Daily Reading: Genesis 24-27

I love when people keep their promises they make me. Perhaps it's my nature, or perhaps just what I've observed in my life, but I usually think people will end up letting me down.

One thing is for certain: People people usually act in a way that is consistent with how they have acted in the past.

If you wanted to, I bet you could write down how someone you know well would react to certain situations in their life because,

"people usually act in a way that is consistent with how they have acted in the past."

I have a group of friends of whom is can be said, "these people always show up, always do what they say, always live up to a promise."

I also have friends of whom that really can't be said. Sadly, I think I fall into the second category more often than I'd like. How about you?

One of the most interesting characteristics of God is His reliability. He always does what He does. He never lies; "he's not a man that He should lie." God always follows through on His word. He makes a promise and keeps that promise. There's no better promise keeper in the world.

Sometimes, however, it may seem like the fulfillment of a promise is a long time coming. It may seem like God hasn't kept His promise. It may seem like God has forgotten about what He promised:

It may seem like God has forgotten you.

Nothing could be farther from the truth.

The biggest lesson I learn privately from Genesis 24 is that when God promises something, we have to lean on it. We have to hope in it. We have to live our life in a way that believes that this promise made is true. Not that we make it true by believing it, that's just ridiculousness. God's promise is true whether or not I believe it.

Earlier in Genesis, God promised Abraham a Son. That son was named Isaac. God promised that, "Through Isaac shall your descendants be named." (chapter 21)

God gave His word that Abraham's family line would be huge and that they would start with him and be spread like wildfire through his son Isaac. So in Genesis 24, we see the steps taken, once Abraham knows God's promise, to begin to see that promise start to come to pass.

Abraham was living by faith on the Word of God. He was acting on faith by looking at how God had followed through in His word in the past; God had been faithful, so Abraham would walk by faith. Not the other way around.

How important was it that God followed through on His promise to Abraham that his descendants would be through Isaac? We need only go to the first book of the New Testament to find the answer:

In Matthew 1 we read the family line of our Lord Jesus Christ and near the beginning we see two familiar names:

"Abraham was the father of Isaac."

The was the beginning of the lineage of the Lord Jesus Christ.

God simply HAD to fulfill his promise to Abraham in order for the Son of God to burst onto the scene and live His life to bear the wrath of a Holy God.

How are you doing today with resting in how God has acted in the past to therefore walk in faith with how He will ultimately act in the future?

God has been faithful, and God will continue to be faithful. Rest in that truth.