Thursday-Not Just Promises

Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.

2 Peter 1:4

When our kids were little, Mary Ann and I were really careful about making promises in front of the family. For example, even though we had reservations and paid a non-refundable deposit, we never discussed going to the ocean for our summer vacation. The first time that we openly talked about it was on the Saturday morning that we were leaving. That way, we weren’t flooded with questions like, “Is it time to go yet?”

One time I told the kids that we were flying to Baltimore to visit our family. They were thankful but not over-the-moon excited. After all, we’d been to Baltimore hundreds of times, so it wasn’t a big deal. That is until we landed in Orlando and headed to Disney World. Then the excitement began.

You see, promises are very powerful and important things. When you make a promise, you’re telling everyone that something is going to happen. You stand behind your promise. And if there’s a problem, you’re going to do everything possible to still make it happen.

That’s why Paul’s words are so shocking. They are over-the-top and surprise us so. He’s saying that God’s promises are something that you can bet your life on. His promises are guaranteed. But he’s telling his readers and us that there’s something even more powerful and sure than a promise from God. He uses two words to describe this promise.

• Great. Go to any Super Bowl or World Series game and you’ll see a great crowd. The parking lots and stadiums will be filled to overflowing with cars and people. When something’s great, it’s big in size and number. God’s promises are the same, there’s many of them and they are overwhelming in size and power.

• Precious. No offense, but you don’t find anything precious in the Dollar Store. You figure out that something’s precious by comparing it to something else. God’s promises have great value in comparison to other promises. And why? Because of who gave the promise. When God gives a promise, it immediately has outstanding value.

So, how do we receive God’s great and precious promises? What line do we need to get in? What website do we need to enter our information into? What lottery ticket do we need to buy? How many box tops do we need to save? How many loyalty points do we need to earn?

This is why it’s called Good News. If we had to do things to earn God’s lovingkindness, it would be called Hard News. Or Impossible News. But because God did everything necessary for us to be reunited back with him, it’s Good News. Faith in Jesus’ payment for our debt brings us back into the presence of God as his beloved children[1].

Being made a child of God certainly sounds like a great thing. When I first heard about God’s promise of his making me into one of his children, I couldn’t believe it. I figured out that being a child of God meant that I’d be able to live this life through his privileges and power.

Now, with all that power from God, I thought I’d be able to easily resist temptation. That I could just say a few magic words and I could live an easy life that was full of thing while being free from sin. Boy, was I wrong.

I wish that I’d read these words of Peter’s long ago. Or that someone would have pointed them out to me. You see, Peter gives us God’s solution for temptation. When the rottenness of this world comes over us, or when evil desires are all around us, what are we to do? How can we resist all this evil? God’s answer is a really very simple, one word solution.

Run. Flee. Escape. Run away. Get out of there. Find the nearest exit and use it. You’ll notice that there’s no room for what we feel or think. There’s no time to discuss it with family or friends. We’re not to Google it to see what the rest of the world thinks about it either.

I know that it doesn’t sound very exciting or modern to just run. But when we think about just how much trouble we’re in, it makes more sense. Temptation isn’t just trying to distract us. It wants to destroy us. Temptation’s goal isn’t to just stain us, but to shatter us.

We don’t like to think about evil and temptation like this. Our opinion of ourselves is that we can handle most everything. We only need to reach out to God when it’s really bad. We can take care of most temptation without anyone’s help. Boy, what a stupid thought this is. Think about it like this: if perfect Adam and Eve couldn’t resist temptation and evil[2], what makes us think that we can? The answer is that we can’t and the only thing to do is run. We start by running away from temptation and evil. And then running into the open arms of God and his precious promises. It’s the only thing that works.

Noodling Questions

• How do you go looking for God’s promises?

• List your three favorite promises of God.

• What’s the best way to tell others about God’s precious promises?

[1] Galatians 3:26

[2] Genesis 3:6,7