By: The Rev. Keith Allen
God’s Covenant promises are rooted in the promise of life. God’s Covenant was a gift of life to Abraham, his offspring and to their generations as an everlasting promise.
“And 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.” (Genesis 17:7 ESV)
Life Application: The heart of God is bound up in the giving of life. The Bible opens with God creating – giving life to all things. The Fall brings death as the wages of sin is always death, but we find that God’s life-giving nature brings life out of death.
In today’s readings we see God’s Covenant of Redemption -the promise to bring life from death – was a promise of fatherhood. The Covenant with Abraham is to make him a “father of nations”. The blessing of God was bound up in the gift of life. The gift of life extends from God to Abraham, his son Isaac and to all who would be born of faith. (Romans 4)
Thus, today, we need to see each child as a gift, a part of this great promise of redemption proceeding from God to eternity. We need to see fatherhood as a stewardship of the promises from God to the generations yet to come. Each child is a gift and an incarnation of grace that we must steward for the glory of God. The call to fatherhood is a call to participate in the redemptive work of God. Our children are an evidence of God’s plan of redemption at work growing and spreading throughout the earth.