Why is Giving so Hard?

I want to begin by telling you that the words, promise and promises, are used over a thousand times in different English translations of the Scripture. One scholar did a study. He counted over 8,000 different promises of God in the Bible. The Bible tells us that God is a promise-making and a promise-keeping God. He makes promises in the Bible to literally everybody.

Now, God's promises are like a divine insurance policy. In an insurance policy, when you know what is covered, then you do not sweat it when that circumstance or that illness or that accident happens in your life. When you know what is covered in the policy, you relax. On the other hand, if you do not know what is covered in the insurance policy, if you are ignorant of it, you worry. One of the problems that we have today is people do not know the promises of God, so they spend a lot of time worrying. 

God wants me to build my life on His promises. God does not want you to live a life built on petty rules. He wants you to live a life built on great promises.

God gives us promises to make us more like Him. We have talked about this many times, that God's number one goal in your life is to make you like Jesus. One of the ways that He does that is through the promises in this book. The Bible says that God, in 2 Peter 1:4, "God has made great and marvelous promises, so that His nature would become part of us."

You grow more like Jesus through God's promises. In fact, I will just be frank. You cannot become like Jesus without trusting God's promises. The Bible tells us that God works in our lives through promises. 

Now, let me give you a quiz. Can you guess what subject in the Bible God makes more promises about than anything else?

It is not faith. It is not prayer. It is not love. It is not patience. It may surprise you that God makes more promises in the Bible about generosity or giving than anything else. 

So really it just comes down to this. Do I believe in these promises? Really, it just comes down to, do I really trust God to keep His promises?

Make Every Day Count!