“I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you.”
~ Genesis 17:7
Hi James and Ellen,
Are you ready to be who God has ordained you to be? Your grandpaa knows that you do not know now who God has already ordained you to be. Ordained means designed and appointed. God before He created planet Earth designed and appointed who you would be on planet Earth and how you will live your lives on planet Earth. Your grandpaa believes that God wants you to be asking Him regularly and then letting Him show you who He has designed and appointed you to be on planet Earth and how He wants you to live your lives on planet Earth. Your grandpaa when he was a kid never dreamed that he would be a missionary one day. Your grandpaa when he was a kid never dreamed that he would have someone as his wife who is as beautiful and wonderful as your grandmaa is. Your grandpaa does not remember when he was a kid thinking about who God ordained him to be on planet Earth and how God would have him live his life on planet Earth. Your grandpaa wishes now that he had studied a whole lot harder than what he did in school, that he had played more organized sports than what he did and that he had been drafted into the army. Your grandpaa knows that if God before He created planet Earth had designed and appointed your grandpaa to study harder, play more organized sports and be drafted into the army, it would have happened. God is continually unfolding the life plan that He especially designed and appointed for your grandpaa. God is doing the same thing at the same time with the life plans that He designed and appointed for your grandmaa, for you, for your dad and ma, for your Uncle Chris and Aunt Lynn and for every single guy, gal and kid who has ever lived, is living and will ever live on planet Earth. God in the individualized ordained life plans that He designed and appointed for each guy, gal and kid to be who they will be and how they will live their lives has embedded questions, regrets and misfires in these plans to act as guides to help each guy, gal and kid to know who God has designed and appointed the guy, gal or kid to be and to do. The older that your grandpaa gets the more that your grandpaa realizes and accepts as an unquestionable fact that he is exactly who God designed and appointed him to be and that he is living his life exactly the way that God designed and appointed him to live his life. The older that your grandpaa gets the more that your grandpaa realizes how uniquely God designed and appointed him to be and how exclusively the life is that God has designed and appointed him to live.
Genesis 17 is about a life that God uniquely designed and appointed for an Old Testament patriarch to be and to live. A guy and his wife – Abram and Sarai, over 4000 years ago were living in a land area called Canaan. Abram was 99 years old. Sarai was a few years younger than Abram. Abram knew God personally. Abram would have God visit him – to talk with him. How would you like it if God personally visited you – and talked with you? Even though God does not visit His specially elected guys, gals and kids today like He did during Abram’s time, God – as the Holy Spirit, still non-stops visits His specially elected guys, gals and kids. God told Abram what His designed and appointed life plans were for him and Sarai. God made super promises – called covenants, to Abram. God – in verse 7, promised Abram, “I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you.” How do you think that Abram felt when God told him that he would have descendants or family who would always have God as their God? When God made this promise or covenant to Abram, Abram did not have any kids. A 99 year old guy can still father kids but a gal – even if the gal is ten years younger than her spouse, would no longer be able to birth kids. Abram and Sarai had decided thirteen years earlier that seeing that they were not going to be blessed with having a kid between them, they decided that Abram would have a kid with their maid. Their maid was an Egyptian gal named Hagar. Abram and Hagar named their little boy Ishmael. Ishmael would become the patriarch for the people group of guys, gals and kids who became known as Arabs.
When God talked with Abram, God referred to Himself as God Almighty. God in saying to Abram that He is God Almighty, God is telling Abram that He is El-Shaddai or ‘God – the Mountain One’. God wanted Abram to know that He is totally invincible and that He has incomparable power. Abram’s name meant exalted father. Your grandpaa thinks that would have been a good name to have but God changed Abram’s name to Abraham. Abraham means father of many. God changed Sarai’s name to Sarah. Both Sarai and Sarah mean princess. Your grandmaa’s dad called your grandmaa his princess. Another promise that God gave to Abraham and Sarah was that they would for sure have a son. When God told Abraham that he and Sarah were going to have a kid, Abraham laughed so hard that he fell on the ground. God told Abraham that when his and Sarah’s kid was born, that they were to name their kid Isaac. The name Isaac means he laughs. God made nine promises or covenants with Abraham and Sarah that He promised to always keep if . . . God asked Abraham to do something for Him. That something that God requested Abraham to do for Him was to circumcise himself and that he circumcise his boys. Abraham did exactly what God told him to do. Abraham circumcised Ishmael. Arabs circumcise their boys when they are thirteen years old because that was how old Ishmael was when he was circumcised by Abraham. Boys who are born to the Israelite people group’s guys and gals – God’s specially chosen guys and gals, are to be circumcised eight days after they are born.
Genesis 17 (192)