Unfailing Promises

UV 2016/10000 Unfailing Promises
And, behold, this day I am going the way of all the earth: and ye know in all your hearts and in all your souls, that not one thing hath failed of all the good things which the LORD your God spake concerning you; all are come to pass unto you, and not one thing hath failed thereof.
Joshua 23 v 14

It is amazing that Joshua testified at the end of a life, first of slavery in Egypt and then of wandering for forty years through the wilderness, finally, one of combat and conquest and defeat of 31 kings in order to wrest the promised land of Canaan, that the Lord God is faithful to all His promises. Not one of His promises had failed to be fulfilled. Not one word of His promise had remained unfulfilled. Joshua trusted God’s words implicitly and explicitly, and believed that everything promised in it will come to pass in due time or God’s time. The promises of God were his shield and armour in combat. It kept him alive and made him victorious. These promises were also his weapon and ammunition that he fired on the bow of his prayers as he lay in the presence of the Lord, day after day. They were his hope, sustenance and food to sustain him through grave dangers and difficulties.

My testimony as I am sure yours, too is similar to Joshua’s . My good experiences of receiving the blessings packed into the promises of the Lord are what urged me to undertake this lifelong exercise of meditating each day on one promise or precept of the Lord and draw leadership, management and life lessons from each. In all the battles I fought and am still fighting daily, the ones with myself as well as those that the enemy of our souls stirs against me, the Lord has consistently kept His word. His promises have sustained, encouraged, delivered, blessed, healed, fed, imparted strength and powered me to victory in a variety of domains. The Lord has been the source of our success, victories, personal triumphs. Even when we were down, He ensured that we were not out, that we would get back to our feet and return to the battle. His banner over us is not just of love but also of victory. The Lord knows the ultimate victory and defeats are in the realm of the spirit. He bolsters our faith and reinforces our hope such that the Lord is able to do in us and with us all that He has promised.

As an exercise to strengthen our faith, we need to collect in one place all the good things the Lord has spoken specifically and personally to us. We need to treasure these in our hearts for these are the things that neither rust nor moth nor thief can destroy. If the love of money is the root of all evil, the love of God and faith in Him is the root of all good things. The deeper, stronger and wider this good root grows in us, the better, the more blessed, the stronger, the more effective and victorious we would be. We need to thank the Lord ahead of time for the fulfilment of His promises. From the Lord’s perspective, He recognizes that we believe His promises, that we consider them valuable, more precious than gold and money and more delicious than finest honey and that we trust His word when we remember it all the time, run it over and over in our brains till they become like deep furrows in a field. He knows we believe He is able and more than willing to do what He has promised when we constantly mix our prayers and praise with His promises. At the end of the day, more than the victories, the breakthroughs, the provision, the healing, the deliverance, the miracles, the answers that the promises of the Lord births in our lives, it is the fact that our faith and our intimacy and love for God increases tremendously, as each promise is fulfilled, that counts.

Prateep V