“Mom, there’s nothing certain in this life.”
She had forgotten the unchanging Love of God, His sure mercies, His absolute inability to be unfaithful to His promises. Click To Tweet
These words were blurted out from the heart of a 30-plus-year old who had just lost one of her sisters and two of her friends to heroin overdose. The words pierced me when I heard them: she had forgotten about the unchanging Love of God, His sure mercies, His unwavering and constant faithfulness to His children, His absolute inability to be untrue to His promises. Indeed, she’d lost sight of the certainty of His Presence and provision to all who carry His Name. She had forgotten the infallibility, the purity, the “certain certainties” of the Word of God.
” To make you know the certainty of the words of Truth.” (Proverbs 22:21)
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Solomon was urging his son to listen to wise counsel and to apply his mind to Godly knowledge (v.17). “So that your trust (…support, and confidence) may be in the Lord, I have made known these things to you …” (v.19). The king wrote “excellent things in counsels and knowledge” so that his son would know how certain the words of truth are, the Words of God, A similar statement is written by Luke to a fellow disciple, Theophilus, in the beginning of the first chapter of Luke’s Gospel: “It seemed good … to me … to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, … a narrative of the surely established deeds which have been accomplished and fulfilled in and among us. … that you may know the full truth and understand with certainty and security against error the accounts … and doctrines of the faith of which you have been informed and in which you have been … instructed.” (vv 3,1,4). We, too, in this day and age, and in these perilous times, have the certainty of the Word of God being absolutely, unchangingly true.
“Assuredly as God is trustworthy and faithful and means what He says … ” (II Corinthians 1:18)
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We have the absolute certainty that the Lord will fulfill every single one of His promises: “For as many as are the promises of God, they all find their Yes in Him.” (II Cor.1:20) We can also be assured that He will always present them to us through the Holy Spirit precisely when we need them and according to our precise need. “God is … a very present help in trouble.” (Psalm 46:1) ” … my God will liberally supply (fill to the full) your every need according to His riches in glory in Christ.” (Phil.4:19) No matter what the need, the circumstances surrounding it, the cause of it, it is certain that He is willing, available, and able to provide the help we need right when we need it.
“I will not, I will not, I will not leave you nor forsake you … nor relax My hold on you (Assuredly not!)” (Hebrews 13:5, Ampl)
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Included in the verse above is this promise: “I will not to any degree leave you helpless or without support … ” This certainly applies to every aspect of our lives. We have the certainty of His help when it’s a matter of our or another’s health. He is the Lord Who repairs thoroughly, Who heals and keeps on healing us; and through His Word He restores the whole person (Psalm 19:7). In times of loneliness we can be assured that we are NOT alone: “I am not alone, because the Father is with Me.” (John 16:32b), and we are hid with Him in God (Col.3:3). Matthew 28:20 further promises that the Lord will be with us ALWAYS, uniformly, throughout the entire Church Age, till we are all in Heaven with Him.
Another certainty that we are promised is that He is ALWAYS able to provide ALL Grace so that we might ALWAYS and in ALL things have financial sufficiency … so much so that we can provide charitable donations! (II Cor.9:8, Ampl) We also have the assurance of Wisdom whenever we need it by simply asking for it in faith, not doubting for a moment that He wants to give it to us and will (James 1:5). In face, He IS our Wisdom (I Cor.1:30)! Do we need strength? There are many sure, pure and precious promises regarding this need: In Luke 10:19 the Lord Jesus promises us “physical and mental strength and ability over ALL the power that the enemy possesses, and nothing shall in any way harm us.” (Amplified) Philippians 4:13 assures us that we can have strength for all things through Christ and that we are “ready for anything and equal to anything through Him” because of “that strength which His boundless might provides” (Ephesians 6:10b). Faithfully, “He gives power to the faint and to the weary; to him who has no might He increases strength, causing it to multiply and making it abound” (Isa.40:29, Ampl).
“They will not hunger or thirst …” (Isaiah 49:10a)
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Imagine the comfort of this promise to those who are being persecuted for their faith in Jesus Christ, or who are in worn-torn countries! Isaiah 49:10 goes on to say, “… He Who has mercy on them will lead them and by springs of water will He guide them.” This same faithful and trustworthy God, Who cannot lie, “opens His Hand and satisfies the desire of every living thing” (Psalm 145:16). He will abundantly bless our provision and satisfy our poor with bread (Psalm 132:15). David even affirmed that from his youth to his old age he had never “seen the righteous forsaken or their seed begging bread.” (Psalm 37;25) He even supplied Hagar and Ishmael with water when they were preparing to die of thirst, after Sarah had sent them away (Genesis 21). And then there was Elijah, when he was running from the wicked queen Jezebel in I King 19. He wanted to die (v.4), but the Lord compassionately provided “a cake baked on the coals, and a bottle of water” (v.6). After two meals and coaxing from the Lord, He went in the strength of that food and journeyed to Mount Horeb, where the Lord spoke to him. This gentle, compassionate God will indeed supply ALL our need as well.
Therefore, “Let us all come forward and draw near with true hearts in unqualified assurance … ” (Hebrews 10:22a my italics)
We have seen in the above paragraphs how sure those things are that come from God to us. A couple of other examples are that we are promised “the sure mercies of David” (Acts 13:34) – an amazing promise when we consider the “multitude of mercies that the Lord offered David and that he readily embraced, by faith! Also, (and written by David himself) we are given the promise that “Surely or only goodness, mercy, and unfailing Love will follow” us all the days of our lives and throughout the length of each day! (Psalm 23:6) These are indeed “precious and exceedingly great promises” given to us, yet without exercising faith in them we are left with simply knowing them and not truly benefiting from them. Hebrews 10:22a, in fact. exhorts us to draw near to the Lord not only with “unqualified assurance” but also with “absolute conviction engendered by FAITH” (emphasis mine).
“Faith is the assurance … of the things we hope for, being the proof of things we do not see and the conviction of their reality [faith perceiving as real fact what is not revealed to the senses].” (Hebrews 11:1, Amplified)
We must step out by faith in what we know of the Word of God, or we'll not benefit from the certainty of it. Click To Tweet
Faith is the key, the link, to not only knowing and believing the promises of God but also to REST in the certainty of their fulfillment. We must step out by faith in what we know of the Word of God, or we’ll not benefit from the certainty of it; and not only ourselves but also those around us desperately need to see the absolute dependability and certainty of what God has said and is saying in these uncertain, perilous times.
Therefore, by the inexhaustible, ever-available Grace of God, let us indeed draw near – with full assurance of Who He is and of the absolute truth of His infallible Word – (1) to hear what His Spirit wants to tell us (Romans 10:17; Revelation 2:7 ); (2) to seek in the Book and read (Isaiah 34:16); (3) and to gather ourselves together around His Word more than ever. Living in such a way will be our certainty in these uncertain times, and our stability (Isaiah 33:6).
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