Tag: God's promises

Never Leaving, Never Forsaking

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

One of God’s most precious promises comes from Hebrews 13:5.

Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”

Like all of God’s promises, this one will greatly repay any time we spend turning it over in our minds and reminding our hearts it is true. (Perhaps it’s worth noting at the beginning that this promise is a negation!)

God’s promise to never leave or forsake his people should be the foundation of lasting contentment. If we have him, we have him forever, and this is a far greater treasure than any amount of money we could possess.

So we can confidently say, “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?” (Hebrews 13:6)

When God says he will never leave, this is not a promise to be loyal like a puppy. Rather, God’s promise gives us confidence that he will be our great helper. With God at our side, we need not fear anything, certainly nothing that man can do to us.

Some of us have been hurt by those we know and love. Even more of us have had those dear to us leave. They move away (or we do). We drift apart as friends. Some departures are more dramatic: harsh words, hurt feelings, someone turning and walking away.

God will not abandon us. We cannot offend him so much that he gives us a cold shoulder. By his Spirit, he stays close, always ready to hear, to speak (through his Word), to comfort, to guide, and to protect us.

Better than a Spouse

We take sobering vows when we get married. Most of these vows include a version of “until death do us part.” So even those we love the most will eventually leave. Death is still an enemy, separating life-long companions and friends.

Yet God makes a promise to us that even a spouse cannot. His promise has no asterisk or grave-related exception. When death comes and separates us from all we know and love, God’s promise is still true. He is present, and he won’t leave.

If the Lord does not return before our death, as our body starts to cool we will immediately be with him in spirit. He will not abandon our soul to the grave. And this in-between state will also end. When the world is remade and our body and soul reunite, we will be with the Lord forever. The dwelling place of God will be with man, and we will see him face to face. He will not leave.

This is good, good news! And it can offer you or your friend great comfort in times of grief, pain, and loneliness.

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Links for the Weekend (2025-08-08)

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

Each Friday, I’ll post links to 3–5 resources from around the web you may want to check out.

How Can We Help Our Kids Grow in Grace?

Andrea Hoglund emphasizes God’s role in our children’s growth in grace, and she advises parents to “bring them near” and “give them support.”

As parents, we raise little apple trees, souls that bear fruit only with time and patience. Yet how often do we, unlike the farmer, expect to find mature fruit too early as we scrutinize our children for signs of spiritual growth? For all our efforts to train our children well — opening God’s word, bowing in prayer, and worshiping with God’s people — we often find something is missing in the middle of it all: peace of mind.

Want to Grow in Wisdom? You Need Gospel Friends.

Courtney Doctor describes what she means by “gospel friends” and encourages us to seek out friends like this.

Think about whom you most often ask for advice. Do you have a group of friends you go to? Do you scroll social media to see what the “experts” say on any given topic? Do you ask your neighbor, mom, or aunt? What voices have the greatest influence in your life? To faithfully navigate the Christian life, we need more than good advice. We need gospel friends who help us walk in wisdom.

When God’s Promises Feel Untrue

Esther Liu offers some advice for when we read God’s promises in Scripture and they don’t feel true.

How many times have we read a passage of Scripture and had no idea how to make sense of it—not because it was hard to understand theologically or the language was confusing—but because it seemed to directly contradict our life circumstances? It left us wondering, “Does God keep his promises?”

On the WPCA Blog This Week

This week on the blog we published an article I wrote called Contentment Doesn’t Come Through Comparison. If you haven’t already seen it, check it out!

Note: Washington Presbyterian Church and the editors of this blog do not necessarily endorse all content produced by the individuals or groups referenced here. 

How to Abound in Hope

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

Names in the Bible are significant, none more than the names and titles of God. The biblical authors emphasize one of God’s strengths or an aspect of his character by the names they use for him.

In his epistle to the Romans, the apostle Paul is no exception. Among others, he refers to “God our Father” (Romans 1:7), the “immortal God” (Romans 1:23), the “living God” (Romans 9:26), the “God of endurance and encouragement” (Romans 15:5), and the “God of peace” (Romans 16:20). Each title or description of God is both informed by and informs the context in which it is used.

I have been writing about hope for some time now, so I was quite drawn to Paul’s use of “the God of hope” in Romans 15:13.

Why Jesus Came to the Jews

After writing about church unity in the previous chapters, in Romans 15:8 Paul starts to address the inclusion of the Gentiles among God’s people.

He writes, “Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God’s truthfulness, in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs” (Romans 15:8). Because God promised a deliverer to the Jewish people, and because God keeps his promises, Christ came to Israel first.

However, part of showing “God’s truthfulness” involved the Gentiles “glorify[ing] God for his mercy” (Romans 15:9). Though God’s promises were given to Israel, they have never been limited to Israel. One of God’s earliest covenant promises mentioned blessings in Abram for “all the families of the earth” (Genesis 12:3).

The Gentiles Will Hope in Christ

Note the way Paul quotes the Old Testament in a crescendo in Romans 15:9–12. He layers promises and exhortations to reach the final truth about the Gentiles.

  • There will be praise (by Israelites) “among the Gentiles” (Romans 15:9).
  • Gentiles are called to rejoice “with his people” (Romans 15:10).
  • The Gentiles are exhorted to “praise the Lord,” that “all the peoples” would extol him (Romans 15:11).
  • Finally, the Messianic promise mentions the “root of Jesse” who will “rule the Gentiles,” and “in him will the Gentiles hope” (Romans 15:12).

This hope in Christ connects to the beginning of the passage, that Jesus came to the circumcised so that “the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy” (Romans 15:9). The gospel message came first to the Jews and then spread to the Gentiles; this was a message that brought hope for people who experienced the mercy of God.

Abounding in Hope

We cannot understand what it means to refer to God as “the God of hope” without this context in Romans 15.

First, this title labels Jesus as God. The Gentiles would hope in the root of Jesse, which refers to Jesus. By using “God of hope” in the next breath, Paul underlines Jesus’s divinity.

Additionally, God is the one who brought all prophecies and promises to fulfillment. The presence of Gentiles in the church at Rome shows “God’s truthfulness”—he sent his son, showing mercy to countless people, as he said he would.

Further, God is the one who can “fill” us with joy and peace, so that by the Holy Spirit we can “abound in hope.”

It may be tempting to think this “filling” is passive, like a donut being filled with jelly. And while such filling will not happen without God’s work, as with many aspects of the Christian life, our seeking and God’s providing go hand in hand.

We abound in hope, therefore, by looking to the God of hope. We seek joy and peace in believing what he has said. In this context, this means we read and rehearse his promises. We envision a world in which these promises all come to pass, and we rejoice at the peace present in that world. We can rest when we are convinced that our promise-keeping God keeps his promises.

I see a lot of pessimism and cynicism in the world today. These attitudes can breed deep discouragement and anger. But there is no need for Christians to be trapped in this whirlpool.

When the God of hope fills us with all joy and peace in believing what he has said, we will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit (Romans 15:13). May it be so for us all.

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A Guaranteed Way to Grow in Biblical Hope

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

When I sit down for breakfast, I don’t think much about my chair. My simple, wooden, dining table chair has always been solid, and I am far more concerned about spilling my tea or stepping on the cat than I am about my chair. The past sturdiness of my chair gives me confidence about the future sturdiness of my chair.

This track-record link between the past and the future is important when we as Christians consider God. As we seek out ways to grow in hope, in this post we’ll find instruction in an aside found in Romans 15.

The Context: a United People

In Romans 14, Paul warns against passing judgment on or despising others. He commands the people not to put stumbling blocks in anyone’s way.

As Romans 15 opens, Paul exhorts the people to please their neighbors, not themselves (Romans 15:1-2). He notes that Christ did not please himself but took reproach on himself for the sake of others (Romans 15:3). Paul quoted Psalm 69:9 to show the Romans that Jesus’s work fulfilled an Old Testament foreshadowing.

Here is the aside that follows this reasoning.

For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. (Romans 15:4)

I say this is an aside because while Romans 15:5 references verse 4 (see “endurance” and “encouragement”), the themes of unity and welcoming dominate the rest of Romans 15:5–7. This section of Paul’s letter is not primarily about how we use the Scriptures.

How the Scriptures Give Hope

However, what Paul writes here as an aside is quite interesting, particularly to someone who has been writing about hope for no small amount of time. We can learn several things from Paul’s comment.

First, what was written has been written for our instruction. The Law, the Writings, and the Prophets are not just dusty, historical documents. We are naïve and we need instruction, and the writings of the Old Testament give us just that.

Specifically, the result of this instruction is hope for God’s people. These writings should help us endure, and the Scriptures should encourage us to hope.

I’ve been defining biblical hope as the joyful expectation that God will keep his promises. If that’s correct, then we can make some sense of why Paul’s mind went to this comment after quoting a Psalm about Christ.

Paul notes that Scripture is being fulfilled in the way Christ did not please himself. The same God that kept this promise will keep all of his promises. And this is why we can have hope.

Much like the faithful wooden chair, when we see example after example of God keeping his promises, we can lean into other promises with expectation. We don’t need to question or wonder if he will come through. He is a promise-keeping God, so when he makes promises to his people, he will keep them. That’s who he is.

A Lens for Reading

Even though it is an aside in his larger argument, Paul provides us with a way to grow in hope. When we read the Old Testament, we can take note of the promises God makes to his people. Not all of these promises will have an obvious fulfillment found elsewhere in the Bible, but many will.

When we encounter such fulfilled promises, we can take a small moment to praise and thank God. Our future hope, ultimately, is based on his faithfulness and his unchanging nature.

Then, when we encounter a promise that is yet to be fulfilled, we can remind ourselves of the God who promised. And maybe, perhaps, our minds can run ahead a bit to imagine what the world will look like when he keeps this specific promise.

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Joy: An Engine of Christian Hope

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

In sorrow, we reach for hope because we see how far we are from the fulfillment of God’s promises. We can harness this distance to long for what we do not have.

Joy is a more pleasant path to hope. We can turn God’s delightful provisions into opportunities for hope: we have a small taste now of the promised full experience yet to come and we can train ourselves to look ahead.

The joyful engine of hope can be dangerous, however. Few of us are tempted to seek out sorrow in order to grow in hope, yet that is a pitfall where joy is concerned. We may delight in the person, experience, feeling, or blessing of God so much that we forget it is from God. Many people have valued the gift over the Giver and so put their hearts in peril.

May we all grow in Christian hope, seeing in each blessing the future that is to come. Here are three concrete examples, in which I link joyful experiences to what God has promised about the future.

Feasting

It’s no accident that almost every celebration involves good food, where we elevate meals from mere sustenance to something special and delicious. It should be no surprise that the Bible points to a grand feast in the new earth.

Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out,
“Hallelujah!
For the Lord our God
    the Almighty reigns.
Let us rejoice and exult
    and give him the glory,
for the marriage of the Lamb has come,
    and his Bride has made herself ready;
it was granted her to clothe herself
    with fine linen, bright and pure”—
for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.
And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” And he said to me, “These are the true words of God.” (Revelation 19:6–9)

When God’s people (the Bride) are united with his Son (the Lamb), the celebration will be glorious, and it will involve food. When we are gathered around a joyful table now, we can catch the scent of the wonderful aromas to come.

Fellowship

Most Christians have probably shared conversations or experiences with other believers that leave them overflowing with gratitude. There’s nothing like connecting with others who share the deepest and highest desires of our hearts.

And while “fellow pilgrims” are given to us in this life for encouragement and help, we don’t leave fellowship behind at death. We will also have friends and companions in the new earth.

Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, “I believed, and so I spoke,” we also believe, and so we also speak, knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence. (2 Corinthians 4:13–14)

We will go with others into the presence of God.

When Jesus heard this, he marveled and said to those who followed him, “Truly, I tell you, with no one in Israel have I found such faith. I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, (Matthew 8:10–11)

As God gathers in those from many nations, they will “recline at table’ with each other and with the patriarchs.

The sweet fellowship we share with others in Christ on earth is a foretaste of our heavenly communion.

Rest

If we could bottle up the feelings of contentment, relaxation, and peace that come on vacation, we’d have a best-selling product on our hands. Even a weekend or a long night of uninterrupted sleep can be an enormous blessing.

This is the blessing of reprieve. Broadly speaking, we are looking for relief from the curse pronounced to our first parents in the garden. As many have noted, this is not the curse of work, but it is a curse upon work. And sometimes we groan under those thorns and thistles when we just want to make it through another day.

Rest is good, and it offers a glimpse of heaven.

No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. (Revelation 22:3)

It’s hard for us even to imagine a world in which nothing is cursed, but such a world is coming!

For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his. (Hebrews 4:8–10)

We need not work for our salvation; Jesus’s work accomplishes this for us. This rest pictures the Sabbath rest for God’s people. As tired and worn out and frustrated as you feel now, there is rest for you in the future.

Joy to Hope

All of the joys God gives us in this life are blessings by themselves.

But many of these joys are joyful precisely because they give us a small picture of larger masterpiece. If hope is the joyful expectation that God will keep his promises, then these small, temporary blessings can direct our attention to our fuller, lasting future.

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Sorrow: An Engine of Christian Hope

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

Hope may not be a fruit of the Spirit, but it is a Christian virtue. And the authors of the New Testament presume that those who are in Christ will grow in hope just as they grow in love and faith. (See Romans 15:13, 1 Peter 1:13, and Hebrews 6:11, for example.)

How therefore do we grow in hope?

The Christian life—and human life in general—offers scores of opportunities to increase our hope reflexes. In this post we’ll address the path to hope through sorrow.

Recognizing All That is Not Right

Here’s my definition of Christian hope: hope is the joyful expectation that God will keep his promises. Some events in our lives offer a brief taste of those kept promises, making us aware of the great fulfillment that is to come. (This will be the subject of a future post.) Yet some circumstances make us see just how far we are away from that fulfillment.

In a world marked by sin, we are bound to see misery and sadness all around us. God does not expect us to pretend that everything is fine; he has given us lament as a category of prayer for just these confusing, dispiriting, and gut-wrenching times.

However, properly understood, lament ends in hope. So, these times of great sadness can be opportunities to grow in this powerful Christian virtue.

Injustice

We do not need to search very hard for examples of injustice in the world. Many Christians have been the target of unjust actions or policies, and all of us have observed gross acts of injustice throughout the world.

We rightly cry out when the wicked flourish and the righteous are victims of hatred and violence.

God is just, and he promises that justice will rule one day. A key part of growing in hope is learning these promises, resting on them, and expecting God to keep them.

Behold my servant, whom I uphold,
    my chosen, in whom my soul delights;
    I have put my Spirit upon him;
    he will bring forth justice to the nations.
    He will not cry aloud or lift up his voice,
    or make it heard in the street;
    a bruised reed he will not break,
    and a faintly burning wick he will not quench;
    he will faithfully bring forth justice.
    He will not grow faint or be discouraged
    till he has established justice in the earth;
    and the coastlands wait for his law. (Isaiah 42:1–4)

“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’” (Jeremiah 23:5–6)

Additionally, the notion of hell depends in part on God’s justice. Because God is holy and humans sin against him, these offenses must be dealt with. For Christians, the wrath of God was satisfied at the cross (1 Peter 2:24), and for unbelievers, God will be vindicated in hell (see Matthew 25:31–46, Revelation 21:8).

Sickness and Death

Sickness and death are one of the greatest causes of our sorrow. And we rightly lament this reality because this is not the way things should be. And, of course, this is not the way things will be!

Jesus’s resurrection is the sure sign that resurrection is to come for those united to him. We have these sure promises.

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:25-26)

I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. (1 Corinthians 15:50–53)

The promise of bodily resurrection from the dead is fundamental to Christian hope. But we must not let familiarity with this promise dull its extravagant audacity. Raised from the dead! New bodies!

Loneliness

Many commenters have written about a modern epidemic of loneliness, but a sorrowful aloneness has been a part of the human experience for millennia. We rightly mourn the loss of relationships and the absence or coolness of friends, but our mourning can point us to a better day on the horizon.

Yes, God is present with his people now and has promised not to forsake them (Hebrews 13:5). But a greater sense of God’s presence awaits us.

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. (Revelation 21:1–3)

God will be with us as our God; he will dwell with us—in fact, that will be his dwelling place.

For those in Christ, all loneliness has an expiration date. God has promised.

From Sadness to Hope

Sorrow is nothing to seek out, but rightly understood it is an opportunity to grow.

Our prayers of lament begin with complaint but they end in hope. We realize that our aching and sadness is a longing for something God has promised. We can build a solid foundation on God’s promises, joyfully anticipating the way he will keep them and turn our sadness on its head.

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How Idols Hijack Our Hearts

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

Idols are ridiculous. They are embarrassing. Believing and trusting idols is not just sinful, it’s moronic. For those who acknowledge God as good and sovereign, trusting ourselves to anything or anyone else is utterly foolish.

And yet, we’re all morons and fools in this regard, aren’t we?

In the moment, we don’t usually recognize our idolatrous motivations. And since our idols are less noticeable than statues and figurines, it’s easy to miss when our loyalties are bent in the wrong direction.

Idols Work

The main reason we are tempted to trust in idols, is that they work—at least for a time and in a meager way.[1] Christians may protest that this admission grants idols too much power, but the alternative grants idols far more influence. It’s better to drag the tyrant out into the town square than to let him bully from the shadows.

We see a silly example of this in the realm of sports superstitions. A player who wears a mismatched pair of socks in a standout game is compelled to wear those same socks for weeks. A fan accidentally mutes the television while her favorite team completes a stunning comeback and then won’t think of turning the volume up for the rest of the season. These small actions coincide with success, so we repeat the actions with hope of repeated outcomes.

Something similar likely happened with some ancient idolatries. A rain dance or a sacrifice coincided with healthier crops, so the practices and devotion continued.

This is more evident with our modern idolatries. We trust in modern medicine because it is so often able to make us feel better. We depend on our finances because we are able to make ourselves comfortable and happy by withdrawing funds from our accounts. Our good reputation gives us a connection for a job or promotion or favor, so we give undue energy to persuading other people to think well of us.

If what we ultimately seek is health or comfort or material happiness, then we have to admit that these idols are doing a decent job. From one perspective, it makes sense that we continue to rely on them.

Idols Make Promises

Our idols don’t make promises explicitly because they rarely speak. But we attribute promises to them—primarily that they would continue to deliver in the ways they have delivered in the past.

I started writing this post a number of weeks ago. Since then, Brad East has written a terrific post which is a better and more thoughtful version of what I wanted to say in this section. Please read it: What does an idol promise?

An idol promises its petitioners safety, power, a future, and/or a name. Unsurprisingly, these are echoes of God’s promises to Abraham and to his seed, the Messiah, and their fulfillment in Him and extension to all are in Him.

The promises our idols make are attractive because they are counterfeit versions of the promises we were made to need and believe. By virtue of a Christian’s union with Jesus, we are given the greatest promises by the most trustworthy person in the universe. Yet, we often ignore God’s engraved, golden promises in favor of fraudulent guarantees scribbled in canary-colored crayon.

Detection Within Community

We are almost helpless to identify, dethrone, and resist idols on our own. They are too powerful, deceptive, and effective. We need the communion of saints for this and every aspect of the Christian life. We need the church.

To be clear, the conversations we must have to detect our idols are uncomfortable. They are painful in the way that removing chewing gum from one’s hair is painful—wretched in the short term but wonderful in the long term. And it may take a while for the hair to grow back and cover that bald spot.

A small number of friends in my life have loved me enough to keep asking these important “why” questions. Thoughtful conversations like these have helped me see exactly what I was believing and on what I was relying.

Whether you pursue these discussions in a small group or one-on-one, please don’t resist the inquiries of those who care about you. This is one way the Spirit of God corrects us and turns our worship back to the Lord Jesus.

[1] The idea of idol worship “working” in the short term is something I am borrowing from Andy Crouch as he explained it on this episode of the Mere Fidelity podcast.

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Four Precious Promises from God for Everyday Growth

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

God’s promises are essential to our faith and fundamental to our hope. And these promises are so much better than we think.

In my previous article, I wrote about the characteristics of the promises of God. His promises help us grow in godliness and escape the corruption in the world. In this article I will spotlight four promises that aid in our spiritual growth.

You Will Be Saved

Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. This bedrock promise can be found in the book of Romans.

For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” (Romans 10:11–13)

Christians often cite this passage in the context of coming to faith. However, Paul may have had our future salvation in mind, as he distinguishes between justification and salvation in Romans 10:10.

The righteousness we need is not based on the law, but based on faith (Romans 10:6). And for this righteousness, we look to Christ (Romans 10:4).

We will be spared the wrath of God in the judgment if we call on Christ in this way.

The Lord Hears Our Cries

Part of growing in grace is learning to converse with God—to bring all of our happiness, sadness, confusion, and grief to him. Does he hear us? Might he be busy with other items on his agenda?

No, we have promises from God that assure us of his attention.

The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous
    and his ears toward their cry.
The face of the Lord is against those who do evil,
    to cut off the memory of them from the earth.
When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears
    and delivers them out of all their troubles.
The Lord is near to the brokenhearted
    and saves the crushed in spirit. (Psalm 34:15–18)

God hears the righteous when they cry. (Don’t read “righteous” as “perfect” but rather as “in Christ.”) The Lord is near to the brokenhearted.

There Are Ways to Resist Temptation

As we mature in our faith, our desires and behavior change. How comforting it is to know that we now have power to say no to temptation!

No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. (1 Corinthians 10:13)

God takes our “ability” into account when allowing our temptations, meaning that he makes us “able” to endure temptation—that is, to escape it. This doesn’t make resisting temptation easy in the moment! It does mean that sin is not inevitable.

James states this promise another way.

But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. (James 4:6–8)

Practically speaking, resisting the devil and finding a “way of escape” are probably one and the same. In context, resisting the devil also involves submitting humbly to God. When we do this, God promises that the evil one will depart. A marvelous example of his grace!

God’s Word Brings Blessing and Growth

Christian growth is often slow. And yet God tells us some of the ways to move forward. One of these ways is through the Bible.

So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. (1 Peter 2:1–3)

We grow up into our salvation, God promises, through the pure spiritual milk. In context (see 1 Peter 1:23–25), this refers to the Scriptures.

On a broader scale, we are promised that God’s word brings blessing.

Blessed is the man
    who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
    nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
but his delight is in the law of the Lord,
    and on his law he meditates day and night.
He is like a tree
    planted by streams of water
that yields its fruit in its season,
    and its leaf does not wither.
In all that he does, he prospers. (Psalm 1:1–3)

This passage is not only about God’s law, but delighting in and meditating on God’s law is the key contrast to those behaviors that should be avoided. A Christian who delights in and gladly drinks of God’s word will be fruitful and blessed.

God’s Promises for Life

The promises I’ve highlighted are mostly related to our growth as Christians. But God intends our entire Christian life to be fueled by his “precious and very great promises” (2 Peter 1:4).

Trusting in God’s promises is at the core of our faith, and gladly expecting God to keep his promises is the essence of our hope. I plan to discuss the faith and hope and their relation to God’s promises in a future article.

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A Christian Alternative to Optimism and Pessimism

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

Optimism and pessimism are sometimes portrayed as two ends of a one-dimensional spectrum, with “realism” as the rational, sensible midpoint. A good Christian alternative to optimism and pessimism is to ditch the spectrum entirely and focus on hope.

We all have tendencies toward and moments of optimism and pessimism, and I suspect this is due to our personalities and experiences. What I’m critiquing below is the extreme versions of optimists and pessimists.

The Optimist

An optimist will always “expect the most favorable outcome.” They see good things around every corner and are quick to point out the silver lining to the storm cloud.

When combined with Christianity, this sort of optimist can be hard to talk to. They know God has a purpose behind every difficult turn of events; they urge others to think about the ultimate good God has in store, even when the suffering is great.

While well-intentioned, this optimistic approach leaves little room for lament and grief in the face of sadness and suffering. An optimist is so uncomfortable with pain that they rush themselves and their friends through it. But God may have holy intentions in that pain.

Taken to its extreme, optimism blunts the effects of sin and the curse, and this leaves little need for Jesus. If everything is going to turn out well, why did the Son of God become a man? Why did he suffer and die?

Counsel for the optimist

Christians can affirm some of the optimist’s instincts: for those who trust in the Lord, there certainly is good ahead! However, God has not promised good at every turn. Because sin really exists and the world is not yet made new, there may be prolonged seasons of sadness, frustration, confusion, and failure. When a Christian experiences these seasons, it does not mean they are far from God; God often uses these dark times to remind his children who he is and what he has promised.

The Pessimist

In stark contrast, the pessimist will expect the least favorable outcome in any situation. They are always braced for catastrophe and see a cloud behind every silver lining.

A pessimist sees an inevitability to disaster and distress, and when it comes, they wear I-knew-it like a badge of honor.

Within the church, a pessimist can be difficult to befriend. As they focus on the bad and dismiss the good, it is hard to enjoy the gifts of God with them.

Pessimists may have hope in heaven, but they are convinced there will be little to smile about until then. They are frequently bitter and cynical in their approach to life, and they may begin to question God’s goodness and his love.

Counsel for the pessimist

I would affirm this part of the pessimist’s beliefs: there really are terrible things that happen in life. However, we should not expect everything to be bad! The Lord God is sovereign; he has given us good to look forward to but he also brings good into our lives now.

Hope is a Christian Alternative

Both optimism and pessimism describe ways of looking at the future, and both are unhealthy in some respects. I’ll offer the lens of Biblical hope as a robust alternative.

Hope is the eager expectation that God will keep his promises. This means that if we are to be hope-filled people, we need to know what God has promised, not just what we think or wish he had promised. This is one of many reasons Christians are to be people of the Bible—the Scriptures are where we learn about God’s promises.

Growing in Hope

While hope should characterize Christians (Romans 15:12-13), this is something God grows within us. We are not born again brimming with a tank full of hope.

As we get to know God by his Spirit and through his word, we see how trustworthy he is. Faithfulness is an essential part of his character. And when we repeatedly read the promises he has made to us, we learn to trust him. We begin to see with eyes of faith just how good it will be when those promises are realized.

This doesn’t settle every question or make every outcome sure, but when we trust in the God who governs all things and when we know he is undeniably in our corner, we can face the future with great hope.

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God’s Promises Are So Much Better Than We Think

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

God has made promises to his people, and they are staggering. The fact that we don’t consider them staggering means either that we haven’t taken them seriously or that we haven’t meditated on the first chapter of 2 Peter in a while.

All Needful Things

Peter begins this letter telling his readers that in his power God “has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness.” All of these things come “through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence” (2 Pet 1:3).

Think of it—there is nothing pertaining to life and godliness that our heavenly father has withheld. We lack no access, no privilege, no resources to live a life which glorifies God. The vehicle through which these resources come is the “knowledge of [Jesus],” which we should understand as the Scriptures and the testimony of the Holy Spirit.

What Promises!

Peter gets more specific after this, pointing his finger at one category of essential resources for godly living: God’s promises.

by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. (2 Peter 1:4)

In context, this verse is full of great encouragement regarding the promises of God. Let’s take a look at five characteristics of these promises.

Precious Promises

God’s promises are precious. By this Peter means that they are of immense value to believers. They fill the bank account of our souls with great riches because they point to what is true and eternal.

When something is precious it is also treasured or cherished. God’s promises are words we should hold close and consider frequently. Rather than keep them in a museum-quality display case, they are meant to be picked up and examined with awe from every angle and in every light.

Very Great Promises

God’s promises are very great. These are no small assurances! God’s promises are vast and sweeping, like a roaring river kicking foam up onto its banks.

I love the emphasis Peter puts on this adjective—God’s promises are not just great, they are very great. They are far better than anything we’d wish for.

His Promises

Perhaps this is obvious, but sometimes what is obvious is useful to state: God’s promises are his. They come from God himself, guaranteed by his name and his word. His promises cannot fail because God cannot fail. God spoke all of these promises, and not a single one was an accident, an exaggeration, or a hastily-made effort to appease. God meant every last word of every promise he has made.

Partake of the Divine Nature

If you doubted that God’s promises were very great, hold onto your hat. Through God’s promises he intends for us to “become partakers of the divine nature.”

This may seem like an unattainable (or even an unintended) plane of existence. On its surface, this isn’t anything I’d long for or request.

But what Peter has in mind is likely echoed elsewhere in Scripture. The writer to the Hebrews tells us that God disciplines his children “that we may share his holiness” (Heb 12:10). John also tells us that “when he appears we shall be like him” (1 John 3:2).

God’s promises won’t make us divine, but they do provide strength and light along the path to growing in divine qualities, like holiness, goodness, and love.

Escape from Corruption

Partaking of the divine nature is not the first result of holding onto God’s promises. Rather, this happens as we escape “the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.” (The end of the verse lends weight to linking “partaking of the divine nature” to growing in holiness.)

In their best moments, what Christian doesn’t want to escape the corruption of the world and grow in holiness? If you desire these things, Peter is pointing you to God’s promises. Of all the things that pertain to life and godliness which God has provided, his promises are among the most powerful.

Life Through the Promises

God’s promises are far from the only important aspects of Scripture. But they are vital to our faith, and we ignore them at our own peril.

Because God’s promises are central to our faith and hope, we should take care to identify and cling to them. I plan to discuss both of these aspects of God’s promises in future articles.

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