Do you expect promises to be fulfilled? Have you had promises made to you that went unfulfilled? Have you made promises you did not fulfill? Do you know that God fulfills all His promises and has already fulfilled many of them?
We generally expect people to follow through on their promises. Most of us make every effort to follow through on promises we make. Yet, all of us fail at some point. We make promises and one thing or another gets in the way of fulfilling them.
Don’t you love the assumed promises children hear? As a parent, when a child asks to stop to get ice cream after the game, we might say “We’ll see.” The child immediately assumes they will get ice cream after the game. Now, there was no promise, but the child interprets it that way.
Sometimes, we assume God has made promises He hasn’t as well. We assume that Jesus stating He came to provide us an abundant life (John 10:10) means we will be rich and have no worries. That is not the promise made. The promise made is that we will have joy in Him no matter our circumstances. If we have tied our joy to material things, we have allowed ourselves to be sadly misled by Satan.
Jesus fulfilled some of God’s promises while He walked this earth. As today’s passage states, Jesus, Himself, claimed He had fulfilled prophecy (promise) that was recorded in Isaiah 61:1-2. His claim included Him being anointed, proclaiming good news, proclaiming freedom from Satan’s shackles, giving the ability to see Satan’s schemes, freeing the oppressed, and proclaiming God’s favor.
There are promises of God’s that are yet to be fulfilled. But just as Jesus fulfilled some promises, God will finish fulfilling the rest in His time. We can trust Him. He has proven Himself to be trustworthy. He is God.
I pray we all trust God. I pray we trust He will fulfill His promises. I pray each of us see clearly and live in the freedom Jesus has granted us, following his example to proclaim the good news. Trust God. Know God fulfills promises. Be free in Christ. See Satan’s schemes clearly. Follow Jesus’ example. Proclaim the good news of Christ.
Luke 4:21 He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
Marty Pressey 