Countless Descendants

“Serve me faithfully and live a blameless life. I will make a covenant with you, by which I will guarantee to give you countless descendants.” – Genesis 17:1-2 (NLT)

In the deal struck between God and Abraham, Abraham’s end of the bargain required that he surrender himself and serve God faithfully. In return, God promised to give Abraham countless descendants.  According to the KJV, God said to Abraham, “I will multiply thee exceedingly.” In other words, “Abraham, I will make many many more of you.”  

Given Abraham’s age and his wife Sarah’s barrenness, only a miracle could have multiplied him genealogically. But the greater miracle is how God has multiplied Abraham’s faith in the faith of countless Abrahamic descendants. 

Anyone who’s ever walked away from impressive possessions to pursue a more compelling promise is following a prototype of spiritual prioritizing, pioneered by Abraham.  

Anyone who’s ever trusted God to do wondrous things and then kept the faith even while wondering if they would ever see those wondrous things come to pass, shares some spiritual DNA with Abraham – the father of spiritual sojourn. 

Anyone who’s ever had to rely on hope in God to provide the antidote to the daily attacks of debilitating fear and opaque despair has kinship with Abraham, whose hope continues to be a bulwark in the lives of countless believers today. 

A person’s legacy can never be limited to the numbers and the relations of a lineage.  

Legacy is really all about the values we willfully inherit and personify in our daily lives.  And legacy is all about the sacrifices we are willing to make to prove our devotion to those values. 

Prayer

Lord, I hear you saying that if I surrender myself to you, you will multiply the faith by my life’s example. Wow! I’ll take that deal. Amen.