Belief

Believing promises that are hard to believe is one of the major requirements of following Jesus.

Unbelief is a sin. It will literally disconnect you from Jesus:

Romans 11:19You will say then, “Branches were broken off that I might be grafted in.”

20Well said. Because of unbelief they were broken off, and you stand by faith. Do not be haughty, but fear.

Getting a promise from God is serious business. As crazy as it might seem, a failure to believe the good things God promises are guaranteed to you, an unwillingness to hope, is one of the major pitfalls of following Jesus. Getting grand promises from God requires a miracle, and miracles require faith!

Matthew 13:58Now He did not do many mighty works there because of their unbelief.

Getting a promise from God is a big deal. If He says it, it's true. Once you get a promise from God, you are expected to be a person who walks around with a promise...in belief. Walking around like a man with a promise changes things. It should create patient confidence, free a man from jealousy and fear, and bring brightness to the dark times of testing.

Unbelief has the opposite effect. It produces contentions and striving and jealousy.

James 4:1Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members?

2You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask.

Unbelief will work in very negative ways in your life...it will cause you to try to control people and circumstances around you for fear the promises are slipping away. Unbelief will cause bitterness to rise in your heart as you see other promises fulfilled for other people, it will cause you to speak poorly of other promises...to doubt. Doubt is the original sin.

...did God really say?...

Unbelief is a massive sin, and it masquerades as all sorts of things, false humility being primary among them. It is easy to think God wouldn't really do some amazing thing through you, or to think 'why would God treat me different than anyone else?' These are some of the ways unbelief speaks.

Faith hopes. Faith requires believing something that seems impossible without a miracle. That's the point! Miracles require God, and the promise He spoke to you requires you to NEED Him. God doesn't give promises to make us independent. God gives us promises to help us see our need for Him. As I faithfully carry a promise from God...if it's true and I'm faithful...when it's all said and done I am more convinced of my need of God! This is true humility.

If you want to learn true humility, learn to take God at His word. If you want to see a truly humble person, find someone carrying a big promise that looks impossible and see how they conform to the God who promised...just believing because He said something to them in the faint whisper of love one day...and that whisper changed how they live. That is humility. That is faith.

Better yet, be that person. Just believe the promise and let it change you! Then you will be ready for the great thing to happen. It won't derail you in pride when the great thing God wants to give you is given, if you have let the promise kill all the pride that was there....what makes a promise so exciting on the front end is often all the imagined personal glory...or pride...but what makes a promise so loving on the back end is all the ways simply believing that true thing will humble a man, show Him his pride and unbelief, and make Him ready to carry the real thing forever.

Hebrews 11:8By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going.

9By faith he dwelt in the land of promise as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise;

10for he waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.

11By faith Sarah herself also received strength to conceive seed, and she bore a child when she was past the age, because she judged Him faithful who had promised.

12Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born as many as the stars of the sky in multitude—innumerable as the sand which is by the seashore.

13These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.

14For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland.

15And truly if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return.

16But now they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them.