Take Me at My Word
He took him outside and said, "Look up at the heavens and count the stars--if indeed you can count them." Then he said to him, "So shall your offspring be."Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.He also said to him, "I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it."But Abram said, "O Sovereign Lord, how can I know that I will gain possession of it?"So the Lord said to him, "Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon."Abram brought all these to him, cut them in two and arranged the halves opposite each other; the birds, however, he did not cut in half. Then birds of prey came down on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away.As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him. Then the Lord said to him, "Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years.But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. >You, however, will go to your fathers in peace and be buried at a good old age. In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure."When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces. On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram and said, "To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates-- the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites." – Genesis 15:5-21
During this time in history, when a covenant (pact) was made, animals were sacrificed along a trench and arranged so that their blood pooled. The parties involved in the covenant then passed through the blood as a way of sealing the oath and acknowledging the obligation they’d made and the penalty that would be expected if they reneged – oftentimes that penalty was death.
While this scene was set up as any other deal would have been, what made it unique is that God passed through the blood alone. He was saying that He alone would bear the penalty if either party were to break the covenant – and He did pay when Jesus died on the cross.
There was nothing that Abraham (or anyone) could do that would obligate God to keep His promise and He could potentially break the covenant at any time without fear of repercussion.
But God made and kept this covenant because to do so is consistent with His holy character.
Simply let your 'Yes' be 'Yes,' and your 'No,' 'No'; anything beyond this comes from the evil one. – Matthew 5:37
A few months ago I obligated myself to do some work that made sense at the time, but since then things have changed and to keep my word would mean that I would have to do something that makes me uncomfortable and self-conscious. I think those who know the situation would say that I'm justified to get out of it. Still, I want my words to mean something and my reputation hangs on my ability to follow through. As a follower of Christ, I want to be known as honest and fair… and I shouldn’t enter into covenants lightly.
Being created in God’s image, I also need to keep my word – even when it would be easy to get out of it. After all, my word all I really have that’s mine.
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