Promises Given, Promises Kept

We must put on the mind of God to understand the essence of seeing our posterity through all the pitfalls that life seems to throw at us. God began by creating a race that he would always love no matter how often they failed through human weakness. And so God made a promise to forgive every failure that man would commit. Beginning in verse 14 of chapter 3 in Genesis God would prepare the devil for his demise, and both human partners for the future of man’s trek to find and understand the trend of receiving mercy without any sense of earning forgiveness. Just believe and accept the generosity God would give us through the Incarnation of his only Son, Jesus Christ. A promise given; a promise kept at Calvary.

None of us may tell another that we shall see through to the end of any human mistake they willingly commit against us without some payment of retribution. When our feeling of an attack in any form of discontent requires a sense of sorrow from them, we must have the understanding of compassion on our part. God, when encountering Satan, Adam and Eve, promised compassion for his human children, and a promise of endless crawling for the devil. As we know both are being kept in God’s calendar at a time when all the effects of eternal compromise are completed. (cf Gn 3: 14 - 19).

There is one spiritual factor that requires our complete attention to the promise of God to fulfill his Word is our true belief in the very premise that Christ showed when he walked to the Cross carrying our sin as his own. Following the four “Suffering Servant Songs” from Isaiah; “The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord anointed me; He has sent me to bring glad tidings to the lonely, to heal the brokenhearted. To proclaim liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners, to announce a year of favor from the Lord and a day of vindication by our God, to comfort all who mourn,” (Is 61: 1 - 2).

Even though God knew from before the creation of humanity how this species would fail and need mercy in spite of the many blessings he would pour out for us. He also knew before we appeared on earth how he would give us his total mercy through Christ’s Passion. He promised to forgive us and he kept that promise that would last into eternity.

This is the only promise that no one could break and the only hope that we will always share.

Ralph B. Hathaway