2 Corinthians 1:20-22 For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us. Now he which stablisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is God; Who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts.

How do you like the term “sealed the deal”? In our common speech it means nothing is going to cause our expectations to be dashed. Whether it be a car sale, a new home, or anything else we are buying, we know it is going to be ours. We put down earnest money, knowing we are not going to get it back if we should change our minds. It is a sign we are invested in the deal.

God did the same thing when He purchased us by the precious blood of His Son. Many times we look at it in terms of God’s promises, but rather than doing that, because promises have led to disappointments in our lives, look at it from God’s point of view.

God put down the earnest, not His money, Himself. He invested His Holy Spirit. He sealed the deal which means He cannot take back His earnest investment. Now the Holy Spirit is the third person of the Godhead. God would cease from being God without Him. There is now way God could back down.

So much of what we look at in our issues with salvation are interactive, where we have a responsibility to work out our salvation. There are things we must do activate the earthly promises which God has made to us. The final promise, to be with Him in perfection is the eternal promise, promised from the beginning, earnestly unchanged by how well we avail ourselves of our daily salvation.

2 Timothy 2:13 If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself.

Jeremiah 5:22 Fear ye not me? saith the Lord: will ye not tremble at my presence, which have placed the sand for the bound of the sea by a perpetual decree, that it cannot pass it: and though the waves thereof toss themselves, yet can they not prevail; though they roar, yet can they not pass over it?

It is no accident that my friend’s devotional and mine have the same title. I read his and it inspired me. Not the same, but inspired all the same.

We walk by faith, we who have placed our trust in the Lord. Walking by faith is like walking at the water’s edge. We feel the pull of the tides against our feet. This is the tug of the Spirit of God. Yet we do not always walk and run in the water.

When I was a teen I would run the length of Long Sands in York, Maine. The white loose sand made it more difficult to run on. Loose footing, beach traffic, people on beach towels and hidden obstacles like broken glass and sea shells caused me to run in the wet sand close to the waves. My toes dug in and I left human claw marks were my bare foot toes would dig in. On my return trip from the end of the beach I could see that the waves had erased my footprints in the sand.

That memory passed over me this morning as I read my friend’s devotional. Jesus washed the disciple’s feet as an example of the forgiveness of sin, where our feet need only be cleansed because they were the only part of us that touched the world. What about the footprints we left where we walked? Are not the footprints also evidence of our sin?

For those of us that walk by faith, the Holy Spirit erases the footprints leaving no evidence of our passing. But the tide only goes so far. The sand of the sea is the perpetual boundary, the tide will only remove evidence of sin only so far. The closer you walk to the waves the faster the footprints are erased, but the tide comes in and removes evidence of sin for those who did not come to the water’s edge, but only so far.

Romans 8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

PS One of my favorite verses in the bible.