You Don't Have to be Perfect

“He also said to Him, ‘I am the LORD who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.’ But he said, ‘Lord God, how can I know that I will possess it?’ He said to him, ‘Bring me a three-year-old cow, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.’ So he brought all these to him, cut them in half, and laid the pieces opposite each other, but he did not cut the birds in half….When the sun had set and it was dark, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch appeared and passed between the divided animals. On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying ‘I give this land to your offspring, from the Brook of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates River. Genesis 15:7-10,17-18 CSB

This is an obscure weird occurrence for us to read about. Surprisingly it was weird in Abram’s time as well, but for very different reasons.

The instructions that God gave to Abram were something he was familiar with. It was a common practice when a covenant was being made between a ruler who had conquered an area and the one they had conquered. They would have the leader they conquered walk through the animals stating “If I break this covenant/don't uphold my end let what has been done to the animals happen to me.”

This was still obscure for Abram because he wasn’t the one to walk through the animals. God our King did. Just writing this brings me to tears.

God DOESN’T EXPECT you to be PERFECT!!

God knows we aren’t perfect, so He walks through Himself. He promises to uphold His part of the deal regardless of our mess-ups.

He came as a man, Jesus, lived on earth for 30+ years, went through rejection, was tortured, and died to uphold His promise.

“You’re free from having to be perfect yourself. You’re free from any negative identity! You are enough. You are my precious child.”

Yet He doesn’t stop there. He gives us the gift of the Holy Spirit, His power in us. We don’t have to wait until heaven. Here and now He has freed us and equipped us to live in this freedom with His strength.

Lord help me and anyone who reads this to accept the fullness of what this means for us. Thank you so much Lord for the expansive freedom you’ve given us.

* This devotional is a part of the Bible study: Conecting the Dots to Jesus - Chapter 6: Day 3 - Dot 21 Abram Which can be found at: https://encouragement-prevails.ck.page/profile

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Upside Down Way

Up until the moment that I wrote this, I’ve viewed Abram in quite a negative light. “He’s so passive. Besides going where God calls, He doesn’t seem to follow God in any of these situations.” While Abram has moments of not trusting God, he also has moments of reflecting Jesus and what Jesus stood for. “Now, Lot who was traveling with Abram, also had flocks, herds, and tents. But the land was unable to support them as long as they stayed together, for they had so many possessions that they could not stay together, and there was quarreling between the herdsmen of Abram’s livestock and the herdsmen of Lot’s livestock…So Abram said to Lot, ‘Please, let’s not have quarreling between you and me, or between your herdsmen and my herdsmen, since we are relatives. Isn’t the whole land before you? Separate from me: if you go to the left, I will go to the right; if you go to the right, I will go to the left.’” Genesis 13:5-9 CSB Abram was not avoiding conflict here. He faced it. Did he lay d...
Read more

Worshiping Our Savior, the Creator

"You are to take seven pairs, a male and its female, of all the clean animals, and two of the animals that are not clean, a male and its female, and seven pairs, male and female, of the birds of the sky – in order to keep offspring alive throughout the earth.” Genesis 7:2 (CSB) Once I was able to get past the initial shock that it wasn’t just 2 of each animal, as I had grown up thinking, I was then curious about why He was so specific and why there needed to be more of the clean animals for them to survive than the unclean. Was it because of the Jewish laws of only being allowed to eat clean animals? “Every creature that lives and moves will be food for you; as I gave the green plants, I have given you everything.” Genesis 9:3 (CSB) No, the Jewish laws weren’t established yet. They were free to eat any animal. “Then Noah built an altar to the LORD. He took some of every kind of clean animal and every kind of clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar.” Genesis 8:20 (C...
Read more