Steadfast, Immovable, Abounding

This is the third installment in my series of posts entitled: “180°: lives turned around by God’s grace.”

“Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go forth from your country, and from your relatives and from your father’s house, to the land which I will show you; and I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great; and so you shall be a blessing; and I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.’ So Abram went forth as the Lord had spoke to him.”

Genesis 12:1-4

For many of us, faith is the foundation of our story. We’ve been going to church for far longer than we can remember; we were taught John 3:16 before we could even read the words for ourselves; we never “found out” about Jesus because He was ingrained into every aspect of our lives. I can’t even imagine not having always known the gospel, because to not know it would be to change the entire trajectory of my life. Had I not grown up in an environment of faith, my entire history would be different. I possibly wouldn’t be in college where I am now. I probably wouldn’t have developed my love for music (my act of worship and my stress-reliever). I would likely never have met most of my closest friends. I definitely wouldn’t be sitting here at my desk, writing this post; only God could have given me the courage to share these ineloquent yet transparent words with others.

You’re probably wondering where I’m going with this and what it all has to do with Abraham…What if God was unknown to you? The Bible makes no mention of Abraham serving the Lord before He reveals Himself to the patriarch. There were many generations between Noah, a man of God, and Abram. After the flood, the people came together and decided to build a tower to reach to the sky, declaring their own power. They seem to be chasing anything but a life of servanthood. Yet God speaks to Abram and gives him a command and a mission.

In the verses from Genesis 12 quoted above, the Lord tells Abram to leave his whole life behind and go to “the land which I will show you.” That’s not exactly GPS coordinates. But Abram does it. He sets out on this mission God has called him to with no idea where he will end up or how long it will take to get there. Would any of us have the faith to do that? Abram didn’t have the Bible, nor even the Torah. He didn’t have parents instilling God’s word in him and Sunday School teachers encouraging him to memorize verses. He didn’t have a small group to sharpen him as iron sharpens iron. Yet he still has the astounding faith to drop everything and follow God. The first 75 years of Abram’s life was completely “normal”—but God turns him around and sends him out on an unexpected, unknown mission. Jesus says in Luke 12:48, “From everyone who has been given much, much will be required; and to whom they entrusted much, of him they will ask all the more.” There’s enough personal conviction in that one verse that I see a potential blog post stemming from it :). Any of us who have grown up in a Christian culture have been given much. What are we doing with it? Is this faith we claim to have truly faith in God, or is it faith in the cultural traditions to which we have become accustomed? As Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” If our faith is in the religion around us instead of the God above us, it is not really faith at all.

Even after Abram devoted himself to following the Lord, his life still wasn’t all sunshine and roses. It is much later that Abraham faces the hardest test of his life: God commands him to sacrifice his only son, the promised one, on an altar. And he doesn’t hesitate, despite how unthinkable the command must have seemed. But when the Lord stops Abraham before he goes through with the offering, He says, “‘Do not stretch out your hand against the lad, and do nothing to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me’” (Genesis 22:12). We deceive ourselves if we think that coming to Christ is the only act of faith the Christian life requires. We must have perseverance if we are to remain committed to our Lord. I love what Hebrews 12:1-2 says: “Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” Jesus was the sacrifice His Father required; He persevered to do God’s will.

On what is your faith based? How much are you willing to sacrifice to the Lord? You have been entrusted with much—are you living up to your calling?