2002-01-01
Good Morning Dear Ones,
Yesterday, the Lord directed me to discuss the implications of GN 12: 1-3 at length. However, there is more to say about the Abrahamic covenant and more Scriptures that will shed light on this crucial agreement to human history between God and mankind. We are not capable of knowledge anything like the extent of God’s, but He does give us what we need to know in order to make the life-giving decision as to whether to come to faith or not. For His own reasons, God has given mankind free agency to make this decision. He knows ahead of time who will do that and who won’t. Surely this was true when He called Abram out of Mesopotamia (Ur of the Chaldes, to be exact) and chose him to establish a nation whose belief system eschewed idolatry and polytheism (the belief in more than one god). GN 15: 6 is an enormously revealing verse. “Abram put his trust in the Lord, and because of this, the Lord was pleased with him and accepted him.” It seems simple enough on first inspection, but there are major lessons contained within this statement. The underlying question for us to examine is: What does it take to be acceptable in God’s eyes?
This opens the entire question of justification, an issue which is brought up often in the Scriptures. We must remember that the content of our hearts is totally and always visible to God. It is impossible for a man to have one belief in his heart and fool God into thinking he has a different one by what he says or does. God is the truth and knows the truth all of the time. HE 4: 12, “The word of God is alive and active, sharper than any double-edged sword. It cuts all the way through, to where soul and spirit meet, to where joints and marrow come together. It judges the desires and thoughts of man’s heart.” RO 4: 3, “Abraham believed God, and because of his faith God accepted him as righteous.” The same message is repeated in GA 3: 6. JAS 2: 23 sheds more light. “And the Scripture [GN 15: 6] came true that said, “Abraham believed God, and because of his faith God accepted him as righteous.’ And so Abraham was called God’s friend.” To be justified is to be deemed acceptable to God, to have righteousness imputed to one’s account. Each of us who comes to true faith is justified. He is no longer God’s enemy trapped in a prison of sin, but instead, has undergone a commitment to God and reconciliation with Him. The commitment is to trust and obey. In return, God has deemed a believer acceptable to Him. God’s task with a believer is not over; in fact it has only begun. He will spend a believer’s whole lifetime urging him on to forward progress toward perfection, that process being sanctification. Neither is the believer’s task to learn how to respond to God’s sovereignty over; it, too, has just begun. The believer will have to learn how to make God the center of his life, the Lord of his life, through study, prayer, learning from his circumstances, listening to the Holy Spirit, and his interaction in his congregation.
What we learned about Abram [later to be called Abraham, GN 17: 5] about having a heart, being willing to accept the truth, and being willing to leave his “comfort zone” to trust and obey God is only half of the picture. The rest of what we learn from GN 15: 6 is about God’s extraordinary wisdom and compassion. We already know from the story of Noah that God had good reasons to be pretty frustrated with mankind’s sinfulness. The flood was God’s attempt to do away with sin. Sadly, it didn’t work. God’s next attempt was to establish a nation of people through Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that would live up to the ideals that He set for them- [EX 19: 5-6] “a nation of priests, dedicated to Him alone,” and [IS 49: 6] “light to the nations.” The end result of this attempt to combat sin is yet to be seen.
The Abrahamic Covenant has three main parts: people; land; a King. Two of those have been fulfilled, and the last one is yet to be fulfilled. Let’s look at the issue of people first. Our loving Abba made a very important promise to Abram. He told him how many descendants he would have. GN 13: 16, “I am going to give you so many descendants that no one will be able to count them all; it would be as easy to count all the specks of dust on the earth!” GN 15: 5, “The Lord took him outside and said, ‘Look at the sky and try to count the stars; you will have as many descendants as that.’” We know that GN 15: 13-14 foretell what will happen to this nation. “Your descendants will be strangers in a foreign land [Egypt]: they will be slaves there and will be treated cruelly for four hundred years. But I will punish the nations that enslaves them, and when they leave that foreign land, they will take great wealth with them.” Now, you might ask: why is this so important to us in 2001? The answer to that is in what happened while the Jews were slaves in Egypt and in how God has kept the promise He made. During their time in Egypt, the population of Jews increased to such a level that they became a kind of threat to the pharaoh. That is how the Jews became slaves where they had previously occupied Egypt in peace. God kept his promise to deliver them when he commissioned Moses and empowered him to carry out this important task. True to God’s word, the Jews did leave Egypt that first Passover with considerable wealth given to them by the Egyptians. The lesson in this is that God is compassionate and keeps His promises. We need to know that today and always, so that we will be motivated to trust and obey His commands.
PRAYER: O Lord, while You command us to have faith, to trust, and to obey You, You have made it clear to us how to be deemed acceptable by You. This is done by the example You gave us of Abram being the first person to be justified in GN 15: 6. In this act, Your wisdom, love, and compassion is also revealed. This matters to us, because it gives us a clear picture of Your sovereignty and what response to that from us pleases You. The story of Your covenant with Abraham also demonstrates to us how You always keep the promises You make. What comfort that gives those who believe in You! If we are faithful, we can make the connection between You, Christ, the Holy Spirit, Your word, and truth. It is a connection that You want us to keep in the forefront of our minds and hearts. Because You are omniscient, no man can hide the content of his heart from You. When we are faithful, we have nothing to fear from that. It is only when we are not that we do have reason to be afraid. In Your covenant with Abraham, You promised him many descendants, a nation, and a King. You have already made good on the first two things, and we eagerly await the Day when the King, Jesus Christ, will establish Your Kingdom, calling us to be joint-heirs [RO 8: 17] to it with Him. We pledge our faith in You and in the promises You have made. We acknowledge Your sovereignty and supremacy as the Lord of our lives. Today, we humbly offer You our worship, adoration, loyalty, trust, obedience, glory, honor, praise, and thanks. In Christ’s name, amen.
Tomorrow, the Lord directs me to continue discussing the Abrahamic Covenant. His love for each of us impacts our lives every day. When we are faithful enough to look for how and when this happens, we will be comforted and pleasantly surprised at the extent of His love. Peter and I send you our love too.
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn