TODAY’S WORD FOR MONDAY DECEMBER 26, 2016.
ABRAHAM
DEFINITION:
The founder of the Jewish nation and the first Biblical patriarch. In Hebrew Abraham means “Father of multitude?”
I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. Genesis 12: 2-3.
Abraham was God’s chosen vessel through whom He would reveal Himself to the world. Abraham could never have imagined how significant a role he would have in the future of all mankind. When God promised Abraham to make of him “a great nation” (Genesis 12:2) he had no idea of what God was saying to him.
The key to the fulfilling of God’s plans was Abraham’s obedience. We can follow the steps of faith in Abraham’s life in Genesis chapters 12 to 25. In Genesis 12:1, Abraham was told by God to, “Get out of the country, get out of your father’s household, leave your people, and go to a land that I will show you.”
In order to accomplish what God had commanded Abraham to do there were six stages of journeys that Abraham took over the years that showed his growth in obedience to God’s will.
First, he travelled from Ur of the Chaldeans, where his father’s house was, to Haran. We are told that his father, Terah, and his nephew, Lot, traveled with him. He only obeyed God in part. He left his father’s house but he did not leave his father.
While Abraham was in Haran God repeated His call to Abraham to “go out from your kindred and go into the land I will show you”.
Second, he traveled from Haran to Shechem which is in the center of Canaan with Lot (his father had died in Haran). By making this move he left his country, obeying God’s command but still not separating himself from his father’s family. At Shechem the Lord appeared to Abraham and promised He would give the land of Canaan to his children. In response Abraham built his first altar to the Lord to worship and honor God showing his faith in God. Altars symbolized communication with God.
Third Abraham moved from Shechem to Bethel. Bethel means “House of God’ and it was a place where people went to seek God’s counsel. Abraham built his second altar to the Lord here.
Fourth, he moved from Bethel to Egypt because there was a famine in the land of Canaan. This was the way that God was testing the faith of Abraham. He disobeyed God by going to Egypt and he did not build an altar to God in Egypt. He was out of the will of God being in Egypt and not in Bethel. It is only when one is in the will of God that he can truly worship the Lord and Abraham was out of the will of God. It is better to endure trials (famine) and accept the will of God than to attempt our own limited solution such as Abraham did.
Fifth, Abraham left Egypt and went back to Bethel. He went back to the house of God (Bethel). He went back to worshiping at the altar of God. At Bethel, Lot was separated from Abraham and for the first time since the Lord called Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldeans, he was fully obeying God. He now was separated from his country, his family and his father’s house.
Finally, Abraham moved to Hebron which became his home as God desired for him. It was here that God really started blessing him because he had become fully yielded to God and was in His perfect will. It was here that his two sons were born. It was here that Isaac was presented for an offering on an altar of sacrifice. God had truly blessed Abraham as He had promised.
We can learn from the experiences of Abraham the importance of listening for the leading of God in our lives and responding according to His will and not according to our desires.
The measure of one’s faith is obedience. Abraham had to take that first step of obedience in faith. With that first step God grew his faith.
Abraham could not have understood the full significance of the importance of his obedience to God’s will for his life, but every believer understands it now because it was through the line of Abraham that Jesus, our Messiah, came to this earth to save us.
Our memory verse for this week is found in Jeremiah 29:13.
And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.
Open my heart for me to listen to You and obey Your directions for my life. Just as Abraham returned to Bethel to seek Your guidance, may I continually come to You and seek Your guidance. May I be sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit today so that I can represent You to those who are hurting and needing a relationship with You.
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