The Lord is awe-inspiring, fascinating, intriguing, majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him in Genesis 21:1-2,
“Now the Lord was gracious to Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did for Sarah what he had promised. Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the very time God had promised him.”
We read of the birth of Isaac in Genesis 21. The passage tells us that the Lord fulfilled his promise to Sarah and Abraham just as he said he would. Later on in the chapter we read of Abimelech wanting to make a treaty with Abraham because he could clearly see that the Lord was fulfilling the promises he made to Abraham. “God is with you in everything you do.” Genesis 21:22. Abimelech observes for the rest of us to see that the Lord is fulfilling for Abraham the sevenfold promises of Genesis 12:2-3.
I ask myself the question, why did the Lord promise ahead of time Sarah would have a son? Why did he wait until Abraham and Sarah were so old? Why didn’t he just give a son to Sarah without the promise, why not when she was younger?
It appears to me that our God is a God of promises. Why he promises and then fulfills causes me to think that he wants us to know it is he who is doing these things. But why? As the creator of mankind we acknowledge our children come from God. We recognize God as our provider. Abraham certainly did. It seems to me there is something else afoot here.
One thought that comes to my mind is that the Lord is conditioning us to respond to him as a God of promises. He wants us to believe in those things he has promised us. He wants us to have confidence that he has the power and will fulfill what he has promised. The kind of faith the Lord looks for from us is that faith which recognizes God has the power to do what he promises. “Without weakening in his faith, he [Abraham] faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah's womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised. This is why ‘it was credited to him as righteousness.’” Romans 4:19-22.
And of course the foundational promise the Lord has made to us is found in Romans 10:9, “That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Now here is a promise! A fantastic promise! Our future with the Lord in the resurrection is predicated upon a promise. If, in this life, we embrace Jesus Christ in faith we will share in the resurrection.
God has been conditioning us from the earliest of times to respond to him based on his promises. The fulfillment of God’s promises is the canvas upon which our faith is drawn.
Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share your theme of worship with us from your Bible reading today. We’d love to hear from you!
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