Grace From the Start: Day 4 {Nov. 28th}

And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.

{Genesis 12:2}

⁷ And he said to him, “I am the Lord who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.” ⁸ But he said, “O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?” ⁹ He said to him, “Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” ¹⁰ And he brought him all these, cut them in half, and laid each half over against the other. But he did not cut the birds in half. ¹¹ And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.

¹² As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram. And behold, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him. ¹³ Then the Lord said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. ¹⁴ But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. ¹⁵ As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age.

{Genesis 15:12-18}

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God calls Abram to him with a promise.

God makes a commitment to Abram.

Abram goes.

A lot happens to Abram after God promises to make him into a great nation.  He ends up in Egypt.  While he is in Egypt he is worried that Pharaoh will kill him so he can have his smoking hot wife Sarai all to himself.  Abram tells Pharaoh that Sarai is his sister…That lie does not last long.  The Lord lets Pharaoh know that the woman he has just taken to be his is not Abrams sister but in fact his wife.  Abram is sent out of Egypt. {This is not the only time Abram pulls this stunt…he will do it again later on down the road}.

Abram has been traveling with is nephew Lot.  The two men have been accumulating animals and  the group is to big to travel together so the men separate.  It ends up that Abram has to go out and rescue Lot from a sticky situation.  Lot was taken captive by the group who had just defeated 5 kings.  Abram takes up himself and 318 men and rescues Lot.  With those odds who do you think was in charge of that rescue?  I will answer that for you it wasn’t Abram and his 318 men that is for sure.  God used Abram and his 318 men to preserve Lot. God loves to use desperate situations like this one so his glory shines through.

{side fact: Lot would be the Father of the people group called the Moabites.  Ruth is a Moabite.  Ruth ends up in the genealogy of Jesus.  These are details only God could orchestrate. He constantly and continually protects and preserves his people.}

Abram then runs into a random priest in the wilderness after he rescues Lot.  The name of the priest is Melchizedek.  Melchizedek’s name means ‘the king of righteousness’.  The only other time we here about this priest who appeared in the wilderness is in Hebrews.  This priest named ‘the king of Righteousness’ is also the king of Salem.  Salem means peace.  The ‘king of righteousness’ is also the ‘king of peace’.  Jesus, who this whole story is about, is the true king of righteousness and prince of peace.  I know so awesome.  God can really create an amazing story can’t he?

After all of this God makes a covenant with Abram while Abram is SLEEPING.  A covenant was something people made between one another to ensure each party would hold up their end of the bargain.  God knew that Abram, the Israelite, and us would never be able to hold up our end of the bargain.  To show that he was going to accomplish this he put Abram to sleep.  He would use Abram, the Israelite, and us in spite of ourselves and because of the promise Christ made to us.

Over and over again we see God showing us ‘I’ve got this’.  Through these stories he shows us we are not god and He is.  Through these stories we see the huge things he did to protect and preserve His people.  We can know that when Jesus tells us ‘I’ve got this’ we can rest.