How Will I Know?

How Will I Know?

Remember when you were a child on a trip,

and you asked the question over and over again?

“Are we there yet?”

When will I know?

The answer is simple.

It is when we are ready to make the necessary sacrifices!

 

Isn’t that the major question we all have.

How will I know?

Can I believe what the Bible says applies to me?

Thoughts…

Dreams…

Visions…

What the man or woman of God says…

How can I know

if this is from God to me?

The Bible gives us some advice.

1 Thessalonians 5:19-22 NIV

“Do not put out the Spirit's fire;

20 do not treat prophecies with contempt.

21 Test everything. Hold on to the good.”

Abram questioned God without offending God.

After Abram asked,

“How can I know?”

God invites him to enter

into a covenant with Him.

Once we know it is God

who spoke to us,

we too need to enter into a covenant.

Covenants always come with sacrifice.

There is an agreement of death on both sides.

In order to fulfill any covenant,

you will have to die to certain things

in order to fulfill your part.

In a marriage covenant,

both couples agree to love each other

and not let anyone,

or anything,

get in the way of that love.

That means there are many desires

each of them will have to die to.

God’s promise to Abram

could only come to pass

by the two of them making

a covenant agreement.

When God speaks a promise to you and I,

we too must realize our part

and enter into a covenant with God.

It is that covenant

that will change your life

and make it possible for you

to receive the promise.

We should note the promise to Abram

came with 400 years of slavery.

That was a huge price to pay

in order to receive the promise.

How will we know?

When we have tested all things

and see it is good.

Good enough for us to enter

into a covenant with God to do our part. 

Scripture Reading

Genesis 15:6-21 NIV

6 Abram believed the LORD,

and he credited it to him as righteousness.

7 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."

8 But Abram said, "O Sovereign LORD,

how can I know that I will gain possession of it?"

9 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."

10 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.

11 Then birds of prey came down on the carcasses,

but Abram drove them away.

12 As the sun was setting,

Abram fell into a deep sleep,

and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him.

13 Then the LORD said to him,

"Know for certain that your descendants

will be strangers in a country not their own,

and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years.

14 But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves,

and afterward they will come out with great possessions.

15 You, however, will go to your fathers in peace and be buried at a good old age.

16 In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here,

for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure."

17 When the sun had set and darkness had fallen,

a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared

and passed between the pieces.

18 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 — 

19 the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites,

20 Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites,

21 Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites."