(Nuggets from Genesis 17:7)
God's covenant with Abraham was a GENERATIONAL COVENANT, God taught Abraham PATIENCE, although it wasn't easy for Abraham because he was ageing already and couldn't wait to see these promises come to fruition.
Remember that when God first called Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldees and established a covenant with him, Abraham was seventy-five years old. Almost twenty-five years had passed since God promised to make him a GREAT NATION, and there was still no child born to Abraham and Sarah. This twenty-five-year delay had sown seeds of SKEPTICISM and UNBELIEF in Abraham’s heart, and in response to God’s promise of a son, we learn that Abraham laughed and said in his heart,
"Then Abraham fell upon his face, and laughed, and said in his heart, Shall a child be born unto him that is an hundred years old? and shall Sarah, that is ninety years old, bear?"
Genesis 17:17
Abraham had interpreted God’s delay as unwillingness or an inability to keep His covenant. The slow passage of days and months and years had eroded the confident faith of the same man who in response to God’s promise, obediently went forth when the Lord had spoken to him. (Genesis 12:4).
Abraham needed to know that God does not work according to our timetables, and sometimes His plan will stretch us beyond our expectations not because He is indifferent to our plea, but because His blessings are MIND-BLOWING.
Abraham responded to the delay of God’s promise by attempting to help God keep the covenant. God must have felt so disappointed.
Abraham and Sarah had a very conventional response to God’s delay in keeping His promise: "if God will not provide the blessing then, we would provide it ourselves."
This self-sufficient mentality and “illegitimate help,” gave rise to the sin of Abraham sleeping with Sarah’s maidservant, Hagar, and giving birth to Ishmael.
(Genesis 16:1-16).
Abraham and Sarah, as co-conspirators, now had a male heir, but in taking matters into their own hands, they had acted outside of God’s plans for how He would keep His promises.
God, however, was not interested in ILLEGITIMATE MEANS of help to achieve a LEGITIMATE END - Abraham’s son, Isaac. To Abraham’s offer of Ishmael as the child of the covenant, God responded, “No, but Sarah your wife will bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac; and I will establish My covenant with him for an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him” (Genesis 17:20).
God’s covenant with His Abraham's children is a promise of ownership and heredity as God’s children.
All along the way, God led, taught, and empowered Abram to make choices while holding the future completely in His hands.
This is a miracle. The miracle of a sovereign and loving God who encourages us to choose His will, and then blesses us beyond what we can imagine just for stepping out in faith.
Abraham’s story should be an incredible encouragement for you. He was an ordinary man who made choices we might disapprove of, but Abraham was not reading a script. He was living a beautiful story of FAITH and REDEMPTION, and it is clear that God blessed him just for trusting Him.
God's BLESSINGS, REWARDS and GIFTS are IRREVOCABLE
(Romans 11:29).
You can possess these gifts and still have amazing future rewards connected with your current choices. Your REWARDS will accumulate as you walk in obedience.
God is calling you to WALK IN FAITH, AND SOW SEEDS that will BLESS and SHAPE your FUTURE GENERATIONS like Abraham.
This is HOLINESS CHALLENGE
DAY 33 OF 365 (2026)
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