Day 1--God's Covenant with Abram (Genesis 12, 15)
You may be wondering why I would include an Old Testament character in a devotional about heart and life transformation due to a relationship with Jesus Christ. It is a good question, and I think you might be surprised at the answer. Over the next three days you will clearly be able to see that Abraham was aware of the coming Messiah, and that he himself was directly involved in God’s marvelous plan for salvation.
In Genesis 12 we see that Abram was set apart by God, and was called forth from the country he knew, from all of his relatives, and from his own father’s house, to go to a land that he did not know. God promised to bless him and make his name great. Abram was 75 years old.
He departed his home town of Haran, taking Sarai, his wife and Lot, his nephew, his servants, and possessions. Can you imagine the faith that it took to leave everything familiar, safe, and secure in his life? What would it require of us to respond in such a way? Maybe, if we knew that surrender was required of us for the Savior’s purposes, we would respond with that level of obedience and faith.
Abram wasn’t walking in blind faith. God had clearly spoken a message to him that encouraged his heart to respond as he did. In the initial promises of the covenant with Abram, God’s last words were these: “And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.” Do you see the importance of this tiny revelation? Abram was the beginning of the Hebrew (Jewish) race. But God did not say that through Abram the Jewish families would be blessed. He said that all the families of the earth would be blessed. That included you and me! Jews and Gentiles would be blessed through Abram and his seed.
Today, it is important for you to consider what great things you have been told and promised in God’s word. It is time to evaluate your life in order to measure your level of obedience to God’s words to you. Are you going in the direction that God has asked you to go? Your obedience is no less required of you than was Abram’s to fulfill God’s purposes. Obedience is always our choice, and it flows out of our relationship with God, on in which we understand what is required of us.
No comments:
Post a Comment