April 10, 2024
Please use the comment section on this page to share insights from today’s reading OR your own personal Bible reading.
Reading along with us in Genesis? Here’s today’s reading:
Genesis 15 (NIV)
The Lord’s Covenant With Abram
1 After this, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision:
“Do not be afraid, Abram.
I am your shield,
your very great reward.”
2 But Abram said, “Sovereign Lord, what can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?”……Continue Reading
Genesis 15
I hardly know where to start in Gen 15!
I am thy shield and exceeding great reward.
Not land.
Not riches.
Not children.
Not power.
God is his reward!
Genesis 15
Mark 2-3 and 1 Corinthians 1.
I appreciated that Abram is venting a little to God here, maybe because we find ourselves in places sometimes when we don’t understand God’s plan and feel we need to vent it out to Him. I love also that He listens and reassures Abram, as He does for us. We just need to have faith and believe God is in control even when we don’t understand or things are not happening in the timing we expect.
6 Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.
That’s the beauty of God’s plan, our job is just to believe and then as we engage in the things of God and trust that He is working all things out for good we will see that He is with us through it all, good and bad times.
Genesis 15:6 “And he believed the Lord, and He counted it to him as righteousness.”
I appreciate my study Bible note here: “This key verse in Genesis is quoted four times in the NT (Romans 4:3 and Romans 4:22, Galatians 3:6, and James 2:23). Faith in God requires trusting Him, based on the truthfulness of His words. Faith in God leads to obeying His commands. Abram believed God would give him a son despite many years of childlessness. Before Abram has shown himself righteous by his deeds, God sees him as righteous because of his faith.”
It is in Galatians that Paul most clearly makes the connection between Genesis 15 and us, former Gentiles now grafted into the family of God. Galatians 3:7-9 says, “Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.”
God keeps His promises…and as Pastor made clear on Sunday evening, it is by grace, through faith alone that we are saved. The works of a saved person will bear witness to the reality of their salvation. But even those works are by God, for His glory…everyone knows Ephesians 2:8-9…but verse 10 is just as compelling. Why are we saved by grace through faith, and not by works so that no one may boast? “For we are HIS workmanship, created in Christ Jesus FOR GOOD WORKS, which GOD prepared BEFOREHAND, that we should walk in them.”
I lived my whole life in the church. I professed faith when I was six. Then again when I was in college. Then got re-baptized in my 30’s through immersion, since I was infant baptized previously and I wanted to make an outward show of my faith…a public profession. I sang in choirs, rang handbells, taught Sunday School and vacation bible schools, opened my home and taught home Bible studies. I knew the language, had memorized Scripture, could debate all five points…I had all sorts of outward works that could have borne witness to my salvation.
And yet after 46 years…it was James 2:17 that God used to grab ahold of me…to pierce me and convict me, through His loving kindness…that in reality, it was my works that bore witness to the lack of regeneration in me. “So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.” God simply pressed His finger into my soul and asked “So, Sean…how are your works? ALL OF YOUR WORKS. Do they bear testimony to a living faith, or a dead faith? And what kind of faith do you think I give you, through my grace? A living faith, or a dead faith?”
We can present any image of ourselves that we want to the outside world…and we can come to believe that image is really who we are. But God looks upon the heart. God sees all that we do. And God has regenerated us for HIS glory. Why are we saved by grace, through faith? For God’s glory. And how is God glorified in saving us? Because we are not the same. We are REBORN. We are NEW CREATIONS. And God has prepared works for us, His workmanship, to do in this life…and they are the works of holiness, of faith, of obedience…they are the works that bear witness to the reality of God living within us…having made us His very temple.
This is this Truth I was given eyes to see. That I had to die. There had to be a death. Why? Because in my own power, my own nature, my natural state…I was destined to serve only myself. And in that state, though we come up with all sorts of justifications and rationalizations…”every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” (Genesis 6:5). If I did not die, how could I be reborn? When God removed the scales from my eyes, cemented in place through decades of my sin…only then did Galatians 2:20 come to life in me.
“For I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by FAITH in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”
And while it may be true that God will require our physical life here on Earth for the cause of the Gospel, at a minimum, Christ demands your spiritual life…there is where Jesus’s words apply to each and every one of us…”For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the Gospel’s will save it.” (Mark 8:35).
So? Have you lost your life? How can you tell? My prayer is that we would all lose our lives continually in the pursuit of God’s goodness which is far greater than ANYTHING this world has to offer. Grace and peace be with us all this day!
Thank you so much for your moving testimony, Sean. As a pastor’s son I’ve basically considered myself a Christian my whole life. But my faith in God was never consistent. I always made my walk with Jesus about avoiding sins of commission though I would commit sins of omission in the process. I was never consistent in reading God’s word, prayer, and other things; and because I was trying to live purely without relying on the power of the Holy Spirit the moment life would turn sideways I’d fall away. And it got to a point where I wasn’t even sure who God even was anymore.
But a few years ago, I started taking my pursuit of God more seriously. And as a result God has continued to reveal Himself to me as I draw ever closer to Him. And even now as I go through some of the same hardships that would have taken me out spiritually before, for the first time I can instead say I am “hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.” (2 Corinthians 4:8-9)
So, much like yourself, Galatians 2:20 has come to life in me. As well Psalm 18, which is one of my favorites.
Psalm 18:20-24
“The Lord has dealt with me according to my righteousness;
according to the cleanness of my hands he has rewarded me.
For I have kept the ways of the Lord;
I am not guilty of turning from my God.
All his laws are before me;
I have not turned away from his decrees.
I have been blameless before him
and have kept myself from sin.
The Lord has rewarded me according to my righteousness,
according to the cleanness of my hands in his sight.”
In the past, I would always hesitate at this part because I was not righteous before God. But now I can express these realities of Christ living a righteous life in me not as a future hope, but a present reality.
Praise the Lord!
Awesome, Josiah! Praise our Lord, and thank you for sharing!
Genesis 15
Romans 4 and Genesis 15 are best read together. Abram believed God, and he counted it to him for righteousness. He that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. -reb
God promises Abraham that his seed will be as the stars of heaven if he could even count them. Yet Abraham doesn`t as yet have any offspring. And he is old. God also tells him that his people will dwell in a foreign land for 400 years and then will leave that land and return to the land that God has promised Abraham. This was fulfilled when Joseph was sent ahead to save his people when he became second in charge under Pharoah in Egypt. And then latter after Joseph died the Israelites were in bondage for 400 years. God judges Egypt. Abraham and his descendants were given this promise. And of course it came true for God always tells the truth. God bless.
God makes a covenant with Abram and seals it with a sacrifice. God says He is Abrams reward. Abram wants assurance and God gives it.
But….it isn’t all good news.
”Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and behold, horror and great darkness fell upon him. Then He said to Abram: “Know certainly that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them, and they will afflict them four hundred years. And also the nation whom they serve I will judge; afterward they shall come out with great possessions.“
Genesis 15:12-14 NKJV
God gives Abram a prophecy of persecution of his descendants.
Abraham asks a legitimate question as to where his wealth will go and quite possibly too reflecting about what God has said about generations coming from him. God makes it clear that Abram’s own blood will be the heir and the one through whom the promise will be kept. It was a tall order to believe and yet Abram believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness, establishing a pattern here that it would only be by faith that a person would be made right before God. God also promises the land would be the people coming from Abraham as well. And to seal the promise, God sets up a ceremony that was common in that time to make a covenant…where each participant would commit themselves to the agreement. How awesome it is that we have a covenant making and covenant keeping God, and all He ever asks is that we be faithful to our part of the covenant. May we use God’s faithfulness to us as the measure and motivation of how faithful we are to Him!
God tells Abram not to be afraid and then he answers his questions. God wants a relationship with us, if we ask him a question, he will always give an answer. And Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness. As far back as the time of Abraham, God calls people who believe in him – righteous.
Genesis 15