Focus
Stop and thank God for being present with you today. Ask for God’s guidance as you hear God’s voice through scripture and the writer.
Read
Genesis 17:1-13
Reflect
Abram was set apart by God to be the father of a holy nation. What was it in Abram’s past that caused God to look on him with favor? How did Abram come to know YHWH? Scholars believe his father, Terah, worshipped pagan gods. Perhaps, there was a bit of YHWH thrown in for good measure. (Like the Corinthians: Let’s worship all gods, we’ll even have one to the “unnamed god”) Perhaps stories were told by his grandparents, aunts, or uncles of the care this God provided to their ancestor Cain; or stories of a Great Flood and how Noah’s family survived.
We will never know exactly how Abram’s faith in YHWH developed. But we do know his faith was ‘credited to him as righteousness’ and he was called to be the father of many people, nations and kings. As the binding agreement, God required this newly renamed man, Abraham, and his descendants to be circumcised.
This is the part Cumberland Presbyterians love. The sign and seal of the covenant can be administered to and received by babies. It doesn’t mean they will grow to always walk in the way of righteousness, but it does mean they are sealed with the covenant. Abraham’s descendants were born into the Abrahamic Covenant, just as babies born of Christian parents are born into the New Covenant of Jesus Christ.
Just as the Abrahamic Covenant was an everlasting covenant, so too is the covenant we have with the blood of Christ.
Pray
God, thank you for your covenant faithfulness. You love us and set your seal on us. Help us to be faithful to the covenant and invite others to be a part as well. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Go with God!
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