FATHERS AND CHILDREN

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"Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction."
Malachi 4:5‭-‬6 ESV

¶The blessings of God, the promises of a new heaven and a new earth, never really extend to anyone beyond the covenant God made with Abraham. The good news, though, is that within that covenant are included all who call upon the name of the Lord. The remnant, the root stock, the sole heir to the covenant promise, is the One Son alone. The rest of us, Jew and gentile alike, find our place on the family tree of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob when we are born again, when we as wild branches are grafted in to "share in the nourishing sap" of the root, onto a family tree, not of the flesh, but of the spirit. We act out the promise when we live in the nourishing relationship of fathers and children, heirs not just of the flesh, but of the spirit.

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