The Greatest Promise Ever Made

I always enjoy superlatives: the greatest, the least, the first, the last.  Here we will look at the greatest Promise ever made.  And the beneficiary of that promise was you and me.

We go to Genesis 12, early in the Bible, to see the promise that was made there.

"Now the Lord had said to Abram (Abraham): 'Get out of your country, from your kindred and from your father's house, to a land that I will show you.  I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing.  I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.' "

This initially was a promise just made to Abraham.  It would later be repeated to Isaac, Abraham's son, and to Jacob, Abraham's grandson.  We find at the time of this promise that Abraham and all of his family are living in Ur of the Chaldeans.  This is in southern Mesopotamia, today the nation of Iraq.  And we see that this promise was really several promises; that he would be given a land (today the land of Israel); that his people would become a great nation; and the final promise was that through Abraham all of the families of the earth would be blessed.  This final promise is the one that has great significance to us, since this promises the coming of the Savior, Jesus Christ.

In order to be true, this promise requires that Jesus be a direct descendant of Abraham.  And when we look at the history of the Old Testament we see that this occurs.  The OT follows the family of Abraham down through the ages.   It follows Abraham, then Isaac, then Jacob, then Judah all the way down to the parents of Jesus.  Now we know that Jesus is actually fathered by the Holy Spirit.  But from an earthly sense, Jesus was born of a father of the tribe of Judah, directly descended from Abraham himself.

One thing we learn from this story is that God always keeps His promises.  Note this passage from 2 Peter 3:  "The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance."

The Lord loves us, promised that He would bless us through the seed of Abraham, sent His Son to die for us....so that none of us would perish.  But He expects us to do His will.  And thus...we must.  What a great blessing!

Thanks for reading.  Have a blessed, God-filled week!