By Pastor Phil

If you have ever wondered if God could be trusted to honor his promise, just think of Christmas and the birth of Jesus. You see, Christmas is all about God keeping his word. Nine months before Jesus was born, the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary and told her she would miraculously give birth to a son. When Mary asked how this could be since she was a virgin, the angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God….for nothing is impossible with God.” Nine months later, the promise was fulfilled when Jesus was born in Bethlehem. God kept His promise.

But it goes back farther than that. More than 700 years before the angel appeared to Mary, God spoke through the prophet Isaiah and gave a promise to his people. “The Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.” Isaiah 7:14. God kept his promise, even after 700 years

But it goes back farther than that. Before Isaiah and the prophets, before Moses and the children of Israel, before the patriarchs like Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, God made a promise. It goes all the way back to the very beginning, to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. After Adam and Eve succumbed to Satan’s temptation and disobeyed God, sin entered into the world and into the heart of every member of the human race. Satan intended to hold every person captive to sin but God made a promise of victory over Satan. God told Satan, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head and you will strike his heel.” Genesis 3:15. God was speaking of Jesus, the offspring of the woman, who would crush Satan’s head and triumph over him. The bible says Jesus disarmed Satan and his powers, making a spectacle of them, “triumphing over them by the cross.” (Colossians 3:15)

Thousands of years before Mary and Joseph and the baby in Bethlehem, God made a promise that a child would be born that would crush Satan and redeem us from our sin. In Jesus, God fulfilled his promise and kept His word.

As we enter the season of Advent, remember the word is from the Latin adventus which means “coming.” God promised that Jesus would come to save us from our sins. He kept his promise. And God promised that Jesus would come a second time to take us home to be with Him. I think we can trust Him to keep His promise, don’t you? Why not take a moment and give thanks to the One who always keeps His word.