The Promised One: An Introduction

Our 2022 Advent Reading Plan, The Promised One, begins on Nov. 27. Here's the introduction.

God Always Keeps His Promises

A promise is easy to make—but hard to keep.

To keep a promise you have to be intentional. You have to mean what you say. You have to follow your words with action.

When God makes a promise, He keeps it. Even God’s words are powerful. When He speaks, things happen. Worlds are created, light is separated from darkness. God’s word never returns void.

And He’s been speaking His words, whispering His promises to us and over us since the very beginning.

To Adam and Eve in the garden, God began to speak of a Savior who would one day defeat sin and evil for good. To the serpent, God promised: You will strike his heel, but he will crush your head.”

To an old man whose dreams of fatherhood had all but crumbled to ashes, God promised many sons: “You, Abraham, will be the father of a great nation. Consider the stars in the sky and the grains of sand on the seashore—your descendants will outnumber them both.”

To Moses, born to lead his people out of bondage, God promised, “I will fight for you, just be still.”

To Joshua, God declared, “Do not be afraid, I am with you,” as he led his people into the land God had promised Abraham generations before.

God always keeps His promises.

Through the prophets, God pointed to the promised Messiah, the One who would rescue His people from their sin. “A virgin will give birth to a son and call him Immanuel,” Isaiah proclaimed. God with us.

“For unto us, a child is born, he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

“But you, Bethlehem, least among Judah, out of you will come a ruler who will shepherd my people,” God promised, long before our Good Shepherd walked among us in the flesh.

God always keeps His promises.

Through the prophet Isaiah, God promised a Savior who would bear our sin and carry our shame—pierced for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities, punished so that we would have peace with God. By his wounds, we are healed.

When the angels announced the news of Jesus’ birth that first Christmas night, they declared it was tidings of great joy for ALL people. God had kept His promise, and that Promise —Jesus— now dwelt among us.

God always keeps His promises.

And His promise to us is so much more than words. It is His own Son, Jesus—the Messiah, the Word, born to bear our sins and set us free from sin and darkness.

Long ago, God promised Abraham that through his descendants a blessing would come to all nations, to all people. In Jesus, all who were far away have been brought near.

So tonight, when you look up into the night sky, consider the stars. On the darkest nights and every night, they are a small reminder of God’s promise.

To you.

To me.

To all nations.

And God always keeps His promises.