PRAYER OF CONSECRATION
Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.
Jesus, I belong to you.
I lift up my heart to you.
I set my mind on you.
I fix my eyes on you.
I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice.
Jesus, we belong to you.
Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.
2 Corinthians 1:20
For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. And so through him the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God.
CONSIDER THIS
Promises, promises. Standing in our kitchen with my wife and daughter, two of the three of us agreed that I had made the promise. I didn’t remember making it. But when two of the brightest women in your life, who both have strong memories, are telling you that you made a promise to buy your daughter a new laptop for her high school graduation—you listen.
Being a keeper of promises is what I hope to be known for in my home and in my lifetime. I can hope to become that kind of man because the ultimate Keeper of Promises lives in me.
The same is true of you. The Keeper of Promises has made promises throughout history, and throughout your life and mine, that he is bringing to fruition. Unlike me, he doesn’t forget what he has promised. And “in Christ,” he says a resounding yes to all those promises he has made to his people. According to today’s verse, through him, and being found in him (Phil. 3:9a), we offer our hearty amen!
In Christ, God’s promises are fulfilled for us.
There is the promise of habitation—Jesus abides in us and we abide in Jesus (John 15:4–5) by the promised Holy Spirit (Eph. 1:13–14).
There is the promise of participation—we are identified with Christ in his life, death, and resurrection (Rom. 6:5–8). The covenant with the Father is fulfilled for us all in Christ and we are reconciled to God (2 Cor. 5:18–19).
There is the promise of incarnation—we are maturing toward a place where our union with Jesus comes to its fruition and we can say confidently with Paul, “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me” (Gal. 2:20).
We are seeing the fulfillment of Joel 2:28–29, where God promises that he would pour out his Spirit on all people (Acts 2:16–21). We are seeing the fulfillment of Jesus’s promise that the love the Father has for Jesus would be in us, and Jesus himself would be in us (John 17:26).
In our Prayer for Union and Love in Ephesians 3:14–21, Paul prays for us “to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God” (Eph. 3:19). Peter echoes the purpose of God’s promises in 2 Peter 1:4: “He has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature.”
You and I are being invited to participate in the divine nature. We are invited to know this love that surpasses all knowledge and to be filled to the measure of the fullness of God. Your union is with Jesus, who is in you and is making the promises behind these invitations come to pass.
Today, we can revel in the promises of God. One way to do this is to get one of those handy lists or card decks that lays out the promises of God in the Scriptures. Using tools like these, we can recite and memorize great and precious promises that are our inheritance every single day.
Another way to revel in the promises of God is to follow the liturgical calendar, or what we call the Awakening Calendar. This rhythm keeps us focusing on the promises of God through seasons like Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter, and more.
We could even call this way of marking time the Promise Calendar! Tish Harrison Warren writes:
The liturgical calendar reminds us that we are people who live by a different story. And not just by a story, but in a story. God is redeeming all things, and our lives—even our days—are part of that redemption. . . . Redemption is crashing into our little stretch of the universe, bit by bit, day by day, mile by coming mile. We have hope because our Lord has promised that he is preparing a place for us. We are waiting, but we will make it home.1
If we live in the story of God, we live in the promises of God.
Take heart today. God’s great yes is resounding to you as his child. In Christ, you are the recipient of grace upon grace (John 1:16–18). Like my daughter with her laptop, you are receiving what was promised because that is what love does. You are receiving the goal of your faith—the salvation of your soul (1 Peter 1:8–9).
THE PRAYER
Lord Jesus, I am in you and you are in me. You are the fulfiller of the promises you have made. I remember each one, and will gather them for remembrance so that I can praise for you all you have done, are doing, and are going to do. In Christ Jesus, I pray, amen.
THE QUESTIONS
What promises in the Scriptures is God fulfilling? What promises in your own life, promises you believe God gave to you, is he fulfilling? What is the part you have to play in seeing those promises come to fulfillment?
For the Awakening,
Dan Wilt
NOTES
- Tish Harrison Warren, Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life (Downer’s Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2016), 113–14.
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3 Responses
We stand on the promises of God in order to live in contentment irrespective of the external circumstances. We walk by faith and not by sight. I can appreciate God’s faithfulness to me through introspective remembrance of my faith journey. God keeps His promises, “in the hope of eternal life that God, who cannot lie, promised before time began.” (Titus 1:2)
Let the risen Jesus fulfill this promise in and through you throughout each and every day. When Christians accept Christ’s promise to lead them by His Spirit and begin to courageously, moment-by-moment, follow and obey His inner promptings, glorious spiritual awakening will sweep through their land.
“Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Colossians 1:27.
“I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Advocate to help you and be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept Him, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. But you know Him, for He lives with you and will be in you.” John 14:16-17.
“The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.” John 14:17.
“When He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on His own; He will speak only what He hears, and He will tell you what is yet to come. He will glorify Me because it is from Me that He will receive what He will make known to you” John 16:13-14.
“As for you, the anointing you received from Him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as His anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit—just as it has taught you, remain in Him.” 1 John 2:27.
“For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God.” Romans 8:14.
As I think about God’s promises I am overwhelmed by the abundance of his love,grace and mercy. And always his faithfulness. He is always faithful even when I am not. What a wonderful and mighty God we serve and worship l