For nations and kings to flow forth from Abraham and Sarah, they need not just to walk before God and be blameless. They need not merely to concern themselves with the outward actions of the lives they live upon the soil of this earth. They needed also to acknowledge a royal order to all existence.

God says to Abraham, “Behold, my covenant is with you” (ESV). God says to Abraham, too, “I will . . . be God to you” (ESV). The covenant itself originates with God. God is the author of it; and the intention is for God to be God to Abraham and his many descendants, for God to be the one who reigns over all else in their lives.

There is a royal order at play here. God is at the top; and Abraham and Sarah and their expected rich lineage of nations and kings are to flow forth from that pinnacle of truth, subservient to God and under God’s authority. This is how things were set up to be.

Would Abraham and Sarah and their generations of descendants let God be God to them? Would they trust the One who made the covenant, who authored it, who was the reason it existed in the first place—even the reason they existed? Will you?

Walking before God and being blameless—these were Abraham’s instructions to secure the promise God gave that Abraham would father kings and nations. But the action of walking before God and the state of being blameless—these were lived out and sought because of a preexisting belief that God is God and the source of all promises made and fulfilled.