Title: Broken Promises / Topic: Human Foibles

Today’s Reading: 2 Samuel 17; Psalm 71; Matthew 26

Scripture: Matthew 26:69-75
69 Now Peter was sitting out in the courtyard, and a servant girl came to him. "You also were with Jesus of Galilee," she said.
70 But he denied it before them all. "I don't know what you're talking about," he said.
71 Then he went out to the gateway, where another girl saw him and said to the people there, "This fellow was with Jesus of Nazareth."
72 He denied it again, with an oath: "I don't know the man!"
73 After a little while, those standing there went up to Peter and said, "Surely you are one of them, for your accent gives you away."
74 Then he began to call down curses on himself and he swore to them, "I don't know the man!"
Immediately a rooster crowed. 75 Then Peter remembered the word Jesus had spoken: "Before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times." And he went outside and wept bitterly.

Observation: This is one of the most famous betrayals in all of history. What is amazing to me is that Peter has apparently completely forgotten the promise he made to Jesus just hours earlier. He had strenuously insisted that no matter what, he would never deny Jesus! And here he is, willfully doing exactly what he said he would never do and making a fool of himself in the process. When the rooster crows, his memory is jogged and the full realization painfully dawns on him.

Application: We all make promises that we intend to keep but that we end up not keeping. We make them with others, with ourselves, and we make them with God. It is simply part of the human condition that we can have a clear and firm mental and moral conviction and yet lose it. I don't know how or why that is, but I know it is true.

I experience it in my own life. For example, I have a weakness for cookies. I love dunking them in milk. But I can easily eat too many and when I have done that, I don't feel so good. So I tell myself, "I will not do that again." But later, I do it again. Why? Because the cookies taste good and they call my name. :-) Now eating too many cookies is not a terrible moral failure, but the point is that there is this human weakness that results in broken promises.

I have some suggestions to help:
• First, get out of the habit of making promises. The Bible tells us "do not swear — not by heaven or by earth or by anything else. Let your 'Yes' be yes, and your 'No,' no, or you will be condemned." In other words, don't make big sweeping promises like: "I swear I will post my blog every day by 7 a.m."
• The second thing that will help is to have accountability to help us keep the commitments we make. Having a close brother or sister that knows what we're doing and not doing will help us to make realistic commitments and keep them.
• The third answer is to simply remember our human foibles and stay humble, seeking God's help because we know that on our own we will fail.

Prayer: So Lord, we ask for Your help to keep us true to the words that we say and the commitments we make. And may we be wise and careful with our words. Give us the understanding to only commit ourselves under Your direction. Help us to be people of Your word and people who keep our word.
This I pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.