Tuesday of Second Week of Easter
+ In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen!
Faith shows the reality of what we hope for; it is the evidence of things we cannot see. Through their faith, the people in days of old earned a good reputation. (Hebrews 11:1-2)
E100:2.b Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob:
God’s Covenant with Abram – Genesis 15 (NLT)
The Lord’s Covenant Promise to Abram
Genesis 15 Some time later, the Lord spoke to Abram in a vision and said to him, “Do not be afraid, Abram, for I will protect you, and your reward will be great.”
2 But Abram replied, “O Sovereign Lord, what good are all your blessings when I don’t even have a son? Since you’ve given me no children, Eliezer of Damascus, a servant in my household, will inherit all my wealth. 3 You have given me no descendants of my own, so one of my servants will be my heir.”
4 Then the Lord said to him, “No, your servant will not be your heir, for you will have a son of your own who will be your heir.” 5 Then the Lord took Abram outside and said to him, “Look up into the sky and count the stars if you can. That’s how many descendants you will have!”
6 And Abram believed the Lord, and the Lord counted him as righteous because of his faith.
7 Then the Lord told him, “I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land as your possession.”
8 But Abram replied, “O Sovereign Lord, how can I be sure that I will actually possess it?”
9 The Lord told him, “Bring me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” 10 So Abram presented all these to him and killed them. Then he cut each animal down the middle and laid the halves side by side; he did not, however, cut the birds in half. 11 Some vultures swooped down to eat the carcasses, but Abram chased them away.
12 As the sun was going down, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a terrifying darkness came down over him. 13 Then the Lord said to Abram, “You can be sure that your descendants will be strangers in a foreign land, where they will be oppressed as slaves for 400 years. 14 But I will punish the nation that enslaves them, and in the end they will come away with great wealth. 15 (As for you, you will die in peace and be buried at a ripe old age.) 16 After four generations your descendants will return here to this land, for the sins of the Amorites do not yet warrant their destruction.”
17 After the sun went down and darkness fell, Abram saw a smoking firepot and a flaming torch pass between the halves of the carcasses. 18 So the Lord made a covenant with Abram that day and said, “I have given this land to your descendants, all the way from the border of Egypt to the great Euphrates River— 19 the land now occupied by the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, 20 Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, 21 Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites, and Jebusites.”
How Great Thou Art – Songs of Praise – Big Sing
Prayer
Father, Your works surround us and add depth and beauty to our daily experiences in life. You not only tend to our daily needs but through Your great works You delight our senses by that which we see, touch, hear, and feel as we admire Your handiwork.
Help us to pause in our busy schedules to listen to the rippling brook, smell the tree blossoms, observe the mountain grandeur and recognize Your creative power in the plentiful ornamentals that we have the privilege of planting, growing and tending over the warm months each year.
Your great works are observed in the Scriptures and admired in our daily lives. How wonderfully extravagant are Your works that we enjoy each day, for it is truly the heavens declaring Your glory and the firmament showing Your handiwork. For them we are grateful. Amen.
Closing Sentence
Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen. (Ephesians 3:20-21)
+ In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen!
The Peanut Gallery 