Key scripture,- “So be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid and do not panic. For the Lord your God will personally go ahead of you. He will neither fail you nor abandon you.” (Deuteronomy 31:6)

Do you know that we should never ever ever fear because God is always with us?

God is with us always. He will not fail us or abandon us. When He says He will not fail us that means He’s not just standing around with His arms folded while He’s with us. He is actually doing something for us. He will not leave us physically or leave us in terms of His help. That is why He ends the verse in the Key scripture by saying that He will “neither fail you or abandon you.” That means he will never ever ever do that, it will not happen.

A promise is an assurance that God gives His people so that they can walk by faith while they wait for Him to work. God has told us some things and we believe them, and the promises of God are what we hold on to while we journey through life and wait for Him to work.

A person who is resting in the promises of God has a great life, they have a confident life, they believe good things are going to happen to them. If you’re living in the promises of God, if you’re resting in His truth, if you are expecting His blessings, then you have hope.

Think about it, do you really think that after God has been true to His Word since the beginning of time that He is gonna change now and let you down by not keeping His promises? That will never happen! His reputation is on the line. His name is on the line. Therefore, He will come through every time for the person that is resting in His promises. God has said some things, He has promised to do some things and if you get on those promises, and you hold onto them, you are going to win in the end.

This is what you can hold on to:

1. God’s Word is always true. You can’t find anything else in this world that is always true, only God’s Word. God’s Word is full of awesome promises. The promises of God are like diamonds hidden in a mountain of gold. All of God’s Word is gold but his promises are beautiful sparkling diamonds made just for us. 2 Peter 1:3-4 shows us that God promises to do some things for us. “His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.” (NIV).

2. God’s promises are great and precious. That is what God thinks about His own promises, they are exceedingly great and precious. I love that. God does not forget His own promises, He never ever fails, and He doesn’t lie. He always follows through. God knows that when a promise is made, the character of the person making the promise is on the line.

3. God’s promises are greater than human wisdom. For example a lot of times when we have a problem the first thing that we do is we call someone for advice. What we should do before we make that call is we need to get a hold of God’s promises, because no matter who you call they are limited by human wisdom. So go to God first, because God has already said what He will do for you through His promises.

4. God’s promises are greater than white knuckle obedience. How many times when we are going through a problem we think, “if I can just hang on, I will get through it. If I can wait it out and just flip some pages on the calendar it will work itself out in time.” That is an awful way to get through something. God’s promises are better than that. His promises give us a restfulness, a confidence, and an ability to stay strong. His promises allow us to go on living and doing the things that we have to do, that need to get done, while we wait for Him to work it out.

5. His promises are greater than wallowing in self-pity. How many times when the waves of difficulty wash over our life we sit around and have a pity party. We say things like, “Oh poor pitiful me, I am a good person and I can’t believe this is happening to me.” We need to cancel the pity party and get a hold of God’s promises, and go forward walking by faith. God is going to honor your faith, He will not let you down.

6. God’s promises will get you through the darkest night and the longest day. They will get you through the deepest valley because you can say with confidence, “I know what God’s going to do because He has already told me in His promises. I know it, I know it, I know it, because God said it.” Nothing, I mean absolutely nothing even comes close to God’s promises.

7. You may be thinking, God’s promises are Great but do I have them right now while I am here on earth or do I have to wait to see them in Heaven? We do not have to wait until we go to Heaven to see God’s promises we will see them while we are here on earth. David knew that and believed that when he said, “I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.” (Psalm 27:13-14). Like David, you will also see the goodness of the Lord right now in your life here on earth.

8. When you walk by faith, you are waiting for the day that the promise of God comes true. God will not disappoint us. God knows it is hard for us to walk by faith. He made us and he knows us. So he says, “I am not going to leave you clueless. I am not going to leave you wondering what I am going to do. I am not going to leave you uncertain about the future. I don’t want you to be overcome by fear. So I am going to make some promises to you so that you can get through the long nights and difficult days. You hang on to what I told you. These are My assurances to you so that you can walk by faith while you wait for Me to work.”

9. Gods promises are GREAT. They come from a Great God. They are Great because God said them. “Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised, and his greatness is unsearchable.” (Psalm 145:3). We do not know how Great God is. No one can fathom it. We do not have a clue how Great God is. When we look at our circumstances and panic and we say, “I can’t do this. I can’t handle this,” God says, “I know, but I can.” So we can be courageous because God is so Great. “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.” (Joshua 1:9 NIV).

10. God makes promises about big things. He makes promises about fear. Things that we fear are; our finances, our relationships, our future, our families. He makes promises about doubt. He makes promises about discouragement. He makes promises about despair, when you think it will never change, that it will never get better, that there’s no hope anymore. That is the kind of stuff that God’s promises are about. They are from a Great God and they deal with big issues. The person who is resting in the promises of God has a great life. They have hope because they know and believe that good things are in store for them. “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” (Hebrews 11:1).

11. We need to remember that God is a promiser by nature. The Bible is brimming and overflowing with the promises God has made. God is always wanting to give assurance to his people about what He is going to do. The whole motif of scripture is all promises and we relate to God by believing His promises.

12. Never forget that the worse the days get the more God is with you. The harder it gets the more He is moving towards you. We have a tendency to think that when it’s getting harder that God is getting further away but that is wrong, because the harder it gets, the more intense it gets, the closer God gets to you. He gets so close during the hard times that He is right there, up close and personal, in your space, and in your grill.

You’re probably sitting there thinking, “But wait a minute I’m such a mess, my life is so messed up, my problems are so big, is God really near me?” Yes, He is, look what He said in Psalm 34:18, “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.” (NIV).

Is your heartbreaking? Are you feeling crushed? Far from abandoning you God is rushing towards you. He is right there with you. Take the things that God’s Word says and in the middle of your crisis hold onto it with all your might. No matter how bad your situation is you can make it if you hold onto God’s promises and know that God is with you.

We will all get to a point in our Christian life where we know the best thing of all is, God is with us! This is as good as it gets. God is with us. I will not fear, God is with me.

Pray this – Our Precious Heavenly Father, I need You to renew my confidence and my faith in You. Help me to always remember that “God is with me, I shall not fear.” Help me as I lay hold of Your promises to always remember that You will never leave me or forsake me. I am not alone. You are the God who knows the end from the beginning and You made promises that are true, that never fail, and I can lean on them, rest in them and put all my weight on them. I have nothing to fear. I know that, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.” (Psalm 23:4). I know that Your promises are more valuable than anything on earth. Your promises are more precious to me than anything else. I know that nothing else can do for me what Your promises can do. Father, the absolute best thing of all is that You are with me, and I will NOT fear because, You are with me! HALLELUJAH!! In Jesus’ Name I pray, Amen.

 Laura Ingle