Patriarchs: A Pattern of Believing

 

He took him outside and said, “Look up at the sky and count the stars – if indeed you can count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.  Genesis 15:5-6

 When we look back at Abram (later Abraham)’s life, there’s a clear pattern of consistency. God told Abram to leave his home and extended family and go “somewhere else.” He didn’t even know where he was going, but did that stop him? No! God told him to go, so he went. Then, once he’d gotten to that land, God told Abram that he would have so many descendants that they would outnumber the stars. At this point in time, Abram didn’t have any children and he and his wife were in their 70s. Despite that, God could tell that in his heart Abram truly believed Him. God could see Abram’s heart and knew it better than Abram himself did, so Abram couldn’t have fooled God, saying one thing and thinking another. Later in this same passage, God tells Abram that he will possess the land he has come to. Funny that with the descendants Abram just believes God outright, but with this he needs a little more reassurance. When he asks for it, God tells him to gather up some animals. So Abram does, and then he does something that to today’s audience is at the very least strange, if not grotesque – he cuts the animals in half. Yep, you read that right. As I was thinking on it this morning I realized that this must have been quite the undertaking. It’s not like Abram had a band saw or even a butcher knife. Looking into this further, I learned that this was the way covenants were made in Abram’s day. I love how David Guzik put it in his study on Genesis 15, “When Abram had his doubts and wanted assurance from the LORD, God said to him clearly, ‘Let’s sign a contract and settle this once for all.’”

 What can we learn from Abram today? I think the big takeaway is that God’s word is rock-solid trustworthy. We all put our trust in something in this world: the government, money, our intelligence, etc. Even if you don’t consider yourself a particularly trusting person, you trust the chair you are sitting in to hold you up! Not everything out there is worthy of our trust though. In fact, most aren’t. Governments will topple. Money changes value all the time, and as my Mom frequently reminds me, today money is really just ones and zeros in a bank’s computer that can disappear at any time. Even your own intellect will let you down eventually. Trust me, I know!

Here's the Thing: The only thing, the only One, that will never, ever let you down is God. So when He tells you something fantastic, almost unimaginably too good to be true, you know like being forgiven and able to spend eternity with Him in heaven, you better believe it’s real!