Heb 8:6 – The new covenant is a better covenant established upon better promises.
There is no covenant without promises. A covenant is established on promises. Marriage is a covenant, and it is established by the promises vowed by both parties. To live under the covenant is to live by promises. You see, God doesn’t always explain what we go through in life, but He surely gives us promises to live by. Explanations don’t produce faith; faith rests on promises. So to live by faith is to live by His promises.
Today we will receive 5 truths about God’s Promises and how to live by them in every situation. The first truth is this –
- FAITH RESTS ON GOD’S PROMISES
->In 1981, Mrs. Dodie Osteen, the wife of Pastor John Osteen, the Pastor of the Mega Church Lakewood in the United States of America, became very sick and weak because of liver cancer. The doctors only gave her a few weeks to live. The family refused to believe the report, nor did Dodie. She wrote down 40 verses of healing and went around the house confessing them every day. Weeks passed, and slowly her appetite returned. She began to gain weight, and the cancer was no more. She lived for 44 more years!!
The faith she needed to overcome death itself came from meditating on the Promises of God. If you need faith, go to the Promises God has given you and put your trust in them.
- GOD’S PROMISES BRING ASSURANCE & REST
Promise and prophecy have similarities: Both are words of God. Both are for the future. Both are given by grace. Both cannot be realized without faith.
Differences: Promise brings assurance. Prophecy gives direction. Promise reveals who God is. Prophecy reveals what God can do. You wait for the promise, but you move towards the prophecy. Promise brings rest. Prophecy demands action.
Acts 12:1-6 – Peter was sleeping in jail when Herod was planning to behead him the next day. How did Peter have the peace to do so? You see, Peter had received a promise from the Lord Jesus Christ that he would die an old man (Check Jn 21:18). So that night he figured he wasn’t old yet, so he thought he might as well go to sleep. The promise gave him the rest and assurance that he needed to sleep in that prison.
->When Pastor John Osteen’s wife Dodie was diagnosed with liver cancer, she was reduced to merely 40 pounds, and doctors had given up all hope. One day he saw the Bible that he put down on the bed fall open on itself, and he saw “not one feeble among them” (Ps 105:37). He took that as a sign from God, a promise that he held on to and saw coming to pass. He received rest and assurance from that promise.
- GOD’S PROMISES NEVER DIE
Mat 24:35 – Heaven and earth may pass, but my word will not pass away.
God’s promises are alive: A man who was a believer was diagnosed with cancer and given 6 months to live. One day his 4-year-old son opened up a Bible to Jn 11 and asked him, “Read it here” – he was pointing to John 11:4, and this is what it said: “This sickness is not unto death”. He took that as a sign from God, and he got healed of that cancer and is alive and well now.
Elisha asked and received a double portion of his master Elijah’s anointing. Elijah performed 8 major miracles, and his assistant died one short of 16 major miracles. But when it seemed like the promise was not fulfilled, they threw a dead man’s body into the tomb of Elisha, and as soon as the corpse touched the bones of Elisha, he came back to life. The promise never dies.
The more you meditate on the Promises of God, the more alive you will be. The Promises will be fulfilled in your life.
1 Kings 8:56 – Blessed be the Lord that hath given rest unto his people Israel, according to all that he promised: there hath not failed one word of all his good promise, which he promised.
- GOD’S PROMISES WILL MAKE WAY FOR MIRACLES
When his sisters sent for Jesus, Jesus gave them a promise: Lazarus had a personal promise – John 11:4 – This sickness is not unto death.
When Jesus came to the tomb and called out Lazarus, four days after he had been dead and buried, among the many Lazaruses that were possibly buried in that cemetery, only the right Lazarus came out. How come? The Holy Spirit picked him out and brought him out because he was the only one who died with the Promise. Notice that the Promise of God made a way for a miracle when it seemed impossible. Hold on to the Promise you have. It will make the way for your miracle.
BONUS POINT: If what you see does not match with what God has promised you, then what you see is not permanent.
- GOD’S PROMISES PROVIDE YOU THE POWER TO PERSEVERE
Heb 6:12 – Through faith and patience they received what was promised.
Pastor Andrew Wommack had prophecies at least two different times concerning his sons. One day his eldest called to say the younger one was dead for four hours; they had stripped him naked and placed him in a cooler in a morgue. Andrew and his wife got dressed and drove an hour to the place. They began to praise God for his power, and the first thing Andrew said was, “The first report is not the last report.” All of a sudden, all those prophecies came to his remembrance, and Andrew said, “If those prophecies were from God, he had to live!” He told his wife, Jamie, “We are about to see the greatest miracle ever.” They spoke life into the boy, and when they reached his son, he opened the door and said: “10 min after we called you, he just sat up and started talking without being brain dead.”
The power to persevere came from the promises and prophecies he had received from God concerning his sons. Beloved, when you live by the promises of God, you are essentially living in the covenant of God. You will obtain faith, rest, strength, and miracles of God in your life. God bless you!