Daily Devotion – March 3, 2021 – Dr. Pat Taylor Ellison
Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16
17:1 When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to Abram, and said to him, “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless.
17:2 And I will make my covenant between me and you, and will make you exceedingly numerous.”
17:3 Then Abram fell on his face; and God said to him,
17:4 “As for me, this is my covenant with you: You shall be the ancestor of a multitude of nations.
17:5 No longer shall your name be Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you the ancestor of a multitude of nations.
17:6 I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you.
17:7 I will establish my covenant between me and you, and your offspring after you throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you.
17:15 God said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name.
17:16 I will bless her, and moreover I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall give rise to nations; kings of peoples shall come from her.”
This is the episode where God changes Abram’s and Sarai’s names. It is the second or third episode where God promises them they will be parents of many many descendants, and not just physically-related descendants, but also descendants in the faith.
After all, Abraham, as he was re-named by God, had very few children, but God made of them whole tribes and nations. And the Israelite nation gave birth to Jesus, who came to save the whole world. And the Israelite nation gave birth to Paul, who, after arguing with Peter over whether the Good News of Jesus should be shared with anyone except Israel, took it as Paul’s mission to spread that news to the whole world.
That makes us descendants of Abraham.
Could we even imagine what this promise of God felt like to Abraham and Sarah? To be the parents of a great nation, and of kings? How would you feel? How would I?
But in God’s time, this promise has come to pass.
What covenants has God established with you? What have you been offered as God’s gifts to you? How do you and I live our lives expressly because God has made promises to us that God is going to keep? How might our lives be different if we did not know that? Do we live our lives as if we knew that? If you knew for certain that, no matter what, God would keep all God’s promises to you because you are God’s beloved child, what might you dare to do? What fears and anxieties might we dare to give up? How bold might we become?
Is this time, today, this minute, the episode where God changes your name and your destiny?
Lord God, Thank you for loving us. Thank you for making each of us your beloved children. Help us to realize we can do anything in the realization that you promise to be with us and love us. Amen.
