Bruce Collins, Evangelist

The personal website of Bruce Collins

Precious Promises

 

 2 Peter 1:1-4  Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ: Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord, According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue: Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

 

The Divine Nature

The Lord is not like our present day politicians.  He makes promises that we can depend upon.  These promises are precious.  Those who believe God’s promises, particularly as they relate to forgiveness of sins, obtain a new or divine nature.  This divine nature and these precious promises are available to all who have obtained precious faith.  This is really good news in a day of so much delusion and confusion.

 

Some of the Exceeding Great and Precious Promises

 

1 Peter 5:7  Casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.”

We say, “If all else fails, I will just have to trust the Lord.”  We shouldn’t have to wait until all else fails to trust the Lord.  The Lord cares concerning each of His own personally.  He wants to be involved in our lives.

 

Hebrews 13:5 Let your conduct be without covetousness; be content with such things as you have. For He Himself has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”

This verse is usually generalized to say that the Lord never leaves us or forsakes us in any circumstance.  If we are sick, He will not forsake us.  If we are going through family problems, He will not forsake us.  If we are true believers, I am sure that it is true that He is always with us, even when the outcome to our problems is not to our liking.  However, the verse really has to do with the problems of our earthly needs.  We need to be content with what the Lord provides and the Lord will provide enough.  The Lord tells us in the sermon on the mount that He takes care of sparrows, he clothes flowers and he will take care of us. See Matthew 6:25-34.

 

Galatians 6:9  And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.”

Don’t give up.  We all get discouraged at times.  We all feel that our work is unappreciated, that our accomplishments are negligible and that there is no point in continuing to “do good.”  Of course, the alternative is “doing bad.”  And that is a black hole into which we certainly don’t want to fall.  But the Lord says we will reap if we faint not.  So we need to keep planting and watering. 

 

Matthew 28:19 “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Amen."

There are three conditions in these verses that must be met if we are going to know that the Lord is with us (at the end of the age).  First, we must make disciples.  Second, we baptize.  Third, we teach them all things.  We make disciples before we baptize and teach them all things.  Making a disciple means that we teach the truth of the death, burial and resurrection of Christ and that we teach the need to be born again.  We need to consider baptism a requirement for Christian testimony. Only one who has become a disciple should be baptized, but everyone who claims to be a disciple should show that by being baptized which means that they should be immersed.  Baptism represents a burial and a resurrection.  The water is a picture of the grave.   Baptism cannot be considered optional if we want the promise that the Lord is with us.  We don’t need to be baptized to go to heaven, but who would want to go to heaven unbaptized? 

 

John 14:3 “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.”

This promise is as secure as John 3: 16 even though  Peter reminds us, ‘’Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation (2 Peter 3:3-4).”  Don’t listen to the scoffers.  The Lord is coming for His own.  It may be today. 

 

Bruce Collins

 

Meditation for the week of August 7, 2016

No Comments »

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

Leave a comment

XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>