By Samuel Parrish, Campus Director, LHM Charleston, SC
“… by which he has
granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you
may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption
that is in the world because of sinful desire.”
2
Peter 1:4
As
a young man, I needed braces to straighten my teeth. Consequently, many foods were
off limits to me because they would ruin the detested metal attached to my face.
The burden of abstaining from all candy broke my young heart. To ease this load,
my dad agreed to take on the challenge with me and not eat the foods I couldn’t
eat. I was ecstatic…until the afternoon I walked in and found him eating a bag
of Laffy Taffy.
In
that moment, I didn’t remember the second job he took on so I could own an oboe
instead of renting one. I didn’t remember the hours he spent with me building
Lego castles when I didn’t want to play outside. Instead, I remembered a
promise I was watching him break.
Everything
we do is the result of promises made and promises broken. And I’m very good at
remembering broken promises. We have selective memories as it is, but suffering
seems to make it even worse. This mindset even pervades our spiritual lives. We
say things like, “It doesn’t matter what
God has done for me in the past. If this circumstance does not change, He isn’t
good.”
In
his second letter, Peter tells the early church—during a time of great suffering—that
we can endure precisely because we have
a Father who never breaks His promises. Paul says in verse 3 that the knowledge
of Christ, the very truth He has shared about Himself with us, assures us
“precious and very great promises.”
These
eternal promises offer escape from the dark shadow of a lifetime of broken
promises:
Every promise for protection where we
ended up wounded.
Every promise for relationship where we
ended up alone.
Every promise for acceptance where we
ended up rejected.
In
Christ, we are partakers of the divine nature, a wondrous and mysterious union
with God as our Father, Jesus as our Lord, and the Holy Spirit as our Comforter
and Guide! We are no longer bound by the corruption of this world, or even the
sinful desires of our own hearts.
Yet
we will hurt again, be betrayed again, or fall to sin…again. How do we remember
that we are the benefactors of new and glorious promises?
We
meditate on them.
Joshua
commands the people of Israel to think on the law of the Lord night and day in
chapter 1 of the book that bears his name. As simplistic as it may sound, the
best way to not forget the promises of God is to think about them on purpose. But
how do we keep the truth from devolving into cliché if we are thinking about it
all the time?
We
memorize them.
Difficulties
in life and the sudden attacks of the enemy easily tear down Christian
platitudes and nebulous truisms about God. The first temptation was to doubt
God’s words, and our first parents fell because they didn’t remember them
precisely. How much easier will it be to fulfill the command to meditate on
them night and day if you have large sections of scripture committed to memory?
Lastly, we
memorialize them.
It can
be as simple as a list you keep of what God has done in your life since you
started following Him. If you can’t see the hand of the Lord on your life, ask
Him for eyes to see it! The Holy Spirit brings clarity, not confusion, and
works in our lives for us to see God as most glorious!
So what
broken promises continue to define you? And what might a purposed pursuit of
God’s promises change in how you see Him, your life, and your struggles with
sin?
