God's promises are sure.  Time and time again, the stories of Scripture—both testaments—show this to be true.  Human promises?  Not so much, at least not all the time.  It's a foundational difference between being God and being made in God's image:  where we human types are concerned, our words of intention and our actions can be (and often are) divided by sin.  Sometimes are promises are made half-heartedly or even in bad faith.  More often, “life” and the forces that pull us in so many different directions get in between our promises and our fulfillment of our promises.

    Fortunately for us, God's promises ARE always kept, even when we don't recognize it or don't hold up our end of the relationship.  Throughout the fast-approaching season of Lent, we will be reminded of God's promises.  We will be reassured by God's faithfulness to our forebears in faith, and will look together for signs of God's faithfulness in our lives today.  Covenant relationships—relationships between God and His people based on promises—will come alive during mid-week lenten worship as we hear and think about Noah, Abraham and Sarah, the freed Hebrews who had been slaves in Egypt, and the prophet Jeremiah.  Together, gathered around the cross of Christ, candidates were about to take in the Sacrament.  It is a wonderful time for us to be reminded of the promises of forgiveness and new life spoken to us at our own baptism, and to the gift of daily repentance and return to the Lord.  Our own broken promises are forgiven and cleansed to clear the way for the true and lasting word, God's Word—the crucified and risen Jesus Christ.

“If what you heard from the beginning abides in you,

then you will abide in the Son and in the Father. 

And this is what he has promised us, eternal life”

(1 John 2:24-25)

In Christ,

Pastor Jill