By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. 9
By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise.10
For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.
The first few verses of Abraham’s life, have compressed within them the entire story of salvation, for Christ is the seed of Abraham through whom the nations will
be blessed, the entire world, blessed by the Seed of Abraham, who the Scripture makes clear is…Jesus!
In other words, in the life of Abraham we are face to face with the greatest themes of biblical revelation, set out in flesh and blood in the personal history of this
great man, a man whose world in all really important matters was exactly the same as ours, who inhabited the same spiritual world as we do, with the same principles, laws, opportunities, dangers, promises, and requirements. He is the prototypical Christian
in the Bible with few peers.
In the life of Abraham, we are taught the nature of the Christian faith and the Christian life. The themes introduced here will receive more attention in the devotions
that follow, but we can at least take note of them as we begin.
I. First, every Christian life begins with the sovereign call of God.
Where did Abraham come from? Why does he suddenly appear as such a foundational element of biblical history? Was he a man who all his life had loved God and sought
God for his reward was made the father of a great nation? No.
He was born into the family of an idolater in Ur of the Chaldeans. (Jo 24:3) And no doubt he was raised to worship idols as did his father, especially to be a devotee
of moon worship as apparently his father, Terah, was. And we have no reason to doubt that Abraham was content to be an idolater and to follow the life and the religion of his earthly father.
But this man was changed and all of history with him. What was it that changed him? What was it that set this man on a completely different path? It was the voice,
the call, the summons of Sovereignty.
To sum up the Puritan John Arrowsmith: God’s grace having once pitched upon a man, it will find him out and call him home, wherever he might be. It called Zacheus
out of accursed Jericho, Abraham out of idolatrous Ur of the Chaldeans, Nicodemus from the college of the Pharisees, in whatever dung hills God’s jewels are hidden, grace will both find them out and fetch them out.
It is for each one of us, whether you have been a Christian as long as you can remember, or for only one week. Whether the Lord used His covenant means to bring you
to faith through the faithfulness of your parents…or the Lord snatched you from the flames at a later age, you are a lover of Christ Jesus, because God wanted you to be HIs, because called you out by his Sovereign electing love and gave you place at his table.
And so, let us be reminded brothers and sisters, this is what the Christian life is: a being made to hear, when before deaf completely, the call of God. This is to
say, entirely unlike the other religious visions of the world, that the salvation which we preach, which is Christianity, which is the only salvation and hope for man, is mediated to human lives in an actual communion with God, a conversation between God himself
the living God and an individual soul.
It is not a calculation of merit and reward, it is a personal conversation, fellowship, between the high God and a lowly and sinful human being. That is what is so
utterly extraordinary about it.
Is it so for you? Is your life such a conversation, communion and fellowship? Are you reading this and much like the Rev. Stewart, you are smart and maybe even moral
and a longtime church goer and yet you are not in this fellowship with God? He has you right where you are to read this for a purpose, in His sovereign care He has brought you to the place you are this day here, to hear His call to hear his summons, are you
listening?
Have you a loved one that has tossed caution to the wind and living the life of the prodigal son? A father, a brother, a mother’s a sister…a son, a daughter, a friend?
You are wise to be on your knees for the call of God knows no dunghill to filthy, to steep, to rancent to keep his electing love from pursuit if it is his will. No
deafness is too deaf for the sovereign love of God.
God permeates the deepest darkness and the hardest heart if it is His will to do so and this is a truth of Scripture that gives us hope. He took Abraham from a life
of idolatry and made him into a child of God and that is what He has done for us too!
Prayer: Father, your love and goodness are more than I can fathom. I easily get lost in the sea of my own anxieties and worries. I forget or even at times don’t
believe that You are able or that You care about me and my difficulties. How wrong I am! You have loved me and brought me from idolatry and darkness into the land of hope and love, thank you my Lord!!! Forgive me for doubting You. I ask for You to put a new
song in my mouth that I would be filled this day with the praises of my God. In Jesus name, Amen.
Hymn: I Waited For the Lord
