Devotion:
For an audio version of this devotion, click here.
Read Genesis 12:1-3.
This week we are focusing on gifts God gave us in the Old Testament part of the Biblical story. Today we are celebrating God’s giving the gift of initiating a covenant relationship with Abraham. And through God’s covenant with Abraham, God wants to bless all the families of the earth!
The word, “covenant” isn’t common in our everyday conversations. God’s covenant with humankind is different from a contract or even a promise. It is God’s deep and abiding commitment out of God’s love, to be faithful and trustworthy to God’s own creation of humankind. We human beings are not always faithful or trustworthy, but God continues to pursue us and to be faithful to the covenant from the beginning. Our role is to respond with trust and relinquish our will to follow in God’s ways.
Writers Richard and Julia Wilke in the “Disciple I Bible Study” add that the hinge verse is Genesis 12:4, “So Abram went, as the Lord had told him.” Abraham left everything that was familiar to him and followed where God was leading to a new land.
J. Ellsworth Kalas writes, “The purpose of the biblical covenant is to create a people. In the Biblical story, God makes covenants with individuals, but they are never for their exclusive benefit.” Kalas reminds us that throughout history we struggle to remember we are also called to bring God’s blessing of covenant relationship to others.
Personal Worship Option:
The Hebrew word, “Hesed” is used 245 times in the Old Testament. It speaks to the character of God as loving kindness, mercy, goodness, love, steadfast love, and faithful love. This is the character of God who initiates giving the gift of a covenant relationship with each and all of us. How will we respond?
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