Seeing the date on the calendar, it seems kind of late into the new year to be making my first entry. But last week, all the family gathered together in Bend, Oregon. And, with pickleball one day, and sledding the next day, and the high desert museum on another day, and eight grandchildren around every day, it was a little challenging to get some “me time.” So, it feels good to be back home and settling back into routine.

This morning, it’s an “aha” concerning the Abrahamic Covenant that’s evoked some wonder and worship. That the promise made to Abraham wasn’t just threefold, but actually fourfold.

“Land, seed, and blessing.” That’s how I learned to remember the covenant made with Abraham. In Genesis 12:2-3, God tells Abraham to go to a land where He will make him into a great nation (seed) through which he would be a blessing to “all the families of the earth.” And God’s promise is repeated to Abraham a few times over the course of his life as he and his wife, Sarah, await the birth of a son from which a great nation would rise. It’s one of those repetitions this morning that I’m struck by. For in it, I’m reminded that beyond land, seed, and blessing, there’s a fourth element of the promise which surpasses the others.

“I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make you into nations, and kings shall come from you. And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God.”

(Genesis 17:6-8 ESV)

I will be their God . . . That’s what struck me this morning. That’s what I’m chewing on. That God promised Abraham not only to give him land, innumerable progeny, and to be the conduit for blessing the whole world for all time (and beyond time), but that God also covenanted with Abraham and his offspring to give them Himself. I will be their God . . .

Chew on that for a bit . . .

How easy is it for us — for me — to take that for granted? To skim over what’s always been on my radar since coming to faith nearly five decades ago. But isn’t the greatest aspect of the gift of salvation God Himself? Isn’t that the essence of salvation itself?

“And this is eternal life, that they know You the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.”

(John 17:3 ESV)

For God to promise to be our God is to give us eternal life. To bring us into an on-going, personal relationship with Himself through His word — the spoken, written, and incarnate Word — defines what it means to “have life and have it abundantly” (Jn. 10:10). To adopt us as sons and daughters through our union with His Son, sealed by His Spirit, so that we might have the privilege and joy of addressing the eternal, incomprehensible, Almighty God, as “our Father” is what it means to be redeemed. Because, for those who believe, He promised, “I will be their God.” Okay, noodle on that and tell me the awe-o-meter isn’t spiking!

The one and only and always God is my God. How pretentious it might sound. But also how precious, because it’s true. My God not because of who I am or what I’ve done, but my God only because of who He is and what He has done. Sending His Son to atone for my sin on a cross that I might enter into the promise made to Abraham so long ago. The promise of land, seed, blessing, and Himself! A fourfold promise.

And I will be their God . . .

Only by His grace. Only for His glory.

Hallelujah, what a Savior!

Amen?