Either way He bleeds
Monday, August 10th, 2009Today I read in Genesis 15, which was also a sermon a few weeks back by our pastor(Sermon Link). It is wonderful history of Abram and how he comes to God and the covenant between them.
I loved the first part of the chapter where God sort of re-calibrates Abram and helps him know what really matters in this life. It’s God that is our reward, nothing else is important.
Genesis 15
1 After this, the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision:
“Do not be afraid, Abram.
I am your shield,
your very great reward.”
Then later on in the chapter it is interesting how the blood covenant is made…Abram kills several animals, cuts them in half and spreads them out on an altar. The idea about this covenant is that there is blood running over the alter and both parties walk through the blood letting their robes touch it. By doing this they are committing that if they break the covenant their blood will shed. But in the case of this covenant, God doesn’t have Abram walk through, He does it. By doing this God is saying that if He breaks the covenant he will bleed, but also that if Abram breaks it God will also bleed. He takes on both punishments!
Genesis 15
17 When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces. 18 On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram and said, “To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates- 19 the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, 20 Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, 21 Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites.”
What a mighty God we serve! And in fact God did bleed, He bled because of us! He bled because of my sins! He bled because of your sins! He holds up His end of the covenant regardless of what you do, all you have to do is repent!
I am honestly in awe of how wonderful God is, how He loves us and how we mess that up SO much. I see it in my life how I constantly choose something that is such a miniscule benefit compared to what God wants to give me because it’s easier, because I may loose a friendship or hurt someone temporarily. But praise God I am learning to take the harder road and the benefits are HUGE! Not only for Him but then He blesses me!
My encouragement to you is to repent! Stop toying with sin and walking a line of a unfulfilled life because it’s easier or temporarily “better”! The more we take the easier way the more our children suffer, the harder our circumstances will be in the future because God will teach us and the lessons will get increasingly hard until we either learn or walk away! Pick up your cross, repent of your sins and make the hard choices that bring truth, love, life, Christ into light!
(JP)