Have you ever felt in your heart that God has broken His promise?  Has your situation ever become so opposite of what is written in His Word that you finally threw up your hands and said, Well, that’s it, the devil was right, God didn’t come through after all?   If so, you’re not alone.  Many people have.  But they forgot the two most important rules when dealing with God:  Number one, God cannot lie.  Number two: If you think He DID, refer to rule number one. Really, life is simple when you live according to those two rules.     We try to be theologians and somehow manage to muddy up the waters something fierce.  I remember reading a story about the comedian W.C. Fields being found reading a Bible one time, and he was not a Christian.  When asked why he was reading the Bible, he replied he was looking for loopholes.  Sounds like many Christians today.  Many of those who claim to believe God’s Word are looking for excuses not to believe what is written.  It’s almost as if the promises are too good to be true, so we look for every reason not to believe.  But has God really broken His promise, or have we simply failed to believe Him?
   Some people refuse to accept any responsibility for their situation, and it would be like saying,  I got drunk but it wasn’t my fault, someone overpowered me and drug me into a bar and held me down and poured a case of beer down my throat.  Or, I couldn’t pay my rent because I looked in my wallet for my money, and all I found were lottery tickets that had somehow bought themselves. Or, I got laid off my job because I couldn’t get the TV to turn off so I could go to work on time, and it’s happened three times this week  Or, I couldn’t help committing adultery with that woman, my car just drove itself to the hotel and our clothes just kinda fell off by themselves.   C’mon people, give me a break!  As with anything in life, there are consequences for our actions, whether we want to face them or not, and ignoring them doesn’t make them go away. 
   They say, Well, if God wants to save or heal me, He will do it.  He’s God, I’m not, I can’t make it happen, so if I don’t get saved or healed, it’s just God’s will, you can’t blame me.  To that I say, you haven’t read God’s Word.  God made lots of promises in His Word, but most come with a condition attached, such as those in Deuteronomy 28:1-13, that starts out like this:  And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe and to do all His commandments which I command thee this day, that the LORD thy God will set thee oin high above all nations of the earth.  Did you see that?  There is a condition to the promise, YOU HAVE TO LISTEN TO GOD AND OBEY HIM in order to receive the promises.  How sure are God’s promises?  Here’s an example in Jeremiah 33:20-21:
Thus saith the LORD, if ye can break my covenant of the day, and my covenant of the night, and that there should not be day and night in their season; then may also my covenant be broken with David my servant, that he should not have a son to reign upon his throne; and with the Levites the Priests, My ministers.  I would say God is real serious about keeping His end of the promise, wouldn’t you?
   Your situation may not offer much hope right now.  Back in the days of Abraham and Sarah, things didn’t look too promising for them to have children of their own, after all, they were old, well past the age of child bearing.  Then God came along and promised them a son.  Most of us would say, Yeah, right….
Let’s read about it in Hebrews 11:11-12:  Through faith also Sara herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged Him faithful who had promised.  Therefore sprang there even of one, and him as good as dead, so many as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as the sand which is by the sea shore innumerable.    This to me says it all: “she judged Him faithful who had promised.”  How about you in your situation?  Do you judge God to be faithful to His promise?  Does it make a difference?  After all, God is sovereign, right?  He can make it happen whether you believe or not, right?  Well yes He’s sovereign, but it won’t happen for you unless you believe.  And you can’t blame everything on the devil.  Only YOU decide whether or not you will believe God.  Satan himself cannot force you to disbelieve.  He can suggest that you doubt, and even reason with you a thousand reasons why you are not worthy that God would do anything for you, or otherwise talk you out of believing, but the bottom line is this:  Jesus said in Mark 11:24, Therefore I say unto you, what things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.  Do you see a condition on that promise?  Yes!  You must believe that you receive!  When do you believe: after you see it?  No!  When you pray.  When do you receive?  when you believe, and not a moment before.  So now the question begs to be asked, Why would you doubt the promise?  Do you think God is not able and willing to hold up His end of the promise, or is it because you doubt God will do it for you personally? 
   If you don’t think God would do it for you, then it must be an identity problem, not who HE is, but who YOU are in Him.  There is a story about a leper in Mark 1:40-42 that we need to look at:  And there came a leper to Him, beseeching Him, and kneeling down to Him, and saying unto Him, If thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean.  And Jesus, moved with compassion, put forth his hand, and touched him, and saith unto him, I will; be thou clean.  And as soon as He had spoken, immediately the leprosy departed from him, and he was cleansed.   Here was a leper who had heard of Jesus and came to Him, knowing He COULD heal him.  But WOULD He?  The leper had his doubts, just like you do right now.  He was testing the waters, wanting to be healed, alright, but just wanting to be healed is not enough.  Nobody that is sick wants to be sick.  This leper had an identity problem.  He knew who Jesus was, but he didn’t know who HE was!  It goes on to say, Jesus was moved with compassion.  Why?  Because the leper meant something to Him, he was important and beloved to Him.  The leper saw himself as walking garbage, the scourge of the earth.  Jesus saw him as precious, and He couldn’t wait to show His mercy to him.  But first, Jesus had to remove the leper’s doubt, just like He has to remove YOUR doubt.  When Jesus said I WILL; BE THOU CLEAN, He cancelled the leper’s “IF”. What’s it going to take to cancel YOUR “if”?
   How about YOU, my friend?  Have you been waiting for God’s promise to manifest in your life for so long that you think Jesus has forgotten about you or broken His promise to you?  Then you are suffering from an identity crisis, just like the leper.  You know who Jesus is and what He can do.  But when you look in the mirror, you don’t see who Jesus sees.  He sees you as the one He went to the cross for and suffered horribly, even beyond our ability to describe, laying His life down in exchange for yours, in order for His Father to show you mercy.  His blood was spilled out for YOU, redeeming you from your sins and to making you whole, healing all your diseases, binding up your wounds.  But before you can ever become obedient to God’s  Word, before you can ever believe for salvation and healing, you must be able to believe you are who Jesus died for.  You must see yourself as He sees you, the same as He saw the leper.  Jesus couldn’t just walk away from the leper, any more than he could have walked away from you on that day.  He simply HAD to heal him.  Why?  Because of who HE is!  He is the God of compassion, never changing, the same yesterday, today, and for ever.
   Jesus is waiting for you, His beloved, to receive all that which He has so lovingly provided.  He is the God of “more than enough”, who has never broken a promise in all eternity, and He certainly isn’t going to start with you. 
   But do you know, Jesus isn’t interested in saving and healing the old man.  There’s no room in God’s Kingdom for the sick old sinner.  No, the old man must die, and you must become a new creation in Christ Jesus and assume the identity He died to give you!  He will give you the faith to believe that you are who He says you are, that you can do what He says you can, that you can be all He will help you to become: a lean, mean, soul-winning machine, a fisher of men, full of compassion, bringing the hope of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to a lost and dying world.
   And  what about when God breaks His promise?  You’ll never have to worry about it, because it will never happen!