The Promises of God
When I began writing the Scripture Journaling plans, I would seek the Lord for the next month’s theme through prayer, reading Scripture, and circumstances that God was allowing in my life at the time.
My husband prays about picking a theme for our church each year. The theme for 2022 was “Pray without ceasing” 1 Thessalonians 5:18. The year 2022 has been a turbulent one for my family’s lives, with many ups and downs along the way. We have definitely learned to pray more earnestly.
I’ve been pondering what theme to choose for January 2023 for some time, but nothing seemed to sit right in my spirit. That was until I came across Hebrews 6:17-20
17 Wherein God, willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath: 18 That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us: 19 Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the veil; 20 Whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made an high priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec. Hebrews 6:17-20
As I began studying these verses, I was reminded of a devotional written by Charles H. Spurgeon called Faith’s Checkbook. I had chosen this particular devotional book at one time for our children to use with their devotional times while we were homeschooling. I enjoy the profound wisdom and insights that Charles H. Spurgeon gives.
The promises reviewed each month won’t be categorized or unified by a single theme. They will resemble a treasure map’s markings instead. Each month, we’ll search for them and capture them for ourselves as we make our way through the Scriptures.
Faith’s Checkbook is a daily devotional that Spurgeon published in 1888. Spurgeon stated in the work’s introduction:
“A promise from God may very instructively be compared to a check payable to order. It is given to the believer with the view of bestowing upon him some good thing. It is not meant that he should read it over comfortably and then have done with it. No, he is to treat the promise as a reality, as a man treats a check.
He is to take the promise, and endorse it with his own name by personally receiving it as true. He is by faith to accept it as his own. He sets to his seal that God is true, and true as to this particular word of promise. He goes further, and believes that he has the blessing in having the sure promise of it and therefore he puts his name to it to testify to the receipt of the blessing.
This done, he must believingly present the promise to the Lord, as a man presents a check at the counter of the Bank. He must plead it by prayer, expecting to have it fulfilled. If he has come to Heaven’s bank at the right date, he will receive the promised amount at once. If the date should happen to be further on, he must patiently wait till its arrival; but meanwhile he may count the promise as money, for the Bank is sure to pay when the due time arrives.
Some fail to place the endorsement of faith upon the check, and so they get nothing; and others are slack in presenting it, and these also receive nothing. This is not the fault of the promise, but of those who do not act with it in a common-sense, business-like manner.
God has given no pledge which He will not redeem, and encouraged no hope which He will not fulfil.”
~ Charles H. Spurgeon
Spurgeon so vulnerably goes on to say that he put this volume together while he was “wading in the surf of controversy.” During a time of tribulation, bereavement, and affliction, Spurgeon held onto the promises of God.
“The waters rolled in continually, wave upon wave. I do not mention this to exact sympathy, but simply to let the reader see that I am no dry-land sailor. I have traversed full many a time those oceans which are not Pacific: I know the roll of the billows, and the rush of the winds.
Never were the promises of Jehovah so precious to me as at this hour. Some of them I never understood till now; I had not reached the date at which they matured, for I was not myself mature enough to perceive their meaning.”
All of the Promises of God we will be inscribing in this series correspond to the daily devotions written by Charles Spurgeon in Faith’s Checkbook. If you want to incorporate the daily devotional readings into your Journaling Scripture time, you can get a copy of Spurgeon’s devotional at the link listed below.
https://www.spurgeongems.org/chs_faiths-check-book.pdf
I hope that these promises will deeply penetrate your soul and that you won’t simply accept the promise, write the verse, and scurry off to the demands of daily life. It is my hope that these portions from God’s Word would make you crave the complete feast He has prepared for us.
https://charitymaeprosper.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/JS-January.pdf
