God Delivers on His Promises
Rest and patience of heart are not found in figuring out what is going on or conjuring up in our minds how in the world God is going to do what he’s promised us that he would do. Rest and patience of heart are found in trusting the one who has it all figured out and knows exactly how he will accomplish what he has promised he will do. We are limited human beings. We all carry spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical limits with us wherever we go. We are all limited in righteousness, wisdom, and strength. Unless we are resting in the presence and power of the Lord, we will evaluate situations from the perspective of our many limits. This means that what appears to us to be completely impossible is quite possible with our Lord. His strength, his understanding, his compassion, and his grace are infinite.
Sometimes we make good-hearted promises that later we realize we are unable to keep. We know things need to get done, but we do not have the power or the wisdom to do them. There is nothing that God has promised to do or that we need him to do that he is unable to do. Nothing. We have every blessing that we have because he has the power to control the forces of nature, the events of history, and the unfolding of situations. Not only has he created everything, but everything he has created does his bidding. He is magnificent, almighty in power and wisdom. He can and will do what he has promised to do.
Paul David Tripp offers 25 selected Christmas readings, adapted from his book Everyday Gospel, with study questions to help readers reflect on Scripture’s entire redemption story during the month of December.
So God was not limited at all by Abraham or Sarah’s age, any more than any other human limit would inhibit his ability to do what he has promised he would do. Genesis 21:1–7 records the birth of the promised son, Isaac. It also records that Abraham was one hundred. That’s right: one hundred years old—and Sarah was in her nineties. The God who is the Lord of heaven and earth is also Lord of the womb of an old woman, and he can do through it what he has promised to do. He is the Lord. He is not limited by our weaknesses.
When I read the story of Abraham and Sarah’s long wait for a promised son, I think of another Son that was promised. The hope of the world rested on the shoulders of this promised Son, but as century followed century, it seemed as though this Son would never come. But one night in a stable in Bethlehem, to a lowly carpenter and his wife, the promised Messiah came. Nothing in all of those centuries that had passed was able to stop the promise of God. Jesus, Son of Man, Son of God, the Lamb, the Savior was born at just the right time to provide justification, reconciliation, forgiveness, and new life to all who believe. God’s promises are not limited by human weakness or the passage of time. Don’t give way to fear; God will do what he has promised to do.
This article is adapted from Everyday Gospel Christmas Devotional by Paul David Tripp.
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