SUNDAY, APRIL 10
READ GENESIS 12:1-9
GENESIS 12:1 Now Adonai said to Avram, “Get yourself out of your country, away from your kinsmen and away from your father’s house, and go to the land that I will show you. 2 I will make of you a great nation, I will bless you, and I will make your name great; and you are to be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, but I will curse anyone who curses you; and by you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”
4 So Avram went, as Adonai had said to him, and Lot went with him. Avram was 75 years old when he left Haran. 5 Avram took his wife Sarai, his brother’s son Lot, and all their possessions which they had accumulated, as well as the people they had acquired in Haran; then they set out for the land of Kena‘an and entered the land of Kena‘an.
6 Avram passed through the land to the place called Sh’khem, to the oak of Moreh. The Kena‘ani were then in the land. 7 Adonai appeared to Avram and said, “To your descendants I will give this land.” So he built an altar there to Adonai, who had appeared to him.
8 He left that place, went to the hill east of Beit-El and pitched his tent. With Beit-El to the west and ‘Ai to the east, he built an altar there and called on the name of Adonai. 9 Then Avram traveled on, continuing toward the Negev.
When the Lord calls Abram, he goes. Abram does not hesitate. He does not wonder whether he is doing the right thing. He does not think about the cost or the risk. He simply follows the Lord’s command without murmur or objection.The lives we lead today often make it difficult to follow Abram’s example. The ties of the material world bind us tightly. Busy with work, our families, and the thousand demands of daily life, we cannot easily imagine surrendering them and heading off to a new place because the Lord has called us to go there.
Our greatest temptation comes in not seeking the one true God who became incarnate in Jesus Christ and whose timeless and perfect will always binds us. Instead we seek a lesser god, a god who will never ask us to do anything we do not want to do, to surrender anything we do not want to surrender, or to go to a place where we do not want to go.
At the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, John Winthrop told his flock that God does not care what we possess but whether, when God knocks on our door and demands that we surrender what we value most for the Lord’s sake, we will answer. If we find we never have to give up anything, we may not be following Christ. He may demand that we give up cherished material possessions or cherished political views or a cherished position in our community. But the one thing every Christian knows for sure is that sooner or later the Lord will come knocking.
Heavenly Father, help me to lay aside the things of this world, to listen for your call to sacrifice, and to answer it joyfully and unquestioningly. Amen.[Stephen L. Carter]
---------------------
No comments:
Post a Comment