It's Time For A Spiritual Tune Up - Genesis 15 Series

Well that’s the proclamation. Now they’re going to walk through and the covenant is going to take place. So let’s go to the next verses. In verses 17-21 it says – When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites.”

Notice though. If you were a Hebrew person at that time and you were reading that story, you’d be saying, “Wait, wait, wait. There’s something missing here. Abraham is not walking through the pieces. Only God is.” Notice it says there in verse 18 – On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abraham. It’s not they made a covenant together. This is an unconditional covenant. It is not dependent on anything that Abraham does. It is only dependent on God and His grace. There's some of those promises that we have before God that are not dependent on anything we do. They’re just dependent on God’s grace. He offers us that peace. He offers us that joy. It's only dependent on Him and who He is. That is the beauty of this covenant that God makes with Abraham. It is not dependent on the works of Abraham. How does he get anything out of this? It's by faith. It's the faith of Abraham that He enjoys and he experiences God in this unique and special way.

I am just so enamored by this story. That’s why I call it “It’s Spiritual Tune-up Time.” We all need a spiritual tune-up in our lives. When the busyness of life, after these things that start chapter 15, they just start to get together and mess with our head. Things start to change. We're not happy with what’s going on. We need a spiritual tune-up. We must come to the Lord and say, “Lord, I want to re-center my life on you. Will you please reallocate my emotions and my thinking and my patterns so that I can be focused on you? I want to be close to you. I want to understand you. I want to live my life, Lord, serving you in everything that I do.” That is what it means to follow the Lord.

I believe that sometimes Christians find themselves in dark places, difficult places, hard places. It’s so important in those moments to be centered on the Lord. You’re looking at a new year. You’re going into 2021. There are a lot of people saying, “Boy, 2021 is going to be better than last year.” Well maybe it will be. There’s going to be all kinds of things going on that are different. I’ll tell you this. It will be different. The whole political structure is going to be different. You’ve got different things happening in the medical profession. You’ve got all kinds of things happening financially. All kinds of things are going to be different. But whether it’s a better year or not a better year isn’t determined by the political scene or the health crisis. It’s going to be determined by your relationship with the Lord.