March 20, 2023 — Promises That Hold Up God’s Universe

Let’s hope we’re actually standing on the promises, and not just sitting in the premises.

There are certain walls in a house that are designated as load-bearing because they are essential to the support of the whole structure. Similarly, we may call God’s promises load-bearing. On the foundation of these promises rests the entire plan of the ages. So it was not what Israel would imagine with their minds, or see with their eyes, that would be their possession. No, “Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given you” (Jos 1:3), said the Lord. In a similar way, we must put our full weight on the Lord’s word to us. Thus the proverb, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding” (Prov 3:5). The instruction is to put your full weight on God, not to lean (Heb, al tishshaen) on your own limited awareness of the situation. The phrase literally means, “Don’t try to prop yourself up, acting in self reliance.” It isn’t enough to place His promises on our walls as mottos or underline them in our Bibles, helpful though that may be. We must cement them into our foundations, set our life’s compass by them, daily act on them, and make personal, family, and career decisions by them. So what were the parameters of Eretz Israel? “From the wilderness [the Negev] and this Lebanon as far as the great river, the River Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and to the Great Sea [the Mediterranean] toward the going down of the sun, shall be your territory” (Jos 1:4). It was not the largest, but perhaps the most strategic, land on the planet. Yet even in Solomon’s day they did not possess it all. And what about us? Lord, open the eyes of our heart to not only see “the hope of His calling” and “the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints” (Eph 1:18), but to put our full weight on them today.

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