Genesis 17 -- Children Of The Promise

Abram is now a 99-year old man, and God once again comes to him (Abram appears to be used to this happening) and says, “I am God Almighty.  Obey me and do what is right.”  I don’t know whether this indicates that God is just reinforcing what He’d always told him, knowing what He’s about to tell Abram, or whether Abram might have slipped a little in his obedience.  Perhaps God is subtly reminding him about how Abram tried to do things on his own to “help God out” by having a child with Hagar.  Or perhaps Abram has been minimally obedient as we talked about at youth last night.

God changed his name to “Abraham” to show him that He was about to start a new work in his life.  “New NATIONS will be born from YOU, and kings will come from you.  And I will make an agreement between Me and you and all your descendants from now on:  I will be Your God and the God of all your descendants … I will give you and your descendants all this land forever.  And I will be the God of your descendants.”  God also promised Abraham that He would bless Ishmael and his descendants even though Isaac, soon to be born, would be the son of the promise.

All of Abraham’s descendants includes both the Jews (through Isaac) and the Arabs (through Ishmael).  True to this prophecy and promise, the land has always been inhabited by all of Abraham’s descendants and always will be.  However, somewhere along the way, Ishmael’s descendants stopped worshiping God and bought into the teachings of a man.  God offers to be our God, but He will not force Himself on us.  In a similar way, Abraham’s descendants through the promised son, Isaac, failed to see God’s promised Messiah, Jesus Christ, when He appeared.  Both sets of descendants have therefore missed out on the greatest blessing of all time.

Father, over the past several weeks You’ve really shown me a lot about my relationship with You through David Platt’s book Radical:  Taking Back Your Faith From The American Dream.  I pray that You will guide me through what You’ve taught me in it to see You as clearly as Abraham did, but also guide me to have more faith than he had.  Help me to be always in Your will and to never doubt Your great wisdom and love for me.

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford