Promises, Promises

Today, on Father's Day, I’m thinking about the promises of the Father.

A few days ago, we experienced a really powerful storm, and while this is by no means unusual during the summer here in Florida, this one was definitely a storm of note.  Lots of cloud-to-ground lightning, lots of wind, rain that was actually blowing sideways, and it made enough of an impression that it set the entire alarm system off at church that night.  We went through the entire service with the emergency lights flashing!

Following the storm, though, was the beautiful sign that God has given us to remind us that He will never again destroy the world by flood: the rainbow.  And it wasn’t just any rainbow, but a full double rainbow.  It was a sight to behold!  Whenever I see a rainbow in the sky, I have to thank God for His promises.

Abraham is rightly recognized as the patriarch of the three major world religions.  It’s interesting that a man who was childless up to an age of 100+ could be considered a father figure to countless millions throughout time, but such are the promises of God.  If God says your descendants will outnumber the sands on the seashore, than you can believe it.  Several millennia later, we see the proof of such a promise.

But like I said, there was a time when Abraham surely could’ve mocked the very idea.  Who could blame him?  Neither he nor Sarah were spring chickens.  But somewhere in Abraham’s very being, he believed God at His word.

Is it any wonder Abraham is the headlining act in Hebrews 11, the “Hall of Faith”?  Despite every scrap of physical evidence to the contrary, HE BELIEVED GOD AT HIS WORD.

Romans 4:19-24 KJV¹⁹ And being NOT WEAK in faith, he CONSIDERED NOT his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, NEITHER YET THE DEADNESS of Sarah's womb:

He was one hundred years old, people!  Don’t get all hair-splitty with me on the word “about”—99 is “about” one hundred.  Do you know any 99 year-old dads?  I didn’t think so.  Not only that, they all knew Sarah’s body was no longer in child-bearing mode.  It was DEAD. D-E-A-D, DEAD.  As in, the opposite of alive.  It had ceased from its intended function.

Oh, the faith of Abraham!  Not only was Abraham’s contribution to the child-bearing process dead, but the place where the promise would grow and develop was dead, too.  Abraham knew it didn’t MATTER if the circumstances required for life-giving were non-existent.  He served the God who spoke the universe into existence out of absolutely nothing.  To Abraham, the circumstances were a non-issue.  If God said He was going to do it, He was going to do it.  Is this also why, years later, He completely trusted that God would raise up Isaac from the dead?  I can only think so.

²⁰ He STAGGERED NOT at the promise of God through unbelief; but WAS STRONG IN FAITH, giving GLORY TO GOD;

See?  He “staggered not.”  One definition for staggered says “to be at variance with one's self, hesitate, doubt.”  Another says, “to separate one's self in a hostile spirit, to oppose, strive with dispute, contend.”  So this tells me that Abraham kept his spirit right.  He didn’t have a bad attitude, or a begrudging acceptance of the plan of God.  He just believed Him at His word, and He trusted God’s heart and motives and plan.  Period.

²¹ And being FULLY PERSUADED that, what he had promised, HE WAS ABLE also to perform.²² And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness.

Fully persuaded.  I think that’s pretty powerful, all by itself.  There was no questioning, no doubt, no insecurity.  What God promised, He was able to perform.  And the payoff, for lack of a better word, for Abraham was this: it was imputed to him for righteousness.

“I’m sorry—what?”

Thanks for asking.

 

“it was imputed”—Strong’s G3049—logizomai: to take into account, to make an account of; as availing for or equivalent to something, as having the like force and weight
 

So, Abraham’s faith in God’s promise gave him the like force and weight of righteousness.

Big deal, you say?

Well, I could be wrong about this, but wasn’t real righteousness only available through Calvary?  When the blood of Jesus was shed, and then applied to the believer at baptism in His name?  And didn’t Abraham live many, many centuries before that event ever took place?

But it would seem here that Abraham’s faith moved God outside of time and space, giving Abraham the benefit of the power of righteousness. 

That’s powerful, y’all.  I hope that makes sense, because it is blowing my mind.

I believe with all my heart that, when God reveals His plan, it’s our responsibility to follow the plan.  But God is sovereign, and He can choose to move outside His set parameters whenever He likes, in response to powerful, life-altering, non-staggering faith.  Faith that doesn’t consider the deadness of the situation or the circumstances.  Faith that looks over the deadness of the womb, only to see the creative power that can make something mind-blowing out of absolutely NOTHING AT ALL.

Oh, I want to be like Abraham.  I want the faith of Abraham!  What’s that?  You don’t think you can?  Read the next two verses of Romans 4:

²³ Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him;²⁴ But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead;

It wasn’t written just so we could look at Abraham and despair of our own circumstances!  It wasn’t written with a taunting, you’ll-never-be-good-enough attitude!  It was written to give us hope that God wants to perform the same kind of promise-keeping for each of US. 

Do you remember the promises He has given you?  Well, go dust them off, and pray, asking for Him to help you believe His Word!  Do not consider the deadness of your own circumstance, or the deadness of the atmosphere the promise would need to be able to grow and develop and come into being.  God is able to speak it into existence out of absolutely nothing!  Just keep living the Word, believing the promise, and submitting yourself to His plans.  They are perfect!

You’re going to be seeing that double-rainbow wherever you look.