Friday, October 9, 2020 Some Material taken from Roll With It by Keith Warren
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 spoken to him; and Lot went with him. Now
Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. Genesis 12:1-4
This week we are looking at the lessons we can learn from Genesis 12:1-4. God
has called Abram to leave his home and go out into the unknown. This required
some big changes in his life. We have all been through some big changes this
year, so let's take these lessons we have learned and see if we can apply them
to our lives. The first four lessons are:
Don't be Discouraged
God Uses the Known to lead us in the Unknown.
Don’t Long For An Old Normal
We can be made right with God
Today we will look at the last lesson - Go
Go – and Make Disciples
God’s call to Abram was to “go” and
was fueled by a promise. Jesus call to the church is also to “go” and is fueled
by a promise as well:
Go therefore and
make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and
the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you;
and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Matthew 28:19-20
The promise that fuels His call
to us is that we do not go alone. He is always with us and when we step out in
faith and trust Him, not only does He take every step with us, but He goes
before us and prepares the way.
It's easy when God calls us to
do something that we're familiar with. But when he asks us to do something we
don't know anything about -- or to go far away from our home, our family, and
our support system -- that takes real faith. This is the kind of faith
Abram had and the very same faith we have inside of us too.
Obedience to God involves risk –
risking obedience and trusting Him because we do not know what lies ahead, or
risking missing out on the opportunities and blessings that God has for us when
we obey. We can play it safe, but we may never experience the abundant life God
has for us. We will also miss the opportunity to be a part of God’s work. His
work will still get done, but by someone else who was willing to take a risk
and obey. Trusting Him and being obedient to His call is always worth it.
God’s call on our lives is
always a beautiful mixture of a holy assignment and a beautiful blessing. There
will be a promise and a blessing, but there will be work on our part required. God’s
work in our lives is sanctifying and holy, and while we may be working for Him
and His kingdom, our lives are always transformed in the process.
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. 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. For he was looking forward to the city that has
foundations, whose designer and builder is God. Hebrews 11:8-10
