Week 32, Day 1: The Son of Promise
Today’s Reading: Genesis 21:1-34
Some thought from the reading…
One of the greatest points that can be made from Genesis chapter 21 comes in verse 1:
21 And the Lord visited Sarah as He had said, and the Lord did for Sarah as He had spoken.
The Lord came to Sarah, just as He had promised, and He did for her just as He had spoken. That message is very powerful, and the foundation of all that God was going to do for mankind from that time forward. Remember, back in Genesis 15, God made a 3 fold promise to Abraham, but every bit of the fulfillment of that promise would rely on God’s ability to bless Abraham and Sarah with a son. Here in chapter 21, we see that God was able, under circumstances that would be considered impossible by men’s standards, to do just as He had promised. Because He blessed Abraham and Sarah with this son, He was able to fulfill the rest of the promises that He had made with Abraham. This is the beginning of the great nation of Israel, and it is through this lineage that “all nations of the earth” would be blessed–the Messiah would come from him!
Seeing the fulfillment of promises such as this should give us great confidence in God today. How can we doubt His power, and His ability to provide us what we really need? Perhaps we fail to ask God for things that we would like because we can’t see how it could be possible for Him to provide for us. But, if we look at this account, we should see that God’s ways are far greater than our own (Isaiah 55:9)!
We also see from this account that God will indeed fulfill whatever promises He makes to us. There is comfort in that, but there should also be a certain “fearful expectation” in it. We can have confidence that God will fulfill the promise to save us, if we are obedient to Him. We can see He has fulfilled every promise He has ever made, and know that He will indeed fulfill His promise to provide us with an eternal home if we are His children. However, we should be fearful of the flip side of that promise–that He will punish those who are disobedient. It is just as certain that God will fulfill that promise as well. May we all work diligently, so that we might have confidence in our salvation (2 Timothy 4:6-8), and so that we do not have to fear the coming of the day of the Lord!
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