God’s Covenant With Abraham is for You Too
By Kirt A. Schneider
When God told Abraham in Genesis 18 that he was going to bear a child through his wife, Sarah, Abraham was already long past hope of childbearing. Sarah famously laughed at the absurdity of the idea that she would still conceive at ninety years old. But God rebuked her and told both Abraham and Sarah they would have the child they so greatly desired but had given up on, saying in verse 14, “Is anything too difficult for the Lord? At the appointed time I will return to
you, at this time next year, and Sarah will have a son.”
They surely could not have imagined then just how much their lives really could change in a year—how concrete, real, and alive this promise would feel when they actually held their little son in their arms. God is always faithful to do what He says He’s going to do, and sure enough, a year later, when Abraham was a hundred years old, Sarah gave birth to Isaac. Isaac’s birth carried on a lineage that began with Abraham and would continue with Isaac’s son Jacob and extend all the way down to Yeshua Himself.
God’s Covenant Remains
In Genesis 12:7 God says, “To your descendants I will give this land.” This was a specific, actual geographical land that was promised to Abraham. After telling Abraham to look northward, southward, eastward, and westward, God further tells him, “Arise, walk about the land through its length and breadth; for I will give it to you” (Gen. 13:17). This particular promise to Israel is impossible to discount.
This is not just an initial promise that we are free to now ignore but a theme that runs through the entire Bible, both the Old and New Testaments.
Read with me this mind-blowing promise God makes to Israel from the Book of Ezekiel:
Then He said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel; behold, they say, ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope has perished. We are completely cut off.’ Therefore prophesy and say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD, “Behold, I will open your graves and cause you to come up out of your graves, My people; and I will bring you into the land of Israel. Then you will know that I am the LORD, when I have opened your graves and caused you to come up out of your graves, My people. I will put My Spirit within you and you will come to life, and I will place you on your own land. Then you will know that I, the LORD, have spoken and done it,” declares the LORD.’” —Ezekiel 37:11–14
God Can Do Anything With Your Life—Far More Than You Imagined
Because you are in relationship with the God who supernaturally gave a child to Abraham and Sarah, your life is not a dead end, no matter what circumstances you are in. The situation you are facing may look impossible to you, but it is certainly not impossible to God.
Like Abraham and Sarah, you have looked at “the facts” and know there is nothing you could do to make anything happen. Perhaps for you, as it was for Sarah, the idea of seeing anything change at this point seems so absurd it is just laughable.
Maybe it is not even so much that you question God, but you question yourself. Like Sarah, you know your mortal limits, and you have resigned yourself to a particular fate. You may think you are just too old now, or this has gone on this way for too long, or it is just too late. You have looked at your circumstance from every possible angle and cannot imagine a solution. You feel stuck—like there is no way out and that nothing new or creative could happen.
Sometimes we see our lives this way, and naturally speaking, we are not wrong. The situation may actually not be possible for us to change. But Yeshua said in Matthew 19:26 (KJV), “With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible.” As you are thinking about that situation that is unsolvable to you, why not take a moment right now and intentionally hand it over to the God of Avraham? Give Him what you have given up on. If the God we worship gave
a son to Abraham and Sarah in their old age, do you really not believe He can still surprise you? Sometimes it is not the physical situation that will change but our perception of it. This may revolutionize everything. “Is anything too difficult for the Lord?”