Letters and Promises

This morning Robin was going to give a message for the children during worship at church.  Until she got sick, that is.  (Not real sick, just too sick to go to church.  She is beginning to feel better.) I subbed for her, and this, more or less, is what I shared with the children.

First I talked a little bit about letters.  Not the ones that we use to spell words with but the kind that we write to people.  Letter writing was once very common.  It was the way we stayed in touch with people we didn't see very often, people who may have lived a long ways away from us.  Writing letters was very common when the Bible was written and many parts of the Bible began as letters that were written by one person to some other people.  These letters were so important that they were collected and saved, so that we can read them in our Bibles today.

Then I talked a bit about promises.  One of the children told me that a promise was “When you tell someone that you are going to do something.”  And that is correct.  We tell someone that we are going to do something and then, later on, we keep our promise and do that very thing.

Then I told the children that the letters of the Bible, such as the one we were going to read from later before the sermon, are filled with promises that God has made to us.  I told them that it is good for us to read the letters over and over, so that we learn and remember God’s promises.

And then, reading from our daughter’s copy of the Jesus Storybook Bible, I read then a promise of God, written by Paul to the Romans, which says:

“God loves us!  Nothing can ever – no, not ever! – separate us from the Never Stopping, Never Giving Up, Unbreaking, Always and Forever Love of God he showed us in Jesus!”

That is the condensed version of Romans 8:31-39, but it clearly tells a profound truth, a promise of God of His enduring and unfailing love for His children. 

And as my daughter leaned over to remind me during the children’s message, “God always keeps His promises!”

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.