Unshakable Hope: Building Our Lives on the Promises of God

by Max Lucado

One student of Scripture spent a year and a half attempting to tally the number of promises God has made to humanity. He came up with 7,487 promises!1

Two people set out to build their houses. The first went to RPF Home Supply: Regrets, Pain, and Fear. He ordered lumber that was rotted by guilt, nails that were rusty from pain, and cement that was watered down with anxiety. Since his home was constructed with RPF supplies, every day was consumed with regret, pain, and fear. The second builder chose a different supplier. She secured her supplies from Hope Incorporated. Rather than choose regret, pain, and fear, she found ample promises of grace, protection, and security. She made the deliberate, conscious decision to build a life from the storehouse of hope.

We are building our lives on the promises of God. Because his Word is unbreakable, our hope is unshakable. We do not stand on the problems of life or the pain in life. We stand on the great and precious promises of God.

The New Testament describes a progressive work of God to shape us into his image. As we fellowship with God, read his Word, obey his commands, and seek to understand and reflect his character, something wonderful emerges. Or, better stated, Someone wonderful emerges. God comes out of us. We say things God would say. We do things God would do. We forgive, we share, and we love. It is as if God is scrubbing the smudge off an old coin. In time an image begins to appear.

God’s goal is simply this: to rub away anything that is not of him so the inborn image of God can be seen in us.

Pop psychology is wrong when it tells you to look inside yourself and find your value. The magazines are wrong when they suggest you are only as good as you are thin, muscular, pimple-free, or perfumed. The movies mislead you when they imply that your value increases as your stamina, intelligence, or net worth grows. Religious leaders lie when they urge you to grade your significance according to your church attendance, self-discipline, or spirituality. According to the Bible you are good simply because God made you in his image. Period. He cherishes you because you bear a resemblance to him. And you will only be satisfied when you engage in your role as an image bearer of God.

Why does God love you with an everlasting love? It has nothing to do with you. It has everything to do with whose you are. You are his. You carry a part of him. There is something of him in you. He made you in his image. He stamped his name on your heart. He breathed life into your lungs.

Someone called you a lost cause. Someone branded you as a failure. Someone dismissed you as insignificant. Don’t listen to them. They don’t know what they are talking about. A divine spark indwells you. When you say yes to God, he blows on that holy ember, and it begins to flame. It grows day by day within you. Are you perfect? No. But you are being made perfect. He bought you and owns you and has a wild and inexplicable love for you. His love for you does not depend on you.

You are God’s idea. God’s child. Created in God’s image. Would you let this truth find its way into your heart? You were conceived by God before you were conceived by your parents. You were loved in heaven before you were known on earth. You aren’t an accident. You aren’t a random fluke of genetics or evolution. You aren’t defined by...

Children have a tendency to say, “Look at me!” On the tricycle: “Look at me go!” On the trampoline: “Look at me bounce!” On the swing set: “Look at me swing!” Such behavior is acceptable for children. Yet many adults spend their grown-up years saying the same. “Look at me drive this fancy car!” “Look at me make money!” “Look at me wear provocative clothes, use big words, or flex my muscles. Look at me!” Isn’t it time we grew up? We were made to live a life that says, “Look at God!” People are to look at us and see not us but the image of our Maker.

Darling, don’t count on our seeing each other again soon. . . . Here we see again that we do not decide our own lives. . . . Even if we won’t see each other again on earth, we will never be sorry for what we did, that we took this stand. And know, Diet, that of every last human being in this world, I loved you most.2

“When a believing person prays, great things happen” (James 5:16 NCV).

I like the joke about the arrogant man who took God’s preeminence to task. He looked up into the heavens and declared, “I can do what you can do! I can create a person out of dust! I understand the systems of life and science!” God accepted the offer. “All right,” he told the buffoon. “Let’s see what you can do.” The man reached down and took a handful of dirt. But before the man could go further, God interrupted him. “I thought you said you could do what I did.” “I can.” “Then,” God instructed, “get your own dirt.” Humility is healthy because humility is honest.

And those who walk in pride he is able to humble. (Dan. 4:34, 37)

Are you troubled in spirit? He was too. (John 12:27) Are you so anxious you could die? He was too. (Matt. 26:38) Are you overwhelmed with grief? He was too. (John 11:35) Have you ever prayed with loud cries and tears? He did too. (Heb. 5:7) He gets you. So human he could touch his people. So mighty he could heal them. So human he spoke with an accent. So heavenly he spoke with authority. So human he could blend in unnoticed for thirty years. So mighty he could change history and be unforgotten for two thousand years. All man. Yet all God.

So what are we to do? He is holy; we are not. He is perfect; we are not. His character is flawless; ours is flawed. A yawning canyon separates us from God. Might we hope that God will overlook it? He would, except for one essential detail. He is a God of justice. If he does not punish sin, he is not just. If he is not just, then what hope do we have of a just heaven? The next life will be occupied by sinners who found a loophole, who skirted the system. Yet if God punishes us for our sin, then we are lost.