The Promised One: Advent Day 2

Read & Journal

Read Genesis 12:1-9. To help you meditate on this passage, ask yourself:

• Pause to consider and understand what you’ve read. How would you explain it in your own words?

• What do these verses teach you about God the Father? About his character?

• What do these verse reveal about God’s promise in salvation?

• Does this passage reveal anything about yourself? What?

• Reread verses 1-3. Who is doing the work or completing the actions in God’s promise to Abraham? Why is that important?

• What does it mean to say that all people will be blessed through Abraham and his descendants?

Ponder

From Genesis 3 to Genesis 12 covers a lot of ground and much of human history. Adam and Eve are cast out of the garden, murder enters the world and the reality of sin throws humanity into a deep darkness where every thought was “consistently and totally evil” (Gen. 6:5). God covers the earth with water, saving one righteous man and his family, eventually leading us to Abram in Genesis 12.

Over and over throughout Abram/Abraham’s life, God promised Abraham and Sarah a son. When it seemed like God wasn’t working fast enough or time was running out—they were old, well past childbearing—they often tried to speed God’s promise along. Abram had a son with Hagar, Sarah’s handmaid, but Ishmael was not the son of the promise. When heavenly visitors informed Abraham that Sarah would have a baby in a year’s time, the old lady hiding in the tent laughed out loud—because what else was there to do when the idea was absolutely preposterous and seemingly impossible?

Turn again to Genesis 9 and mull over God’s promise in verses 1-3. Abraham and Sarah may have doubted God’s promise and wondered about his goodness and even tried to make things happen according to their own timeframe, but God is the actor in these verses. “I will bless you,” he says, “I will make you famous.” God’s promise to Abraham is centered in God’s very character and actions. He is the one who blesses and curses; Abraham is a vessel through whom God will bless the world.

Centuries before Jesus would be born in Bethlehem, God was unfolding his promise of salvation. Through Jesus—through Abraham’s line—God would bless all nations. And one day, people of “every nation and tribe and people and language” (Rev. 7:9, NLT) will stand before Jesus’ throne and praise him. “Salvation comes from our God who sits on the throne and from the Lamb!” (Rev. 7:10).