In Genesis chapter seventeen, verse eight, God is giving Himself to Abraham and his descendants. God’s promise “to be a God to them” is the biggest in scripture. It is the first and fundamental promise on which all other agreements rest. It means God unreservedly binds Himself to His faithful people to be their God, shield, and great reward. It also means that God’s grace, pardon, promises, protection, guidance, goodness, help, and blessings offers to them in love. All Christians inherit this promise through faith in Christ.
God describes His covenant promises to the newly renamed Abraham, formerly known as Abram. Already, God has revealed that Abraham will be the father of multiple nations; kings will come from him. Now God confirms that these covenant promises will extend to Abraham’s offspring throughout all their generations. God describes this covenant as everlasting. God will be Abraham’s God and the God of Abraham’s offspring forever. This covenant relationship will never end. God will keep these promises into eternity.
God gives Abraham and His physical descendants the land of Canaan. The covenant is everlasting, as stated earlier. However, it could only be broken by Abraham’s descendants so that the possession of the land was conditional on obedience to God.
The blessing of Abraham is where many believers misunderstand. There is a condition upon receiving this abundance. It is to obey what the Word says and what we must do. Abraham was obedient to God and walked perfectly in the sight of God. Are we obedient to His Word and have our focus on Him and not on the things He could do? That is the trouble for many Christians, they hear what the Words say, but the lack of exercise in God’s Word is the problem in society.
God’s promise is good as long as we keep our promise.