Promise Keeper - March 16

Read Numbers 23:19

God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?

Reflect

Has someone ever broken their promise or lied to you? What impact did that experience have on you?

You’ve probably heard it said that trust is difficult to build but easy to break. It’s true. When someone lies to you, it’s hard to believe them when they say that they are sorry and they’ll never do it again. After all, they lied before! And when someone repeatedly breaks their word to you, you stop trusting them because you know that you can’t depend on them.

But honestly, we’ve all fallen short ourselves. We haven’t always been honest with everyone and there have been times that we’ve let people down because we didn’t follow through and we didn’t keep our word. We live in a fallen world with sinful people and we have all sinned ourselves. Does that ever make you wonder who you can trust?

Today’s verse is just one of many places in Scripture that gives us really good news—we can always trust God! What is so interesting about this particular verse is that it came from a wicked cult prophet named Balaam who practiced magic and divination. He was summoned by Moabite King Balak to curse Israel.

But it didn’t work. You see, God had promised to bless Israel numerous times in Scripture. For example, way back in Genesis 12, when God called Abraham to follow Him, He made a covenant with him and said: “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12:1-3).

God kept His covenant with Abraham. His descendants grew into the nation of Israel. And God did not allow Balaam to curse the Israelites (Numbers 22:12) because He had already determined to bless them. So Balaam, a pagan prophet, told the leaders of Moab: “How can I curse whom God has not cursed? How can I denounce whom the LORD has not denounced?” (Numbers 23:8).

In today’s verse, God used a pagan cult prophet to declare the trustworthiness of God to the Moabites. God does not lie and He does not change His mind. If He says something will be done, it’s as good as done already.

God kept His promise to Abraham to make his descendants into a great nation. He also kept His promise that through him, all the nations would be blessed. Check out Matthew 1 and notice in verse 2 that Abraham is the first name listed in the genealogy of Jesus, the Messiah, the ultimate blessing to all mankind. God did what He said He would do.

We can depend on our God. In Psalm 18:30, David wrote: “This God—his way is perfect; the word of the LORD proves true; he is a shield for all those who take refuge in him.”

If you are looking for someone perfectly faithful, someone you can truly depend on and trust completely, our God is who you’re looking for. He’s the Promise Keeper.

Respond

Lord, thank You for being trustworthy and true. What a blessing it is to know that you are steady and dependable. You do not lie, You don’t change Your mind, and You never change (Malachi 3:6). You alone are worthy of my trust and devotion. Amen.

Reveal

Prayerfully consider how faithful of a friend you are. Can your loved ones trust and depend on you? As people who bear Christ’s name, our actions should reveal Christ to the world. So, be a promise keeper, as He is a promise keeper.