Pray for Your Church: Members (7)
But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry, inasmuch as He is also Mediator of a better covenant, which was established on better promises. Hebrews 8.6
For all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us. 2 Corinthians 1.20
Image-bearers, not animals
Christians should be careful about acquiescing in the easy way evolutionary thinkers classify human beings as just another—albeit higher—form of animal. Humans are not animals. We are the image-bearers of God, and, as such, there is much to distinguish us from animals.
For example, consider our orientation to everyday life. Animals perform their daily routines—eating, mating, raising their young, and, if you’re a dog, going out and coming in—largely based on genetic predisposition and past experience. But human beings take an altogether different approach to life. Animals are instinctive in their behavior; human beings are anticipatory.
That is, while people are not unmindful of past experience, and can benefit from or be harmed by it, and while we also have a unique genetic make-up, humans, unlike animals, tend to be oriented in their behavior toward the future. People—all people—live each day for the prospect of what we hope to gain, not merely what we’ve always known, or how our genes incline us to act.
That is, people are motivated by promise. God understood this, as He called His exiled people, through Jeremiah, to look to Him for a future and hope full of great things and mysteries they’d never previously known (Jer. 29.11; 33.3). People live toward promises. It is built into the human soul, as image-bearers of God, to live toward the future and the prospects and hopes of what our decisions and actions may produce. One of the primary points of schooling, indeed, of all child-rearing, is to hold out the prospect of what their lives can be and to encourage the young to dream and work toward their dreams.
So for us and our fellow church members, it is important that we know the promises of God and work together to realize them. We should pray every day that this might be so.
The problem of a faulty worldview
Problems arise, however, when the promises we envision and pursue are based on a faulty worldview. If we believe that everything we can have in life is determined by what we know about ourselves and our strengths and limitations, then the promises we pursue will be limited by our finite understanding and limited experience. We’ll always be guided, consciously or unconsciously, by the mantra, “Well, I’ve never done that before.”
It’s not surprising, therefore, that we often find that our promises, once realized, are not as bright and satisfying as we’d hope they would be. If we’re looking to the past for our promises, every promise realized is going to feel like “Been there, done that.” Whereupon we set off in search of other, better promises – very often with the same result. What shall we do? We will pursue promises, live toward some batch or promises of others. It’s who we are and how we live. We need better promises than we’ve known in the past.
The promise of better promises
So, what if the promises held out to us are not those of our own devising or dreaming? What if the promises we embrace, and around which we order our whole lives, both as individual believers and churches, are offered to us by God? Those would indeed be better promises.
God understood that His people, captive in Babylon, might soon lose all hope and either fall into despair or turn to lying prophets for comfort. He knew they did not consider their prospects very bright, and that the promises they were clinging to were simply too small. Which is why He came to them promising things greater and more glorious than they’d ever known before. God gave them great and precious promises to sustain and guide them, and He does just the same for us.
We might expect promises made by God to be such as would help us realize the fullness of our potential as His image-bearers. Such promises would be designed to draw us along in a life-long journey of seeking, knowing, and enjoying God Himself. These would be better promises because they come from an infinitely powerful and faithful Being, Who loves us and knows us better than we know ourselves, and Who is able to do exceedingly abundantly more than we could ever dare to ask or think (Eph. 3.20).
As it happens, Jesus Christ, the Word of God, does offer better promises for all who have entered into a covenant relationship with Him by grace through faith. And His promises, offered within the worldview of His Kingdom, are not just better promises but exceedingly great and precious promises, as we shall see (2 Pet. 1.4). For He Himself is the future we seek—the prospect, vision, and promise for which God has made us. “More about Jesus” must be our rallying-cry, for in Him all the precious and very great promises of God are Yes! and Amen!
So let us pray for one another:
Lord, help us to keep your promises always in mind,
to remember that we have in Jesus a future and hope,
and that seeing Him we are made to be more like Him.
And let us encourage one another by sharing Jesus,
praying together for more of Jesus,
and working to make our church
a true and flourishing member
of the whole Body of Jesus Christ our Lord.
For reflection
1. What are some promises that typically guide people today? What are they hoping for and striving toward in life? Where do such promises originate?
2. Why do people often find their promises to be unsatisfying?
3. What role do the promises of God play in your walk with and work for the Lord?Next steps—Preparation: Make a list of all the promises that lead your life. Make sure the promises you seek are consistent with the promises that are all Yes! and Amen! in Jesus. Recommit yourself to the Lord to live toward these promises.
T. M. Moore
Give thanks
If you have found this meditation helpful, take a moment and give thanks to God. Then share what you learned with a friend. This is how the grace of God spreads (2 Cor. 4.15).
Other columns of interest this week: Read Moore (from the book, Revived!); from Crosfigell, “He Knows What He’s Doing”, on the work of the Holy Spirit; and “The Bitter and Sweet Word” from our daily Scriptorium series, “Jesus throughout the Scriptures.” And new in our bookstore, Let God Be True and Enjoying God, both free to download and share.
Thank you.
Many of you are faithful and generous in praying for and supporting ReVision and The Fellowship of Ailbe. Thank you. I encourage all our readers to seek the Lord about becoming a supporter of The Fellowship of Ailbe. It’s easy to give to The Fellowship of Ailbe, and all gifts are, of course, tax-deductible. You can click here to donate online through credit card or PayPal or Anedot, or send your gift to The Fellowship of Ailbe, P. O. Box 8213, Essex, VT 05451.
Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
