“For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us. Now he which stablisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is God; Who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts.” (2 Corinthians 1:20–22, KJV)
We have a trust difficulty in our lives. The reason is that we have been disappointed so many times in the past. I think we all have done it at some time in the past. I know I have. Years ago, I had a part in a ministry meeting. I was the testimony speaker, thankfully not the main speaker. I put the date on the calendar on my computer and figured it would alert me prior to the engagement. After all, I checked my calendar every day. However this time, I did not turn on my computer the day before the event, which was on a Friday evening. Monday morning, I booted up the computer and had a shock when I realized that I had missed the meeting. I immediately called the meeting organizer to apologize and he stated that they wondered what had happened. Fortunately, they had another testimonial speaker in the audience to cover for me. The point is that people often disappoint people and, as a result, create trust issues in the recesses of peoples’ minds.
This can extend to matters of faith. I have run into a few unsaved people who were convinced that God would not save them. I have run into others that made professions of faith and then doubted the reality of their salvation. Now, there are many reasons for this, which I will not cover in this devotion. However, some of the problem is that people today have a difficulty trusting the Lord at His word, because they view Him in terms of a normal human being. The Lord our God does not operate with the fickleness and flaws of man. When He states that He will do something, we have the absolute assurance that it will happen.
Paul was explaining his change of plans regarding visiting the church at Corinth. He had previously communicated that he would visit in connection with a journey to Macedonia, but something necessitated a change. He wanted them to know that he did not make his plans in a haphazard way. In his explanation, he points to the absolute faithfulness of the Lord our God. He indicated that all the promises of God are “yes.” Some have written that there are as many as 7,000 promises contained in the Bible. Paul indicated that all these thousands of promises have their yeas in Christ. He will never let us down.
We can trust the Lord because He is not like us. We waffle and make mistakes, even when we try so hard to do everything right. Our plans and thus our promises, often change. Sometimes due to our own error and at other times due to providential circumstances over which we have had no control. The Scripture states, “if we are faithless, he remains faithful— for he cannot deny himself” (2 Timothy 2:13, ESV). The Lord is not like us. He always does what He says He will do. To this end, Paul further wrote that God has sealed us with His Spirit as a guarantee of the great promise of eternal life and all the promises that come with it.
“In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.” (Ephesians 1:13–14, ESV)
Renewing the Heart 