Abram jumped in the wheelbarrow.  He went “all in” and reacted to the Lord with great faith, and he was rewarded for it.

 

God told him that He would make his descendants as numerous as “the stars in the sky”.

 

This is the typical God-promise.

 

A man with no children, with a barren wife, who was very old….would not just have children—but God told him that he would make him into a great nation.

 

How can this be?

 

But Abram, in spite of all of these facts, ACTED IN FAITH.

 

And he ACTED IN FAITH in a big way….packing up and leaving a place where he belonged to go to a place where he did not belong.

 

Genesis 12  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.

 

You are free.  You get to choose who you will be and what you will do.

 

This is the founding principle of our great Christian Faith—that we are free to reject the Lord or invite Him in.

 

We are free to invite Him to lead our lives….or not.

 

Abram had to make this choice……and so do I……and so do you.

 

And when he made this choice, there would be challenges.

 

No sooner than giving Abram Isaac, this happened:

 

Genesis 12  2 Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about.”

3 Early the next morning Abraham got up……

 

Sometimes this word, this PERFECT WORD, is hard to process.

 

He promises Abram a son.

He gives him a son.

He directs him to get rid of him.

 

And then Abram’s response……EARLY THE NEXT MORNING he gets up and proceeds with the plan!

 

The rest of this story, and for our talk today, is in Hebrews:

 

Hebrews 11 17 By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had received the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, 18 even though God had said to him, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.” 19 Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead, and figuratively speaking, he did receive Isaac back from death.

 

Abram, now Abraham, knew that God was not a killer.  He knew His promises were good. And so he reasoned that God would raise Isaac from the dead……and this lead him to respond “early the next morning” to an incredible command.

 

That IS FAITH.

 

God makes a promise….

 

And then He makes sure that we don’t make that promise our idol.

 

He makes sure that we worship the Promise Maker, not the promise.

 

So what do you choose?

 

Joshua 24 14 “Now fear the LORD and serve him with all faithfulness.  Throw away the gods your forefathers worshiped beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD. 15 But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.”

 

God has a plan for all of us.  It is better than anything we could ever concoct on our own accord….but it is not always prepared by our own personal recipe.  Sometimes the roadblocks that we see are not what we might consider them to be.

 

And the enemy would love us to think that we are not walking in the direction of our destiny…….

 

But it is God, and ONLY God, who makes descendants from nomads, who raises the dead, who brings life to dead bones…..

 

So get in the wheelbarrow…..

 

And enjoy the ride of your life.

 

In The Name of the Father and the

Son and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

 

Know anyone who might like these?  Encourage them to jump on to 2minutewarning.blog and hit the FOLLOW button!!!

Coach J