When someone I trust makes me a promise, I believe them. Why isn't this true when God makes me a promise? I believe in God, but sometimes I don't believe God. Believing in God and believing God are not the same. In prepositions lie the power of life and death.
I Don't Know Them
I can't believe promises I don't know. Now, everything in the Bible isn't a promise. Proverbs aren't promises. Descriptions of terrible sin isn't a promise. But the Scriptures do contain literally thousands of promises from God, should I bother myself to find them. But if I never read them, I'll never know them.
I Don't Remember Them
There's a hole in my soul, and out of it seems to fall so much of what is good, right, and true from God. I can't just read the promises, therefore. I have to keep reading them and commit them to memory. Further, I have to be around men and women who will remind me of what my situations help me forget.
I Don't Say Them
So much of the Bible was written to be read aloud. The promises of God are confessional. The greatest promise of all — that God will justify us by faith in the gospel — is only accessed by confession. "If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord ... you will be saved." (Rom 10:9). We need to be people who confess these promises aloud.
Here's an action item for you to consider. Download this short list of promises from God. Read them. Remember them. Say them. Then, repeat that process for about 30 days. I dare you. Tell me if it doesn't move the needle of your trust in God, make your more fruitful, and cause you to grow.
In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, “So shall your offspring be.” He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah's womb. No unbelief 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. That is why his faith was “counted to him as righteousness.” (Rom 4:19-22)