Date: 03-29-15
The Big Idea: Would keeping our commitments, promises and convents really change the world around us?
My Thoughts: Would your life be any different if people in your life kept their promises? How different would it be?
This is a question that I find fascinating. I know that I would be less tired. How about you? Who would benefit if I kept all my promises, commitments and covenants? How much different would their lives be?
What are your thoughts? As we discussion these questions, let’s add one more: How much different would the world be if believers in Jesus kept their commitments, promises, and covenants?
What do you see? What do you think the answers might be?
Main Text: — Nehemiah 9:38— 38 “In view of all this, we are making a binding agreement, putting it in writing, and our leaders, our Levites and our priests are affixing their seals to it.” [NIV84]
Additional Scriptures to Renew Your Thoughts
And here is my advice about what is best for you in this matter: Last year you were the first not only to give but also to have the desire to do so. Now finish the work, so that your eager willingness to do it may be matched by your completion of it, according to your means. For if the willingness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what he does not have. — 2 Corinthians 8:10-12 (NIV84)
Don’t be afraid of what you are going to suffer. Look! The devil is going to throw some of you into prison so that you may be tested. For ten days you will undergo suffering. Be faithful until death, and I will give you the victor’s crown of life. —Revelation 2:10 (ISV)
I have been reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also. For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline. — 2 Timothy 1:5-7 (NIV84)
Lord Jesus Christ, forgive me for the promises I have forgotten and/or failed to keep. Forgive me for those commitments and covenants I have casually made with little or no intention of keeping. Create in me a pure heart that I might walk in the Light as You are in the Light. Rekindle the fire in my soul as You become my Strength & Integrity empowering me to keep my promises, commitments and covenants. In Your Name, Amen.
Pastor Mike