[This following post prefaces the book, Kneeling on the Promises of God, which came together with God's guidance and help from the research capabilities found on Bible Gateway.]
As you have likely heard, the hymn “Standing on the Promises” encourages
us to trust God and take Him at His word. But from the very beginning of time,
the matter of believing God arose in the Garden of Eden with the doubt-producing
question, “Does God really mean what
He says?” That contagious thought gave mankind an excuse to disobey, and distrust
gave birth to death!
Now, as then, wariness of God brings uncertainty and the ongoing
scramble to find, “Who can I trust?” Sometimes
we can’t even trust ourselves! So where do we turn? Do we place faith in money,
power, politics, institutions, traditions, or trends?
The trouble with those options is that people change their minds. Money
changes hands and value. Political leaders come and go. Institutions become
something unlike their original selves, and trends are, well, trendy. Facts get
disproven as new information comes to light. Even the ground beneath our feet trembles,
and stars careen from the sky. Everything changes! But God does not change, and
neither does God’s word.
Mysteriously and paradoxically, the Holy Spirit is invisible to us yet the
most solid matter. So, too, are the promises God gives – promises so
stabilizing, we can build our whole lives on them. Promises so truthful and
trustworthy, they can become the basis of our most powerful prayers. But why
should we believe those promises? Why should we place our faith in God?
According to
the Bible, God is Love – forgiving, compassionate love that can always be trusted to do what’s best for us
and our spiritual well-being. Nothing and no one is greater, kinder, holier, or
more trustworthy than God. Nothing and
no one can offer us more power or purpose for our lives. Once we realize we can
totally trust the Lord, we can build our marriages, families, churches, and
occupations on the promises God gives.
We can build our prayer lives on those promises too. We can take God at
His word, knowing He agrees with our prayer requests because He has already
promised the very things we claim or ask Him to do. Therefore, to kneel on a promise God made means claiming that promise and praying it into our lives.
To put this belief into practice, you’ll find heartfelt, conversational
prayers following each Bible promise – promises found in each translation but
paraphrased here into everyday English. These prayers are to give you an idea
of how you, too, might kneel on the promises in God’s Word.
The hope is that relevant prayers will also come to you as you meditate
on the scripture verses, and write down your prayers, claiming God’s promises
in the space provided on the lower part of each page. But before doing this:
Pre-pare with pre-prayer!
Pray for the prayers to pray.
Regardless of our denominational affiliations or cultural backgrounds, let’s
agree to stand on the promises of God
throughout our lives and kneel on those
promises as we claim God’s Word each day and night in prayer.
May God bless you and your prayer life in the Lord!
Mary Harwell Sayler
Kneeling on the Promises of God