ICS Daily Devotions
A New Name
Every promise of God is built upon four foundations namely
God’s righteousness which keeps Him from being unfaithful
God’s holiness which keeps Him from being deceitful
God’s truth which keeps Him from changing
God’s grace which keeps Him from being forgetful
In making covenant with man, God condescended Himself to be bound and restricted by an agreement so as to facilitate our possessing what He wants us to possess. We can only respond in worship for His grace towards us.
Genesis 15:1-18 records an incident where God and Abram speaks to each other and where God cuts a covenant with Abram. God speaks to us through His Word when we ask Him of things that we do not understand or need His assurance. When we receive an assurance from God then we can build our faith on the Rhema word rather than be affected by the circumstances and the facts.
Verse 7 Then He said to him, “I am the LORD, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to inherit it.” 8 And he said, “Lord GOD, how shall I know that I will inherit it?”9 So He said to him, “Bring Me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.”
When Abram asked “How will I know?”, and God answered, “prepare the animals”, Abram immediately understood that God was willing to bind Himself to fulfill what He promised Abram with a covenant which cannot be broken. However, Abram was an unworthy partner with God so how did God carry out the covenant?
Verse 17 And it came to pass, when the sun went down and it was dark, that behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a burning torch that passed between those pieces.18 On the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram…
The smoking oven or furnace reminds us of the fire on the Mount Sinai in Exodus 19:18 and the burning torch reminds us of the Word that is a lamp in Psalm 119:105 and Proverbs 6:23. Therefore, the covenant was sealed unto Abram by both God the Father and Jesus Christ!
When God awakened Abram from the sleep to complete the ceremony, God changed Abram’s name to Abraham to show that Abram belongs to God. Later God would call himself “the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.”
We, as Christians, are in covenant with our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us on the cross for our sins. We belong to God and God is happy to be called our God.
Sermon Series: God Enlarges Man’s Faith by Covenant
