I write this just after the South Rowan Varsity Singers gave a convert of spiritual songs at the church house. Right before the benediction they sang He Has Never Failed Us Yet. What a powerful rendition and such an awesome truth. The song did a double whammy on me though. This morning in my Quiet Time I was reading in Joshua how God had brought the Israelites into Canaan and given them the “land of promise”. Then Joshua makes a wonderful statement: “Not one of all the Lord’s good promises to the house of Israel failed; every one was fulfilled.” [Joshua 21:45] So as I enjoyed the song by the chorus, God said to me, “I’ve tried to tell you twice today that you do not focus enough on My promises and on how I’m always faithful to fulfill each one.” What is so tragic about this whole episode is that in our 40 Days of Prayer & Sharing meeting this last week [6 days ago] we had been talking about this same thing. And all of us in our small prayer team agreed that we do not focus on God’s promises enough and how God is always faithful to His Word. And I left that meeting and immediately forgot all that we had been sensing God saying to us.
HELLO!!!!!!
Does God have to give you several wake-up calls too sometimes? You’d think this preacher would get it. But no, God has to remind and remind and remind me what is so clear in my own experience of Him. I’ve never known God to fail me. How has it been in your life?
As I shared the verse from Joshua with Lucy, she said we could actually substitute “First Baptist” for “house of Israel”. Then the verse would say, “Not one of all the Lord’s good promises to China Grove First Baptist failed; every one was fulfilled.” Do you agree with that statement? Well, just which of His many promises has God fulfilled? Though we’re not aware of all of them, it’s only right that we pause – give thought to – and meditate on the ones we are aware of. For if we don’t ponder on His faithfulness we will fail to thank Him and also be tempted to doubt whether He will fulfill all the remaining promises.
Let me just remind you of a few of Jesus’ promises that our church has seen fulfilled.
- “Stand firm” (Mt 7:25; Lk 6:48) – Since we are founded on Christ the rock, we are weathering another storm this last year. The Spirit of God is helping us stand firm.
- “You will know whether this teaching comes from God” (Jn 7:17) – As we seek Him, God keeps confirming His Word to us. Many in the church turn to the Bible to seek out whether this pastor’s teaching is from God.
- “Where two or three are gathered in My name, I am there in their midst” (Mt 18:20) – We are constantly experiencing God in our midst as we come together seeking Him.
- “You will receive…you will find…and the door will be opened to you” (Mt 7:7; Lk 11:9-10) – God is answering prayer after prayer. He is opening doors or closing some to open others. He is allowing us to find Him and find ourselves as we seek Him.
- “Your heavenly Father will forgive you your offenses” (Mk 11:25) – The Lord has been leading many of us to forgive others and so doing we have experienced to the full His own forgiveness in our lives.
- “I will give you words of wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to resist or contradict” (Lk 21:15) – “Where did those words come from”, is something so many of us have said as God supplied the exact words we needed in sharing with another.
I bet your mind is giving thought to how faithful God is to His Word. That’s good. And He is just getting started. He just wants us to trust Him and claim His promises as ours.
What is it God has promised that you would like to see fulfilled through First Baptist. Well, claim it in prayer and make a commitment to do all you can to see that God brings it about…Many of God’s promises are conditional. He is certainly faithful when we are not, but many of His promises are hinged upon our faithfulness.
We can count on Him! Can He count on us?
HELLO!!! That’s something else worth pondering.
Needing to be more faithful, Pastor Steve