God's promises to the Church
January 19 - 25, 2025 | Always Peachy Devotionals | God's Promises Week 4
Promises always need context
Have you ever worked on a group project with other people? It can be massively frustrating, depending on how reliable the other people in your group are. If someone were to promise that they would deliver their part of the project to you on time, you should be able to trust that promise.
But think about a promise like that outside of the context of a group project. If someone promises to finish their part of a project, would you expect them to pick up groceries for you? Or would you expect them to clean your house? No, of course not. That would be insane. A promise within the context of a group project doesn’t give you leave to expect help from that person outside the group project.
This is where we get mixed up with a lot of biblical promises. We don’t understand the context where the promise was given. It’s essential to know who God is making the promise to, for one. It’s not smart to count on a promise for yourself that God made to a different person.
But this can get tricky too. God made promises directly to the nation of Israel that are only for Israel, but some of the promises made to Israel are valid for the rest of the world—as long as they are God’s people. What Jesus made possible through His death on the cross was Adoption. God grafted us, non-Jewish people, into His family. So there are some promises God made to His family that apply to Gentiles like me, because of Jesus.
If you can identify an Old Testament promise that is restated in the New Testament, that’s one definite way to know it’s a shared promise.
But then, there are some promises God has made to the Church, His gathering, His called-out ones, that He didn’t make to Israel. God’s relationship with the Church is different than His relationship with His chosen people. In fact, God’s chosen people have been invited to join His Church.
Jesus spent a lot of time in His earthly ministry talking about the Church and making some very specific promises. So that’s what we are going to look at this week, the promises God has made to His Church:
Nothing can stop the Church (Matthew 16:17-19)
He has given us Spiritual Gifts (1 Corinthians 12:4-7)
He has given us an Advocate (John 14:25-26)
He will be with us (Matthew 28:20)
He’s coming back for us (John 14:1-3)
I’m so excited to dig into these and consider more deeply what they mean for me personally as I follow Jesus. I hope that they will bless you too!
The idea of the Church is such a radical concept, and most of us in a Western culture don’t really understand it. The original term, ekklesia, wasn’t a religious word. It meant gathering or collective or team. It wasn’t a building; it was a group of people with the same mindset.
That’s what the Church is supposed to be. It’s not a place; it’s a people. It’s a culture where Jesus is the focal point and doing life with Him is the norm. Denomination doesn’t matter as long as Jesus is the center and the Bible is your source of Truth (and if the Bible is your source of Truth, Jesus will be the center).
But living in the world can make it very difficult to not be of the world. It’s a challenge to keep our eyes on Jesus, so that’s one of the reasons why I love this week’s memory verse, 1 Corinthians 3:16.
I love this verse so much. Paul writes that God calls us, His ekklesia, the temple of God. And He takes it a step further, comparing us to the Temple of old, where His Holy Spirit lives in us.
Paul gave these words to the Church at Corinth, a group of people who had some major issues in following Jesus. And this verse is an essential reminder of why we need to make choices in our lives that honor God, because His Holy Spirit is within us.
Wherever we go, He goes. Whatever we say or think or do, He witnesses. God calls us to live a life above reproach. He won’t go back on His promises. Not ever. But the further we wander from His Way, the more we’ll struggle until we come back to Him.
Praying for you today, my friends.
Amy
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