Devotions - Read Online
Friday | 22 June 2018
The apostle John explained that ‘ everyone who loves is born of God and knows God’. We know that our hearts need to be circumcised so we can love the Lord and love our brethren in Christ. John’s statement highlights the importance of receiving the circumcision of Christ to our living and growing as a son of God. To obtain our sonship in this way is to receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. Paul called this promise ‘the blessing of Abraham’.
We recall that Yahweh called Abraham to leave his country, his relatives and his father’s house, in order to receive a blessing from God. This was the promised blessing of becoming a son of God, which was the goal of God’s Everlasting Covenant. The Lord said that He would make Abraham a blessing, and that all the families of the earth would be blessed in him.
We see that families are central to the fulfilment of God’s Everlasting Covenant plan. As it was for Abraham, in order to obtain the blessing of sonship, there are worldly and family cultures that we must leave, and there is a godly culture that must be established within our families. The Lord made it clear, through His word to Abraham, that this culture could only become ours if we became a part of Abraham’s family.
A person becomes a part of the household of Abraham when they receive and live by the faith of God that comes by hearing the word that is preached to them. In this faith, they must join the circumcision that Abraham received, in type, as the seal of the Everlasting Covenant. God said to Abraham that He would establish His Everlasting Covenant with him and his children; that is, those who have received the same faith.
Further Study:
Galatians 3
Daily Proverb:
Proverbs 22
References:
1Jn 4:7
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.
Gen 12:1-3
Now the LORD had said to Abram: "Get out of your country, From your family 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."
Gal 2:20
I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.
Rom 10:17
So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
Rom 4:16
Therefore it is of faith that it might be according to grace, so that the promise might be sure to all the seed, not only to those who are of the law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all.