Good morning, Lord Jesus. I look to You and listen for Your leading to begin my day embraced by my Father, centered in Christ, and filled with Your Holy Spirit. ...
So I am still reading in Genesis. Thinking of the journey we're on in our world today, with all its uncertainties and unknowns, I'm thinking of Abraham, when You first spoke to him and called him on his life-long journey of faith in You.
"Now the Lord said to Abram, 'Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.... So Abram went, as the Lord had told him..." (Genesis 12:1-4).
Like Abram, in some ways I feel like I have no clue about where my journey ahead is leading me. "By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going" (Hebrews 11:8). And at the same time, You've given me a measure of guidance without giving me all the details, You've spoken to me Your word without overriding my free will. Like Abram, I'm on a "need to know basis" and You call me to trust You alone with knowing what I need to know and when I need to know it. And the same is true with every one of us in our world right now.
Hundreds of years and many generations after You first spoke those words to Abram -- after You changed his name and changed his character, after You passed down the blessings and the calling and the destiny to his children and children's children -- there came a time when the sons and daughters of Abraham were finally crossing over to enter in to their Promise Land of their inheritance. You commanded them to follow the Ark of the Covenant, saying through Your leaders, "Follow it, so that you may know the way you should go, for you have not passed this way before" (Joshua 3:2-4).
It's a journey of faith and not sight, as Your Word says, "We walk by faith, not by sight" (2 Corinthians 5:7). And Abraham is called the father of the faith, "the father of all of us," of "those who share the faith of Abraham" (Romans 4:16). "Hoping against hope, he believed.... being fully convinced that God was able to do what He had promised" (Romans 4:18-21).
We don't call Abraham "the father of having it all figured out" or "the father who always knows best because he always knows what lies ahead" or "the father who never fails, never falters, never falls because he's so holy and perfect and pure in his own self-righteousness." No, we call him "the father of the faith" because "his faith was reckoned to him as righteousness" (Romans 4:22), because "he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God" (Romans 4:20).
The faith of Abraham speaks to us of Your invitation to put out all our faith in You. These are uncertain days and we've never been this way before. But by the power of Your grace at work within us, we will look to You, we will trust You, we fill follow You on our unfolding journey of faith in You, growing strong in our faith as we give glory to You -- Father, Son, and Holy Spirit of God. As we do, we enter in to our Promised Land and receive "all the blessings of Abraham" in You (Galatians 3:14). In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.
My family, may you be filled with faith to trust in God to lead us into the land and into these times He's set before us, where we've never been before, in Jesus' name. Please pray the same for me. God bless you, my friends!
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