God promised Abram that he would become a great nation. A great nation needs a country. So, this is what God promises next and this promise must have seemed even more unrealistic than the first. God tells Abram that his descendants would take possession of this land which was inhabited at the time by a powerful people. This was out of reach for Abram’s faith, but God was about to stretch it. Abram says to God, “How can I know that I will possess it?” At this point something amazing happens. In the ancient Near East people often made agreements by cutting an animal in half and walking between the pieces, as if to say, “If I do not keep my side of the bargain may what happened to this animal happen to me”. Hence, they would speak of ‘cutting covenants’. Here in 15:9-10 God tells Abram to kill an animal, cut it in half and arrange the pieces opposite each other. Then Abram, in a vision, sees God passing between the pieces. In other words, God is contracting himself to do what he has said for Abram’s descendants. God binds himself to Abram by using this graphic human form of covenant making. It is an astonishing act of condescension. And just when you thought that God could not do more to make his promises firm he goes further. He makes his covenant with us, not in the broken body of an animal, but in the broken body of Christ, the incarnation of God himself. That is how much God is committed to you. How could we ever doubt him?
Pray about what promises of God you need to see fulfilled in your life.
Read Genesis 15:17-21
