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Mar 02, 2025 06:00am

God’s Promises

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I have been attempting to read through the Bible in chronological order this year, and it has been a very interesting way to view God’s Word. Every time I commit to reading God‘s Word, it is a blessing. It’s especially interesting to see His Word unfold in order.

After reading through Leviticus, I was overwhelmed with all of the lists of requirements for sacrifices, all of the details that went into the actual rituals of sacrifices, and all of the lists of dos and don’ts of keeping oneself and the tabernacle holy.

Although this was a slightly arduous account to study, it has reaffirmed to me that God cares about details. In Leviticus, Moses was physically unable to go into the tent of meeting. By the end of that book and by the beginning of Numbers, God had sorted out His people’s hearts and disciplined them so that Moses was able to meet with God inside of the tent of meeting again.

As I began Numbers, I did not expect to get so much out of it. Numbers are not my thing. The only “C” I ever got in school was in College Algebra, and I never ventured beyond that minimum requirement in the math world. Words, I can do. Numbers, not so much. I usually avoid them at all costs. But, as I always end up seeing in every area of my life, God has more in store for this book than what the title might have led me to believe.

In the first two chapters, there are a lot of numbers. A lot. But, as I looked back over what I read, I recognized that God was showing His people His faithfulness. He promised they would be more numerous than the stars in the sky. Way back when Abraham was given this promise, he was very old and childless, and it was hard for him to believe that this was a possibility. God used his second born child to give him a covenant, a promise, that He would make his descendants numerous.

Now, many years later, as a census is taken, God shows his faithfulness. This family had grown exponentially. God was true to His word, and He did make Abraham’s family numerous, beyond what Abraham could have imagined to even ask God for.

Between the time that God gave Abraham that promise and the day they tallied up the census numbers, which only included men 20 years and older, this family, set apart by God, had grown to over 600,000!

A lot happened between those two time periods, also. God‘s people messed up plenty of times-murder, lies, disobedience, lack of faith, worshiping false gods, and all kinds of things we might think would have counted them out.

But God… He is faithful, merciful, and gracious. Nothing these people did could manipulate God‘s plan. This is so encouraging to me. I hope it is to you, as well.

Jeremiah 29:11 says, “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” Nowhere in that Scripture does it say that God will only be faithful to that promise if we are perfect. In fact, NONE of us are perfect. Romans 3:10 says, “None is righteous, no, not one.” We are going to mess up, because we are humans. This is not a surprise to God. He is faithful, regardless of how much we think we have messed everything up. Thankfully, He is in control-not us, and our human hearts cannot thwart His plans.