed in Matthew 2 and Luke 2 just as promised.

There are numerous other passages where God spoke through his prophets in the Old Testament and it happened just as promised. If you go to christiananswers.net you will find many different promises made and kept by God of Jesus' coming to earth; His geneology, His miracles, how Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey preceding His death; even details of His death and resurrection are foretold. Amazing!

But what's really interesting to me is that just as the prophets of old promised Jesus' first coming, Jesus then promises us in the New Testament that He is yet again coming back.

After telling his disciples in Matthew 16:24-26, the foolishness of living for the things of this world He tells them in verse 27,

For the Son of Man will come with his angels in the glory of his Father and
will judge all people according to their deeds.

And we find many other accounts referencing this "coming of the Lord."

Matthew 24:3, 27, 37, 39; 1 Corinthians 15:23; 1 Thessalonians 2:19; 3:13; 4:15; 5:23; 2 Thessalonians 2:1, 8, 9; James 5:7, 8; 2 Peter 1:16; 3:4, 12; 1 John 2:28. In fact, all of Matthew 24 is an
interesting read about the signs of return in Jesus' own words.

Do we have any reason to doubt? So far God's track record is 100% accurate. We as humans may have a problem with keeping our word to others 100% of the time but not Him. He can be trusted. So would it not make sense that as we prepare to celebrate Christ's birth this month that we should also look ahead to His return. After all, this is really what advent is - coming or arrival. Jesus came, He went, He's coming again.

As the saying goes, "He said it. I believe it. That settles it." If we have put our faith in Christ as our Lord and Master we truly have something to look forward to. Christ is coming back to fulfill His Father's kingdom purposes. We have His word on it.

I have recently read "Expecting to See Jesus" by Anne Graham Lotz. It is listed as the December Book Recommendation for Lovely Branches Ministries. For more info go to lovelybranchesministries.org.