God is Always True to His Word, We Are Not...

Have you ever made a promise and then found yourself not keeping it? Our word should be very important to us. It should be more highly regarded than money. Regardless of the excuses we try to justify our failures when we don’t keep it, we honor God and the integrity it requires by apologizing and making right what we failed to keep. We must be careful in keeping our word, in that it can become a religious practice. We can unknowingly place too much confidence in ourselves and become a Pharisee because we do or not do things others do. That can puff up our chests with pride, causing us to look down our noses at others. The only remedy we have is to fail in comparison; comparison to God. I’m not an advocate of comparing, because it usually does more harm than good. However, when we compare ourselves to God something extraordinary happens. When we compare ourselves with God, we find that we don’t match up. This is a humbling experience. We may say, “Joe doesn’t do this or that, so I’m better than Joe”. This gives us a temporary sense of superiority, which makes us feel good. It’s only short lived. Jack comes along and is better than me at something, so I quickly fall off the “superiority train” onto the “poor me” desolate ground. We then play the “woe is me” game. This cycle continues throughout life, never allowing us to live in consistency. When we know God, and compare ourselves to Him, we learn our place. We are humbled, knowing we don’t compare, but at the same time feel loved in that humility. The difference between comparing ourselves to others and with God is Pride. Pride grows when we compare ourselves to others, and pride dies when we do it with God. God will not allow His glory to be shared with another, so our pride is killed off when we compare ourselves with Him. God is the pride killer. Its part of humility. It’s something I can’t fully explain, I just know it to be true. The point to all this is this, God is always true to His Word, and we are not. We should strive to be, but in that pursuit, keep the proper perspective of knowing our place. We know where our significance truly comes from and what we need to do when we fail. It’s so good to know that God never fails to keep His Word. And that is one of the greatest privileges of being His follower, isn’t it?

And You have done what You promised, for You are always true to Your word. Nehemiah 9:8c