A lot of our lateral experiences with human beings inevitably affect how we receive Abba in our hearts. The broken promises we have experienced in our lives at the hands of our fathers, mothers, family members, teachers, former significant others, or friends can make it seem as if no one keeps his promises. The stories we hear of preachers falling into sexual sin, mishandling money, and protecting their own interests before those of the church even lend to this idea that integrity is nonexistent.
Unfortunately the judgments and conclusions we place on others often become the limitations we project on Abba. Therefore the same way that we expect nothing from people’s word, we expect nothing from God. We stop looking for the manifestation of Abba’s Word in our lives. Take a look at any election cycle, broken marriages, dysfunctional families, the prison system and the marginalized sections of our cities and nation, and it will be easy to see that promises are made every day and broken.
We have become conditioned to expect that promises will be broken and that hoping for integrity in someone is unwise. Living anchored in disappointment breeds skepticism that frames our lives with the mentality of “I’ll believe it when I see it.” The problem is that we often take this attitude with us into our times of prayer and apply it to God’s promises for our lives. This approach to life keeps us from seeing the manifestations of God’s Word because, as Hebrews 11:6 says, “And without faith it is impossible to please God, for he who comes to God must believe that He exists and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.”
Faith fuels the impossible in our lives. When we don’t believe God for the manifestation of His promises until we see them, there is no faith. Therefore, the Word of God for our lives remains dormant or happens without our even taking notice because we never stood in expectation of it.
However, God wants you to know that He is not your broken promises. He is Abba, a promise keeper. Numbers 23:19 says, “God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should repent. Has He spoken, and will He not do it? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?”
When God speaks, we should pay close attention, obey and await the promised blessing. God is His Word, and because of that He puts the full weight of every resource He has to bring His Word to pass on behalf of His people.
Our experiences with a lack of integrity, broken promises, disappointments and the limitations of chronological time should never be the basis of our not fully receiving the revelation of Abba’s Word and promises in our lives. Instead, they should be an inspiration to help elevate our expectation and faith in Abba’s ability to bring forth the manifestation of His Word. If we look at our lives, I guarantee we can match some of the worst seasons of life to a promise of God.
When God’s Word seems not to manifest, it can also be a sign of an assault on a promise. Satan wants to continue the propagation of the lie that God is not a god of His Word. So his strategy is to distract our focus from God, dismantle our hope, and destroy our faith in God with disappointments and broken promises. That was the strategy Satan deployed in the Garden of Eden. The promise God made to Adam and Eve was that human beings would have dominion and rule as well as multiply and fill the earth (Gen. 1:26, 28). The devil fought this promise with a lie that ushered fear, separation, disappointment and a lack of integrity into the earth because he wants to rule the earth.
Since God’s Word cannot fail, the promise of humans having dominion, ruling, multiplying and filling the earth could not fail. So God countered Satan’s lie with a promise about Jesus centuries before He was born. God promised that Jesus’s destiny was to crush the head of the devil and restore humans back to their rightful place of dominion, as God originally spoke.
God’s Word not only set up humanity for redemption, but it also exposed the lie that Satan still tries to use even today to cause people to lose hope in Abba’s promises. Satan wants people to believe that God is not who He says He is and that His Word concerning us is not true.
Without God’s Word in the garden, the lie of the devil concerning Abba’s identity and our identity in God would have continued. Hence God had to step in. Wherever you see a lie at work in your life, whether it be a lack of integrity, brokenness or disappointment, know that God is speaking a promise for you. There is only one thing more powerful than a lie, and it is a promise kept. When Satan releases lies against you, God always speaks a sure word of promise on your behalf. {eoa}
Matthew L. Stevenson is a powerful governmental prophet and an apostolic overseer. He has been in ministry for sixteen years and has served as the senior pastor of All Nations Worship Assembly for twelve years. He holds three academic degrees in the areas of leadership, education, and ministry. He oversees more than sixty ministries through The GATE Network, which is a family of churches and ministries around the world that look to him for supervision, oversight, and apostolic leadership. He is the husband of Dr. Kamilah Stevenson and the father of three. This passage is an excerpt of his book Abba (Charisma House, 2017).
