January 18, 2024 | Be God's Light
The Call of Abram
Scripture: Genesis 12(NIV)
1 The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.
2 “I will make you into a great nation,
and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
and you will be a blessing.
3 I will bless those who bless you,
and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
will be blessed through you.”
4 So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Harran. 5 He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Harran, and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there.
6 Abram traveled through the land as far as the site of the great tree of Moreh at Shechem. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. 7 The Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built an altar there to the Lord, who had appeared to him.
8 From there he went on toward the hills east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. There he built an altar to the Lord and called on the name of the Lord.
9 Then Abram set out and continued toward the Negev.
10 Now there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to live there for a while because the famine was severe. 11 As he was about to enter Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai, “I know what a beautiful woman you are. 12 When the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ Then they will kill me but will let you live. 13 Say you are my sister, so that I will be treated well for your sake and my life will be spared because of you.”
14 When Abram came to Egypt, the Egyptians saw that Sarai was a very beautiful woman. 15 And when Pharaoh’s officials saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh, and she was taken into his palace. 16 He treated Abram well for her sake, and Abram acquired sheep and cattle, male and female donkeys, male and female servants, and camels.
17 But the Lord inflicted serious diseases on Pharaoh and his household because of Abram’s wife Sarai. 18 So Pharaoh summoned Abram. “What have you done to me?” he said. “Why didn’t you tell me she was your wife? 19 Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her to be my wife? Now then, here is your wife. Take her and go!” 20 Then Pharaoh gave orders about Abram to his men, and they sent him on his way, with his wife and everything he had.
Devotional
Abram, later renamed Abraham, is the first of the patriarchs of the Bible. The Lord used the patriarchs to establish the nation of Israel as the people of God. Their legacy carried all the way through the Old Testament, when prophets were proclaiming the coming Messiah. Turning the page to the New Testament, we see that Jesus, the Son of God, is that long-awaited Messiah. Today, Christians trace their spiritual ancestry back to Abram and the patriarchs.
At the end of Genesis 11, a genealogy of Noah is given. Ten generations later Abram was born and raised in Ur (think Iran), where Abram married Sarai, later renamed Sarah. The two of them went with Abram’s father and other family members toward Canaan (think Israel). But they stopped and settled in Harran (think Turkey), which became their homeland.
Genesis 12 opens with the Lord telling Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.” Imagine God telling you to uproot from your family and leave them forever. They didn’t have the safety net of auto or air travel. They didn’t have Facebook, Facetime, or any other means of ever seeing each other’s faces again. Goodbye meant forever.
Yet verse 4 tells us that Abram went, as the Lord told him. They relocated to Canaan, which would become the nation of Israel. They simply obeyed God. Life there would have many challenges. There would be famines, internal family struggles, and battles with neighboring peoples. Saying yes to God doesn’t guarantee a life on Easy Street. It simply signifies a life in the center of God’s will.
Without that level of obedience, the promises of God in verses 2 and 3 would not have been realized, at least through Abram. But because he said yes, God’s promises of a great nation bringing great blessings became a reality. Praise God for that! This applies to us as well. 2 Corinthians 1:20 says, “For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. And so through him the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God.”
How about you? Is God calling you to anything, great or small, in your life? Are you eagerly saying yes? If not, what’s holding you back?
Poem
Nomadic Life
I cleaned out the closet
I threw out the excess
I packed the essentials
I loaded the car
I'm leaving...time to go!
I started the engine
I drove out the driveway
I looked in the mirror
I saw my mother waving, crying
I'm leaving...on my way!
I traveled beyond the familiar
I came to new vistas
I stepped on new soil
I met foreign people
I'm traveling...almost there!
I unpacked my suitcase
I made up a strange bed
I learned a new language
I embraced a new family
I'm coming...settling in!
I was exposed to new ideas
I was challenged by courses
I was on a strange time schedule
I was on a foreign path
I'm here...adjusting!
I'm not who I was
I'm very different now
I'm a mix of past and present
I'm a new person
I've arrived...comfortable!
I'm cleaning out the closet
I'm throwing out the excess
I'm packing the essentials
I'm loading the car
I'm leaving...time to go!
