My Promise to You Jesusናሙና

Amen!!

“For as many as are the promises of God, in Christ they are [all answered] “Yes.” So through Him we say our “Amen” to the glory of God.” 2 Corinthians 1:20 (Amplified Bible)

Amen! I’m sure you are like me and have heard this word at the end of many prayers during your lifetime. I used to think of it as a kind of sign-off, such as goodbye, good luck, or so long. But do you know the true meaning of amen? It means “certainly," "it is so," or "so it be." Take your choice. But these three phrases mean the same thing. They mean, “It will be done according to God’s character and authority." Do you believe this?

In the scripture above, we read a similar explanation by the Apostle Paul. He states that the many promises of God have been and will be fulfilled by God through Jesus Christ. Paul boldly states that God always answers with a “yes” to His promises, and as a final exclamation point, Paul says, “Amen.” With his amen, Paul gives us a declaration of guarantee from God about how He honors His word and His promises. It will be done as He said it, for God is a Promise Keeper.

God’s promises have already been answered with a yes. The scripture above points this out, but do we apply our own amen to the promise by embracing it into our lives? Do we really believe and embrace God’s promise that addresses a particular need in our life as it will be done for us as He promised? We must, for the only thing that keeps God’s promises from being realized in our own life is our unbelief.

Through my life’s journey, I've discovered that my lack of belief concerning the Promise Keeper and His faithfulness to keep His promises has been rooted in my misconception of Him. My instinct was to try to humanize Him to understand Him better. God did present Himself in human form with Jesus, the Christ. He did this to better relate Himself with us. He laid down His crown, His deity, to take on the form of a servant for mankind (Philippians 2:5-7), even though He was no less God or deity. The problem I had that limited my taking Him at His word was that I often fastened on the beautiful human form that He presented instead of His deity as well. Somehow, I pressed out the other part of Him, which is the fact that He is God. This is why, early on, I didn’t trust His promises as fully as I should have, for humans don’t keep their promises, do they?

As a human, I know all humans will fail us. I will fail you, and you will fail me. Though I might promise you something and desire to keep my promises at all times, I’m bound to fail. It is part of our nature, like it or not. But it is not part of God’s nature. He cannot or will not break His promises. He cannot fail us.
When we nail down that there is none like Him, we see Him differently. We see Him as He is and as we should. Then, I began to embrace His promises as truth, for He is truth. Then, I could declare my own “amen” that God’s promises to me will be done as promised.

What does this do for us when we begin to see God as He really is? Our faith grows for sure, but so does our dependency on Him. Now many dads and moms want their kids to get to the point that they don’t need our support. We want to be loved, respected, and part of our children’s lives. But we don’t want them to be dependent on us as when they were children, or else we enable them in their immaturity and stymie their growth to independence. But Father God has a different take on it. He wants us to be dependent on Him. He wants to be our provider. He wants us to be nurtured by Him, to come and remain close to Him, for He sees dangers that we do not see. He wants to keep us safe. But He also wants to make us strong in Him so that we will be more like Christ and able to serve others as He has served us. Again, we see that His promises and our dependency on them return us to the purpose of those promises, which is to share in His divine nature. It comes back full circle.

If we want to benefit from God’s promises, we must first get to know the Promise Keeper, for it is our faith and trust in Him that causes us to embrace His promises. He wants to hear our amen as we have firsthand experience with His faithfulness. Start there and let Him show you how faithful He is. Then you will declare your own Amen! Amen?