The day of the LORD is near for all nations.  As you have done, it will be done to you; your deeds will return upon your own head.     – Obadiah 1:15

The story is told that one day President Abraham Lincoln was riding in a coach with a colonel from Kentucky. The colonel took a bottle of whiskey out of his pocket and offered Lincoln a drink. The President said, “No thank you, Colonel. I never drink whiskey.” After a little while, the colonel took some cigars out of his pocket and offered one to Lincoln. Again the President said, “No, thank you, Colonel.” Then President Lincoln said, “I want to tell you a story. One day, when I was about nine years old, my mother called me to her bed. She was very sick. She said, ‘Abe, the doctor tells me that I am not going to get well. I want you to be a good boy. Promise me before I go that you will never use whiskey or tobacco as long as you live.’ I promised my mother that I never would, and up to this hour, I’ve kept that promise. Would you advise me to break that promise?” The colonel put his hand on Lincoln’s shoulder and said, “Mr. Lincoln, I would not have you break that promise for anything in the world! It is one of the best promises you ever made. I would give a thousand dollars today if I had made my mother a promise like that and had kept it like you have done. I would be a much better man than I am!”

It seems like the qualities of honesty, loyalty, and dependability don’t mean as much as they used to. Today we might feel that President Lincoln was silly for keeping such a naïve-sounding promise to his long-dead mother. But there is much to be said for a man or woman who keeps their word, no matter what. We know that God is this way. All the promises of the Bible are just as true today as they ever were. He has promised us that as a man sows, so shall he reap.  In other words, our righteous actions bring a long-term reward while our selfish and wicked actions bring us all kinds of trouble.  God is a judge who judges fairly.  He sees both the things you do in public and those things you do in private. He knows who you really are and what you really deserve. Another of His promises states that without Jesus Christ in our lives, it is impossible to please Him. Loving God is not just about rejecting what is wrong, but also about choosing to do what is right.  If we love Jesus wholeheartedly, follow Him unashamedly, and live our lives as He did, then our good deeds will be good, indeed.  Great reward awaits God’s children… and that’s a promise!