January 6, 2009
Read Genesis 15-17 Believing the promises of God.
When Abraham was 100 years old and his wife Sarah was 90, God promised them a son. Abraham believed God, and God counted Abraham's faith as righteousness. The words "it was credited to him as righteousness" show us the foundation of salvation throughout the Bible. Many people believe that the Jews were saved by keeping the law. No one can keep the law; we all fall short of God’s standard. The Bible makes it clear that we are not saved by being “Good People.” The words, it was credited to him were not written for him alone, but also for us. When we believe the promises of God he also credits us with a righteousness. Faith simply believes the promises of God.
The covenant that God made was unconditional. That means it was depending solely upon God who was making the promise. God obligates Himself in grace to bring about what He has promised.
The word “covenant” means to cut. 15:18-21 When a covenant was cut it was literally cut. Animals were cut in half and placed in a line, and then the parties making a covenant would walk between them. When they did this they were saying .... If I don’t keep this covenant let me become like these hunks of meat.
Maybe this was the origin of the phrase... “I’m dead meat” that is a joke..
The question is who passed through the pieces? Only God, this is a unilateral covenant.
The application to our lives in CT in 2009 is .... are you living by the promises of God? How many promises do you know that God has made to you and are you living by them?
There are over 7000 promises given in the Bible. There is a huge difference between people who live by these promises and those who don’t.
Be a person who believes God and his promises.
This devotional is found on http://gracebiblereaders.blogspot.com/
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Bibles that are falling apart usually belong to people who aren’t.
Keep turning those pages!!
I was encouraged when noting that though Abraham believed the promises of God, he still didn't have knowledge of how it would come to pass and so made the same mistakes that most of us make. We take things into our own hands and assist God in doing His work. Abram also had difficulty trusting in the total protection of God more than once when he had Sarai deny she was his wife. Yet, God counted him as righteous because of his faith-there is hope for us.
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