Topic: A Covenant Of Love [Saturday March 11, 2017]
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son. – John 3:16
For God so loved the world that He gave…and He gave…and He gave.
That is the message the Bible brings us from beginning to end. It sounds simple enough. Yet few of us really comprehend it.
We can understand the idea of a God of power. We can understand a God who desires to be served. But an Almighty God who loves us so much that He desires, above all, to give to us? That can be hard to believe.
For thousands of years, God has been working to drop the revelation of His love into the hearts of men. He’s made loving promises of blessing and protection. But He’s always faced that same obstacle—human beings who just couldn’t bring themselves to believe those promises were true.
The story of Abram is a perfect example. He wasn’t accustomed to the idea of a God who gives. After all, he’d grown up as a worshiper of the moon, and the moon had certainly never seemed interested in doing anything for him. Then he encountered El Shaddai, the greatest Being of all. The one Almighty God. And the first thing this El Shaddai wanted to do was give to him.
God’s promises so astounded Abram that he couldn’t believe them. “Lord,” he asked, “how can I know I’m really going to receive these things?” (See Genesis 15:8.)
Do you know how God answered him? By cutting a blood covenant with him. That covenant settled forever any question Abram could ever have about God’s love and loyalty. Once blood had been shed, he knew God meant what He said.
God did the same thing for you. He cut a blood covenant with you. And He sacrificed His own Son to do it. Jesus’ broken body and shed blood have become the eternal proof of God’s love for you. Through Communion, He’s urged you to remember them again and again so that when your faith in His promises begins to waver, you “might have a strong consolation” (Hebrews 6:18).
Get a revelation of God’s love for you by meditating on the covenant He’s made with you. Get out the bread and the cup. Go before the Lord with them and take Communion. Think about the body and blood of Jesus that enables you to be a blood-covenant member of the family of Almighty God. Let them settle forever the question of God’s love for you. You’ll never again have to doubt His promises once you believe in His love.
Scripture Reading: Genesis 15
This message was written by Kenneth and Gloria Copeland, the leader of the Kenneth Copeland Ministries (www.KCM.org) that specializes in teaching principles of bible faith – prayer, healing, salvation and other biblical topics.