We were reminded during the weekend message that what we believe about God has a profound impact. If we do not trust God and His promises, we will walk through our days in fear and with a lack of faith in what God is doing in our lives and in the world. If, on the other hand, we believe God and His promises, we will walk in faith and confidence, trusting God and His plans for our lives. Of course, if we want to walk in confidence, boldness, and faithfulness, Scripture teaches us that we must not only know God's promises to us in Scripture, but also believe them.
When it comes to believing God and His promises, Abram, better known as Abraham, serves as a remarkable example for us to follow in Genesis 15. As we learned during the weekend message, Abram had just saved his nephew and the nation of Sodom from four decorated war heroes and their armies with the strength of God, and just an army of 318 men in Genesis chapter 14. After the victory, Abram refused to take any reward as a "thank you" from the king of Sodom (Genesis 14:23). Then, in Genesis 15, God told Abram, “I will protect you, and your reward will be great” (verse 1). In response to this promise, Abram said, “What good are all your blessings when I don’t even have a son?” (verse 2). Abram was distraught because he had no children, and he told God about his distress. In response, God made Abram a promise: “Look up into the sky and count the stars if you can. That's how many descendants you will have!" (verse 5). In a remarkable promise, God told Abram that he would have too many descendants to count. Scripture tells us that in response to this promise, “Abram believed the Lord, and the Lord counted him as righteous because of his faith” (verse 7). Abraham chose to believe God and trust that what He promised would come to pass, even when he could not see how this promise would be fulfilled. As a result, God “counted him as righteous because of his faith.” In other words, God honored Abram because of his faith.
Abram believed God’s promises about his future. The question we have to answer today is, “Do we?” Do we trust Him and His promises throughout Scripture? My friend, He has proven Himself trustworthy to you time and time again. Choose to trust Him today. After all, what you believe about God has a profound impact.
Perhaps today you need the reminder that God is trustworthy. Take a moment to think about one way He is at work in your life right now, whether in a big or small way. Thank God for His faithfulness to you today. Let His faithfulness today encourage you to trust Him with the future. After all, He is, indeed, trustworthy.
1Some time later, the Lord spoke to Abram in a vision and said to him, “Do not be afraid, Abram, for I will protect you, and your reward will be great.”
2 But Abram replied, “O Sovereign Lord, what good are all your blessings when I don’t even have a son? Since you’ve given me no children, Eliezer of Damascus, a servant in my household, will inherit all my wealth. 3 You have given me no descendants of my own, so one of my servants will be my heir.”
4 Then the Lord said to him, “No, your servant will not be your heir, for you will have a son of your own who will be your heir.” 5 Then the Lord took Abram outside and said to him, “Look up into the sky and count the stars if you can. That’s how many descendants you will have!”
6 And Abram believed the Lord, and the Lord counted him as righteous because of his faith.
7 Then the Lord told him, “I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land as your possession.”
8 But Abram replied, “O Sovereign Lord, how can I be sure that I will actually possess it?”
9 The Lord told him, “Bring me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” 10 So Abram presented all these to him and killed them. Then he cut each animal down the middle and laid the halves side by side; he did not, however, cut the birds in half. 11 Some vultures swooped down to eat the carcasses, but Abram chased them away.
12 As the sun was going down, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a terrifying darkness came down over him. 13 Then the Lord said to Abram, “You can be sure that your descendants will be strangers in a foreign land, where they will be oppressed as slaves for 400 years. 14 But I will punish the nation that enslaves them, and in the end they will come away with great wealth. 15 (As for you, you will die in peace and be buried at a ripe old age.) 16 After four generations your descendants will return here to this land, for the sins of the Amorites do not yet warrant their destruction.”
17 After the sun went down and darkness fell, Abram saw a smoking firepot and a flaming torch pass between the halves of the carcasses. 18 So the Lord made a covenant with Abram that day and said, “I have given this land to your descendants, all the way from the border of Egypt to the great Euphrates River— 19 the land now occupied by the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, 20 Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites,
