IV.
As you spend time with these words today give your attention to “bless,” “be blessed,” “make,” “will show,” “will give,” “so shall,” “your reward shall be very great.”

V.
Genesis 12:1-5 (New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition)

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

So Abram went, as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. Abram took his wife Sarai and his brother’s son Lot and all the possessions that they had gathered and the persons whom they had acquired in Haran, and they set forth to go to the land of Canaan. When they had come to the land of Canaan,

Genesis 12:7 (New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition)

Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him.

Genesis 15:1-7 (New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition)

After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, “Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.” But Abram said, “O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” And Abram said, “You have given me no offspring, so a slave born in my house is to be my heir.” But the word of the Lord came to him, “This man shall not be your heir; no one but your very own issue shall be your heir.” He brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your descendants be.” And he believed the Lord, and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.

Then he said to him, “I am the Lord who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to possess.”

VI.
And what about, “I am the Lord who brought you from … to give you …”

I have heard the land that Abram is directed toward called the “promised land.” Yes, it does seem to be promised to Abram.

But it seems Abram might already be living in the land of promise.

He lives with the promises he has heard from the Lord. He journeys into an unknown land because of the promises he has received.

What “promises” characterize the land you walk in and the land you live in at this moment?

charles
{ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est}