“The best praying man is the man who is most believingly familiar with the promises of God. After all, prayer is nothing but taking God’s promises to Him and saying, ‘Do as You have said.’ Prayer is the promise utilized. Prayer not based on a promise has no true foundation.”
Charles Spurgeon
The above quote is one that has impacted me profoundly in my prayer life. I first read it a couple years back when I read the best book on prayer I’ve yet read: Spurgeon’s The Power of Prayer in the Believer’s Life. It came back to mind a few months back, and I began dwelling on it a lot. I’ve found in my life that the better I know Scripture, the better I pray, and I think the principle behind that is exactly what Spurgeon says above. As I’ve meditated on this quote, I decided to get more serious about applying it. I decided I wanted to have a solid list of powerful promises to look at and be able to bring before God in prayer and say “Do as You have said.”
If you go to any bookstore, you should be able to find all kinds of books in the Christian section with titles like “God’s Promises for Your Life” and “The Bible’s Promises for Life.” They’re small books and are usually organized topically. As I began my endeavor to mine through the promises of Scripture, I naturally thought of these books first since I have a few. But I realized that most of these books can be seriously misleading in their intent. By virtue of their title, many lead you to believe that what are contained in their pages are biblical promises. Yet I’ve realized that in large part these books can’t be considered as such. They’re more subject indexes than they are promise books. For example, one of these books of bible promises has a section entitled “Love of God.” One of the entries is Psalm 89:1- “I will sing of the steadfast love of the LORD, forever; with my mouth I will make known your faithfulness to all generations.” The problem with including this verse is that it’s not really a promise. It’s a beautiful description of praise and the worshiper’s response to God. It’s wondefully instructional, but I wouldn’t throw it in the category of ‘promise.’
Another verse under this heading is Romans 5:8- “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” This is a beautiful and indispensable verse when we’re talking about the subject of God’s love. It accurately describes the nature of this love. But if I’m looking for a promise that I’m loved by God, I’d be more inclined to look at Romans 8:35-39 where God promises us that there is absolutely nothing that will seperate us from his love, and to his promise that he’ll never leave me or forsake me (Hebrews 13:5, Matthew 28:20).
Under ‘Generosity’, one of the verses I find is 1 John 3:17- “But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?” Again, great verse. Crucial for instruction. But it’s not a promise. In the same heading I find Psalm 41:1- “Blessed is the one who considers the poor! In the day of trouble the LORD delivers him” and Matthew 25:40- “‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these…you did it to me.’” Now THOSE are promises! If you consider the poor, you ARE blessed, and you’ll be delivered. If you serve even the least, it’ll be counted as if you’ve done it to Jesus himself.
I’ve started keeping a sheet of paper nearby in my quiet-times which has a list of very explicit promises I’m finding in Scripture, and I’ll be expounding on these specific promises in later entries. I don’t intend this list to be exhaustive by any stretch. I intend to be adding to this list for the rest of my life. My hope in writing these out is to encourage you in your walk with Christ to talk hold of what God has promised you, so that you may be bold in prayer by taking these promises back to the one who gave them. It is this confidence, this faith in God, which gives prayer its power (James 1:6).
“No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.”
Romans 4:20-21
“…it is impossible for God to lie…”
Hebrews 6:18
