Has God Promised You Anything?

I recently experienced firsthand a broken promise.  A young man I know sat with me and told me that he would do something and then turned around and stood me up.  I was a little irritated because a promise should be a promise.  But this is the fruit of human fallacy.

Maybe you have experienced something similar.  A promise not kept in a relationship.  A promotion that you were promised on your job.  A promise made isn’t always kept.  BUT with God all His promises are kept.

As I was reading through the book of Joshua I stumbled over a verse that completely intrigued me.  Joshua 21:45, "Not a word failed of any good thing which the Lord had spoken to the house of Israel.  All came to pass."

If God speaks it, it will happen.  Everyone of His promises are true and they will come to pass.  As a matter of fact Paul said it this way, "All the promises of God are yes!"  What God has promise you will come to pass.  Joshua said, "Not a word that God spoke failed."  That means that every promise from cover to cover of the Bible will happen for you.  Every promise that God has spoken to your heart will come to pass.

Maybe it is the promise that your loved ones will be saved.  It could be that miracle you need in your finances.  It could be that open door you need to get where you are going.  ALL will come to pass.  Not some but ALL!  God doesn’t just tell you what you want to hear.  If He says something you can take it to the bank.

Hang on to those promises!  Don’t let go of what God has spoken to you.  All will come to pass.  You can count on it!

"LETTER" FROM FACEBOOK

By Peter Chianca

Dear Facebook member:

It has come to our attention that certain users have raised concerns over our privacy policy. We’d just like you to know that here at Facebook, it’s extremely important to us that your information is kept private, to be shared only among your friends, networks, fans, people who "like" the same things you do, and users of applications you don’t realize you’ve signed up for.

It’s true that it’s in our best interests, for growth and advertising purposes, to make as much of your personal information as possible freely available over the Web. But we make a promise never to share what’s on your profile unless you have expressly authorized us to do so by not un-checking an arcane series of hard-to-find boxes, some of which don’t exist.

So just to make sure you understand your privacy rights as a Facebook user, we’ve put together the following easy-to-follow guidelines:

1) Default settings. Just to make things easier, our default settings make your personal information, photos and videos accessible to everyone on the Web, including your mother, your second-grade teacher and the guy who, at this very moment, is photoshopping the heads of strange children onto the bodies of centaurs.

2) Photos. We understand why you might have concerns over who can see photos of you that you’ve posted, or that are posted by your friends, or by an old boyfriend or girlfriend. But the rumors that embarrassing pictures of you are automatically visible to your boss and your pastor are entirely untrue. Assuming you’ve checked and/or unchecked the right boxes, they can only be seen by friends, friends of friends, friends of friends of friends and all the other people who play Farmville.

3) Instant Personalization Pilot Program. This is the program that allows other websites, like Yelp and Pandora, to access your profile information. However, you can opt out of this program – at this very moment we have a team of engineers trying to determine how one might go about doing that.

"But Facebook, why would you ever presume that we’d want you to share our information with other websites without our permission?" you might ask. To which we’d respond: "Shut up and play some more Mafia Wars."

4) If you’re embarrassed about people seeing your "Like" list, maybe you should stop liking things like Barry Manilow and "Jersey Shore." You know who you are. And so do we.

Finally, we want to remind you that, if you’re that concerned about people seeing the information you somehow thought would remain private just because that’s what we told you when you signed up, you always have the option of deleting your account.

Good luck figuring out how to do it.

—————–

Copyright 2010 Peter Chianca. Permission is granted to send this to others, with attribution, but not for commercial purposes.

This morning, Justin Taylor’s blog shared an awesome resource to help our kids (and parents) memorize Scripture.  Seeds Family Worship puts verses of the Bible to song.  The songs are written straight from Scripture.  The best part of these songs are that they are not cheesy.  They are actually pretty cool songs.  This is a great tool for families as well as individuals who want to memorize more Scripture.

You can listen to a sample here.

Or visit the Seeds Family Worship site here.

Sunday afternoon I was taking my nap when Hannah came in and whispered in her sweet little voice:

Hannah: Dad, can I sit on something?

Me: Sure, honey, what do you want to sit on?

Hannah: Can I sit on the Dog crate?  (Disclaimer: She had been told no at least 20 times)

Me: No, Hannah, you might break it.

Hannah: No I won’t, I just have a little behind!

Conversation two, Hannah and I waiting in the car outside of Wal-mart.  Hannah is crying because I won’t let her get out of her car seat.

Me:  Hannah quit your crying.  I don’t want to hear you cry anymore.

Hannah: I can’t stop! There is still alot of cry left down in my throat!

Conversation three: Again, on another day, Hannah and I waiting in the car outside of Wal-mart.  Hannah has been pleasantly quiet when she breaks the silence:

Hannah: I drew me a moustache! (Followed by an evil laugh)

I stayed in a “waterfront” resort that resembled this cartoon thought.

It has been a busy couple of weeks so, Sonya and I decided to go out on a hike.  We trekked along my favorite trail in the Ozarks, Shaddox Hollow.  It was beautiful!

For the last couple of weeks, Hannah has been playing with a variety of friends.  They follow her wherever she goes.  They are her pals.  There is Larry-boy, Bob the Tomato, Jimmy Neutron and even Pooh Bear.  They aren’t all together with her at one time and she only plays with one or two at a time.

The other night, we were in the bedroom and Hannah told me to say hi to Jimmy Neutron, so I turned toward the closet door and said, “Hi, Jimmy!”  Then Hannah exclaimed, “No Dad, he’s over there!” and pointed toward the nightstand.  I simply said sorry because I do not see invisible people very well.

Hannah has faith to play and see the unseen.  Shouldn’t this be the way we understand the role of the Holy Spirit in our lives?  He is invisible yet very present.  The Holy Spirit is not seen with the human eyes but His work is.  We must have faith in the unseen to see the Holy Spirit work in the seen.

I am reminded of Jesus words that we should have the faith of children.  Perhaps He gave us those instructions because we need to believe, although we cannot see the person of the Holy Spirit or the actual resurrected Savior, yet we believe that they exist.  Jesus told doubting Thomas, “Because you have seen Me, you have believed.  Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”  We must have faith in God and His work, whether we see Him working or not.

We have an invisible friend in the Holy Spirit.  He is an ever present help in time of need.  He is our comforter.  He is our companion and friend.  He is the friend that sticks closer than a brother.  He is a guide and convicts us of sin.  He is the revealer of Jesus and we would do well to value Him in our lives.  We must have faith in our invisible friend.  Whether you see Him or not, He is there.