God, the True Promise Keeper!  by Steve Montag

God wants to ratify a covenant and confirm promises to you! Let’s begin by looking at Genesis 15:4. “Then the word of the Lord came to him (Abram): ‘This man will not be your heir (speaking of his steward Eliezer), but a son coming from your own body will be your heir. He took him outside and said, 'Look up at the heavens and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.’ Then he said to him, ‘So shall your offspring be.’ Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness. He also said to him, ‘I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it.’ But Abram said, ‘O Sovereign Lord, how can I know that I will gain possession of it?’ So the Lord said to him, ‘Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon.’ Abram brought all these to him, cut them in two and arranged the halves opposite each other; the birds, however he did not cut in half. Then birds of prey came down on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away." 

Let’s skip down to verse 17. “When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces. On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram and said, ‘To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates…'” 

The word “covenant” is the Hebrew word “brit” which means to cut. When God brings us to Himself as a people He always does it through a covenant. A covenant is something that is cut, blood is shed when God makes a covenant. There are two kinds of covenant we find in Scripture and most of the time it’s what I call a “cooperative” or a “conditional” covenant where God says if you will do this and that I will enter into a covenant with you and I will do this and that. Often in that type of covenant there is never a problem on the part of God’s performance but we have some problems and we don’t receive the fullness of that covenant because we’re not obedient or we’re not doing our part. 

When a covenant was cut the animal would be cut in two and both parties would walk between both pieces. What made the covenant or contract binding was the understanding both parties had, that if they were to either break the covenant may what was just done to the these animals be done to them. That’s pretty serious. I don’t know about you but I wouldn’t want a meat cleaver passing through me! 

What was interesting about the covenant God had with Abram was that it was unilateral. It had nothing to do with what Abram could or could not do. The burning torch that passed between the cut animals was symbolic of the Presence of God. He was the only One that passed through the pieces, not Abram. It says on that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram saying, “To your descendants I give this land…” Only God can speak of the future as though it has already happened. And He tells Abram, "I am making this covenant with you, it has nothing to do with you, and this is what I am going to do!" From the time God made that promise to Abram to the time Isaac, his son, was born, 25 years that had passed. That’s a long time! God has brought us to Himself through a covenant and it’s a unilateral covenant. When His Son Jesus/Yeshua, went to the cross and died, that was God by Himself walking through the pieces, God Himself who was the sacrifice and that was the blood of God shed on the cross. And God says all you have to do is believe that I’ve done this for you, that I want to enter into this covenant with you and if you’ll just believe, everything that I want to give you through this covenant is yours: salvation, healing, deliverance, wholeness of mind, provision, prosperity: all of it, it’s ours! 

We are joint-heirs with Jesus/Yeshua. Everything that God owns is ours because we are His children. Abram waited 25 years! I want to let you know that when you’ve been waiting on God for a long time to keep a promise the enemy will try and hang out with you every now and then to make you think it’s not going to happen. For many of us, we’ve been waiting a long time and at times we can get so close to giving up, thinking God’s not going to come through. What we need to know is that how long we have to wait for God to do is not the point and in spite of how long it takes, God never forgets a promise He’s made. Hebrews 6:13 says, “When God made his promise to Abraham (Abram), since there was no one greater for him to swear by, he swore by himself, saying, ‘I will surely bless you and give you many descendants.” 

God is immutable, He never changes in time or eternity. Jesus/Yeshua is the same yesterday, today and forever. God’s purposes and plans for you are also unchangeable. His promises to you are immutable and changeless, no matter how long you’ve waited He wants to keep His promises to you!