All the Promise are Yes and Amen

All the Promise are Yes and Amen

2 Corinthians 1:18-20

As surely as God is trustworthy and faithful and means what He says, our speech and message to you have not been Yes [that might mean] No. 

19For the Son of God, Christ Jesus (the Messiah), Who has been preached among you by us, by myself, Silvanus, and Timothy, was not Yes and No; but in Him it is [always the divine] Yes. 

20For as many as are the promises of God, they all find their Yes in Him [Christ]. For this reason we also utter the Amen (so be it) to God through Him [in His Person and by His agency] to the glory of God.

God’s Book is a book of promises.  It is upon those promises that our faith has been placed and each day is a day of trust and obedience to the promises of God.  Just as God spoke the universe into existence and the Word that He spoke was Christ, so Christ brought into being that spoken Word of God, for He was that Word.  He was the fulfillment and the carrying out of the Father’s mind and heart.  Even today, all that God has spoken through the mouths of His servants, prophets and apostles are brought to pass in Christ.  God has a time and a plan, but all that He has spoken will come to pass, because in Him there is not a “maybe”, but a definitive “yes”.  With God it is impossible that He should lie for in Him there is no darkness or shadow of turning. ‘ He is not a man that He should lie, neither the son of man that He should repent.’

Hebrews 6:13-20 tells us, “13For when God made [His] promise to Abraham, He swore by Himself, since He had no one greater by whom to swear, 14Saying, Blessing I certainly will bless you and multiplying I will multiply you. 15And so it was that he [Abraham], having waited long and endured patiently, realized and obtained [in the birth of Isaac as a pledge of what was to come] what God had promised him. 16Men indeed swear by a greater [than themselves], and with them in all disputes the oath taken for confirmation is final [ending strife]. 17Accordingly God also, in His desire to show more convincingly and beyond doubt to those who were to inherit the promise the unchangeableness of His purpose and plan, intervened (mediated) with an oath. 18This was so that, by two unchangeable things [His promise and His oath] in which it is impossible for God ever to prove false or deceive us, we who have fled [to Him] for refuge might have mighty indwelling strength and strong encouragement to grasp and hold fast the hope appointed for us and set before [us]. 

19[Now] we have this [hope] as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul [it cannot slip and it cannot break down under whoever steps out upon it–a hope] that reaches farther and enters into [the very certainty of the Presence] within the veil, 20Where Jesus has entered in for us [in advance], a Forerunner having become a High Priest forever after the order (with the rank) of Melchizedek”

We have such an assurance that our faith is not just a maybe, but it is the real thing and we have God’s Word on it.  Because we know these promises of God are not just a maybe, but are sure, we press into what 1 Peter 1:3-9 says.  “3For His divine power has bestowed upon us all things that [are requisite and suited] to life and godliness, through the full, personal] knowledge of Him Who called us by and to His own glory and excellence (virtue). 4By means of these He has bestowed on us His precious and exceedingly great promises, so that through them you may escape [by flight] from the moral decay (rottenness and corruption) that is in the world because of covetousness (lust and greed), and become sharers (partakers) of the divine nature. 5For this very reason, adding your diligence [to the divine promises], employ every effort in exercising your faith to develop virtue (excellence, resolution, Christian energy), and in [exercising] virtue [develop] knowledge (intelligence), 

6And in [exercising] knowledge [develop] self-control, and in [exercising] self-control [develop] steadfastness (patience, endurance), and in [exercising] steadfastness [develop] godliness (piety), 

7And in [exercising] godliness [develop] brotherly affection, and in [exercising] brotherly affection [develop] Christian love. 8For as these qualities are yours and increasingly abound in you, they will keep [you] from being idle or unfruitful unto the [full personal] knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One). 

9For whoever lacks these qualities is blind, [spiritually] shortsighted, seeing only what is near to him, and has become oblivious [to the fact] that he was cleansed from his old sins.

The promises of God, and our faith in appropriating them, is the key to our coming into His divine nature.  The promises are given so that we may have a sure hope in that which He has called us too.  It is not in us; it is in living by faith through the Christ in us, “Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform [it] until the day of Jesus Christ.”

Blessings,

#kent

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