"– he has given us his very great and precious promises –" (v. 4)

For Reading and Meditation:     2 Peter 1:1-11

It is one thing to accept the faithfulness of God as a clear biblical truth; it is quite another to act upon it. God has given us many great and precious promises, as our text for today puts it, but do we actually count on them being fulfilled? We have to be careful that we do not hold God to promises He has not given. I have seen a good deal of heartache suffered by Christians because someone encouraged them to take a statement from the Word of God, turn it into a "promise," and urged them to believe for it to come to pass. Then, when nothing happened, they became deeply discouraged. One woman told me that many years ago she had taken the words found in Acts 16:31 - "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved - you and your household" - and claimed them as a promise. When her husband and son died unrepentant she was devastated. I pointed out to her that even God cannot save those who don't want to be saved, and that the promise given by Paul and Silas was for the Philippian jailer, not anyone else. There are hundreds of promises that God has given in His Word that we can claim without equivocation. "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee" (Hebrews 13:5, KJV) is just one among many. Someone who has counted all God's promises in the Bible numbers them as being over 3,000. That ought to be enough to keep you going if you lived to be a hundred. Be careful, however, that it is a general promise you are banking on, not a specific one.

Father, I have Your promise that You will guide me into all truth, so my trust is in You that You will give me the wisdom to discern between a promise which is general and one that is specific. In Jesus' Name. Amen.