Whatever God offers to us as a promise will require a sacrifice of faith on our part. That sacrifice must be protected from disbelief. These sacrifices are sacred acts of faith that require our surveillance and protection until the time of their fulfillment.

As a childless older couple, Abram and Sarai thought it was impossible to have children who would carry on their family name. God had another plan in mind. The Lord told Abram that an heir from their bodies would be birthed.

“Then the Lord took Abram outside and said to him, ‘Look up into the sky and count the stars if you can. That’s how many descendants you will have!’ And Abram believed the Lord, and the Lord counted him as righteous because of his faith’” (Genesis 15:5-6).

The Lord then told Abram to slaughter a list of animals, birds, and livestock. and present them before Him as a sacrifice. Abram obeyed the Lord and laid out the sacrifices before the Lord. “Some vultures swooped down to eat the carcasses, but Abram chased them away” (Genesis vs. 11). Abram chased away the vultures protecting the sacrifice until the Lord revealed the details of the covenant He would reveal to Abram.

The Lord then detailed what would happen in Abram’s life as a result of the covenant He would create in Abram’s life. The covenant would reveal God’s purpose for the nation of Israel, a nation not yet formed. Abram’s faith would later be highlighted by the writer of Hebrews as a pivotal point in the lineage of our faith as we embrace Jesus. Jesus took the covenant God made with Abram to a place of complete fulfillment.

“After the sun went down and darkness fell, Abram saw a smoking firepot and a flaming torch pass between the halves of the carcasses. So, the Lord made a covenant with Abram that day” (vs. 17-18). It was after Abram protected his sacrifice that the purpose of the sacrifice would be revealed.

Some of us have heard the Lord make a promise to us. That promise must be protected and preserved until the Lord fulfills what He promised. Our sacrifice of faith must be protected from our disbelief and from anyone or anything that does not yet see and believe what God promised. Disbelief releases spiritual vultures that will come in an attempt to consume our sacrificial act of faith. 

We have been called to stand over our sacrifice of faith, chasing away anything that wants to come and consume what we offered to God as an act of faith. Like it was for Abram, as we stand over the sacrifice of our faith protecting it from disbelief, we will eventually see God do things in and through us that we thought were impossible until the Lord fulfilled what He had promised..