Broken Promises

(Luke 24:49 KJV) And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high. 

From the beginning of time Satan has attempted to manipulate the minds of men by getting them to question God. He started by planting the seed of doubt and unbelief in Adam and Eve concerning their rights in the Garden of Eden. Satan’s plan worked so well that he is now using mankind in general as his mouthpiece for doubt, fear and unbelief.

Because of Satan’s success in the Garden of Eden, he is now using unsuspecting parents to do his dirty work by making and breaking promises to their children. As innocent as that may seem, it is probably one of the single greatest tools that Satan has for training many children to doubt God when they grow up. As a result of the “broken promise” issue they have a hard time fully trusting God because they could not fully trust their parents.

There is no doubt that at some time or another most parents have made promises to their children that they did not or could not fulfill. The fact is, children are incapable of reasoning why promises are not kept. They only know they were not.

I suppose most adults can easily remember a promise that was broken when they were children...even though they may laugh and make light of it today. The fact that they remember them at all could mean that they are still having an effect on them.

The problem is that innocent unsuspecting parents never realized that they were actually training their children to question God later on as adults. The more promises the parents broke, the deeper the mistrust the child could have in believing in God’s promises.

I know a man who is a decent, loyal man in the natural, but for some reason has lost his way spiritually. In his younger years he was faithful to the Lord and even taught Sunday school, but now he does not trust God at all. His argument...if God really loves, then why would He allow children to suffer. That kind of reasoning does not come from the mind of an adult, but from the wounded heart of a child.

Strangely enough, his problem has nothing to do with whether he loved his parents or whether they loved him. It had to do with broken promises that eventually caused him to question and mistrust God, because he could not bear to place any blame on loving parents.

Can a problem like this be healed? Yes, one can be healed of such a problem without the sacrifice of either his parents or God. This healing can be accomplished with a good Christian counselor.

In our text Jesus set a three step procedure for receiving the promise of the power. Even though I have read this scripture many times over the years, I am not sure I really focused on the procedure part. When we do not follow the steps of this procedure, then frustration and doubt could set in.

The first step in our text is the promise, which builds one’s faith. The second step is waiting. which develops one’s patience. The third step is the fulfillment, which helps teach one responsibility.

A child develops much of its security from being taught the three steps in our text. However, if for some reason there is a break down in this three step procedure and the child learns that the promise does not produce the reward, then it could have an effect on that child for the rest of their life.

This was the case with the man I used in my example. Neither his parents, nor any other loving parent would ever purposely do or say anything that would cause any kind of ill effects on their child. My point is this…as parents, we should use God as our example for fulfilling promises and not be caught off guard and fall into Satan’s trap.

Father,

Help us all to be men and women of truth. Help us to do what we say and not be caught unaware and give any room to Satan. Our desire is to be good parents and good examples for our children so they can see a clearer picture of You and trust You.

Amen