A Sense of History, A Sense of Destiny

UV3518/ 10000 A Sense of History, A Sense of Destiny
I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make nations of you, and kings will come from you.

Genesis 17 v 6

The old covenant had some promises, some conditions, some memorials like sacrifice and circumcision. The promises remain for us to claim and receive by faith in this age and time but the conditions and memorials have changed. God overhauled the old covenant with a better one through commissioning the God-man Jesus to lay the foundation of the new covenant relationship between the Lord and mankind. The Israelites or the Jews and the Ishmaelites, the people largely of the Middle East, also descendants of Abraham in fulfilment of the above promise that kings will come from him, still adhere to the old covenant, unmindful of the new and better covenant. They are blinded to the significance of the new covenant promises and memorials and still carry on with the old memorials like circumcision of the males and religious practices. But Jesus instituted the new memorials to remember His sacrifice which once and for all fulfilled all the requirements of all the laws and all the conditions. The new memorial of baptism which should be done only once as fully born again believers and the memorial of communion which celebrates or commemorates the body of Jesus being broken and His blood being shed for our sins.


God chose to bless Abraham with the promised child, Isaac only when he and Sarah were too old to bear children to prove to mankind that it was He and not anything else who gave the promise and fulfilled it. Hence, there are reasons for apparent delay in God acting on our prayers and needs. By our faith, like Abraham we call into being that which was not as if it is. Hence, faith is beyond reason, beyond logic, beyond our senses to perceive. The birth of Ishmael to Hagar was by natural means and it led to much strife as Sarah acted in anticipation of God or before the Lord could act. It led to the historic fact that Ishmael’s hand would be against his brothers and his brothers’ hands being against him to this day. Sarah's uterus was practically too dead to be able to bear offspring. Yet, the Lord revived it. In our lives, too there may be dead parts or dead wishes or dreams that the Lord can revive, re-kindle, fulfil. Abraham did not live long enough to see nations and kings emerging from his lineage. But history has witnessed its fulfilment. Likewise, we will never see or witness the fulfilment of some of the promises of God to us. Nevertheless, these are true and will be fulfilled. It will be witnessed by the world at large. Some of the promises are related to our lifetime while many are related to our posterity and legacy. God is not circumscribed by the number of days we live on Earth to fulfil His promises to us. Every believer, therefore needs a sense of history, a sense of divine destiny. Faith is not blind or baseless. It is precedent based. The Lord has proved Himself true to His word to another human or humans like Abraham and Sarah. Hence, we believe He can do the impossible in our lives and times, too.

The Lord promises us that we would be exceedingly fruitful in every sense of the Word. He caused nations to rise out of Abraham- the nation of Israel through Isaac and the twelve nations of the Middle East through Ishmael. He multiplied not just the supernaturally promised but the natural, too. In fact, the natural offspring was multiplied even more with more kings emerging from the lineage of Ishmael. Likewise, the Lord will bless our offspring to be like kings, bless nations through them. He blesses us in the natural and supernatural realms. We only need to be faithful in keeping the two laws of the new covenant given through Jesus and be faithful in observing the memorials of believers’ baptism and communion. Two laws to be obeyed, two memorials but a multitude of promises to claim and enjoy. We are to be exceedingly fruitful not just in the physical sense but in terms of the fruit of the spirit. We should abound in the nine fruit of the Holy Spirit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility and self control. Self control has two dimensions- things we ought not to do and things we ought to do.