Unshakable Hope: Building Our Lives on the Promises of God

by Max Lucado

In fact, this story gives us Jesus’ definition of faith: faith is the deeply held belief that God will keep his promises.

Good people are serious about keeping their word. How much more serious would a good God be? What was said about God’s faithfulness to Israel can be said about his faithfulness to us. “Not one of all the LORD’s good promises to Israel failed; every one was fulfilled” (Josh. 21:45). The question is not, will God keep his promises, but, will we build our lives upon them?

According to Peter, God’s promises aren’t just great; they are “very great.” They aren’t just valuable; they are “precious” (2 Peter 1:4). To bind them around your neck is to adorn yourself with the finest jewels of the universe. It is through the great and precious promises that we participate in the divine nature of God. They lead us into a new reality, a holy environment. They are direction signs intended to guide us away from the toxic swampland and into the clean air of heaven. They sit like golden stones in the pathway to God’s world. They are strong boulders that form the bridge over which we walk from our sin to salvation. Promises are the stitching in the spine of the Bible.

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.

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.

Surely the current ridicule and skepticism with which he is viewed must please him deeply. As long as he isn’t taken seriously, he is free to work his evil. After all, if you can’t diagnose the source of your ills, how can you fight them? The devil wants to make your life a mess and to keep his name out of it. But God doesn’t let him do so. The Bible traces Satan’s activities to a moment of rebellion that occurred sometime between the creation of the universe and the appearance of the snake in the garden. When God created the world, “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good” (Gen. 1:31). In the beginning everything was good. Every drop of water, every tree, every animal, and, by extension, every angel. Yet sometime between the events described in Genesis 1 and those described in Genesis 3, an angel led a coup against God and was cast from heaven.

Satan may be vicious, but he will not be victorious.

The heart of pride never confesses, never repents, never asks for forgiveness. Indeed, the arrogant never feel the need for forgiveness. Pride is the hidden reef that shipwrecks the soul.

If he never sinned, they reason, how could he understand the full force of sin? Simple. He felt it more than we do. We give in! He never did. We surrender. He never did. He stood before the tsunami of temptation and never wavered.

Your name is not buried in some heavenly file. God needs no name tag to jog his memory about you. Your name is tattooed, engraved, on his hand. He has more thoughts about you than the Pacific coast has grains of sand.

Many believers settle for a two-thirds God. They rely on the Father and the Son but overlook the Holy Spirit. You wouldn’t make that mistake with a tripod, trike, or prism. You certainly don’t want to make that mistake with the Trinity. Your Bible refers more than a hundred times to the Holy Spirit. Jesus says more about the Holy Spirit than he does about the church or marriage. In fact, on the eve of his death, as he prepared his followers to face the future without him, he made this great and precious promise: “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you” (Acts 1:8).

May I ask a few blunt questions? Are you persisting in disobedience? Are you refusing to forgive someone? Are you harboring hatred? Are you persisting in an adulterous relationship? Immoral activity? A dishonest practice? Are you feeding your flesh and neglecting your faith? If the answer is yes, you are quenching the Spirit within you.

So does God. He offers his Son as an advocate. At the judgment Jesus will stand at the side of every person except those who refuse him. When their deeds are read, heaven’s tribunal will hear nothing but silence. “You denied my presence.” Silence. “You abused my children.” Silence. “You slandered my name.” Silence. “You ignored my Word.” Silence. “You rejected my Son.” Silence. What response can be given? What defense can be offered? God is right. God is just. No one in heaven or hell will accuse the Judge of injustice when he announces, “Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matt. 25:41). Justice will prevail.

This anchor is set, not on a boat or person or possession. No, this anchor is set in “the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, where our forerunner, Jesus, has entered on our behalf” (vv. 19–20). Our anchor, in other words, is set in the very throne room of God.