Can we believe in an incredible God?
Every day we're reading or listening to part of the Bible together and sharing thoughts with you. Today it’s Bern Leckie:
What did I like about today's reading?
When God makes a promise, he sticks with it, even when it seems impossible to believe. The steps Abram needs to walk through as a sign of God's covenant promise are incredibly vivid, with blood everywhere, symbolising the cost of breaking a covenant. Even though the promise of a natural-born son seemed ridiculous, Abram believed God, and that was enough for God to judge that his life was right on track, or "righteous".
What I find most amazing is that God stuck to his covenant plan, even when Abram's wife had enough doubt to arrange a more sensible sounding "plan B".
What did it show me about Father God, Jesus or the Holy Spirit?
God is incredibly relentless in his efforts to turn us from destructive, self-centred lives to creative, God-centred lives. He takes the initiative in making covenant commitments and credits our faith in him as the main thing in a healthy life.
The covenant sign of circumcision is intimate and, some would say, extreme. It’s something no adult would want without a very good reason. Why would God command it? While we can’t say for sure, we can see from centuries of Jewish history that it led people to remember God and take their distinctive sign of identifying with the covenant tribe seriously. God knows how important symbols can be for us, and he uses them a lot to make his work meaningful and memorable in our lives.
What am I going to do differently as a result?
I’m glad that we have a new covenant through Jesus! But is my life truly defined by my faith in him? Next time I am trying to succeed in something purely by my own strength, I want to be quicker to credit what God has done and wants to do with me instead.
Who am I going to share this with?
I hope we’ll have a chance to chat about this soon with others from church, including our house group and people who did “The SHAPE of you” course last year.