HOW GOD GUIDED ABRAM AND HOW HE GUIDES US TODAY

 

 

By Jill Roberts and Michael Canalé

 

Michael, as every reader of this blog already knows, has a way of going directly and so astutely to the very heart of a circumstance or issue. Today, in discussing this week’s Scripture, he said,

 

“God is so easy. He gave us a Book of almost nothing but mistakes by mankind. There’s something so easy about it.”

 

Truly, what an insight. Think of the alternative – a Bible of nothing but the grand acts of obedience and exemplary behavior of humanity -a historical fairytale – and us blundering along in the shadow of all of this perfection.

 

No, this is not how God operates. He took one look at us after The Fall and designed His Word to recount actual history, to show mistake after mistake and, after each one, His faithfulness to stay by our sides and show us the way out of our transgressions and misconceptions  – patiently.

 

And then, every so often, He sees us actually make a single step in the right direction and He

rewards that baby step, disproportionately in the average person’s estimation, by giving us the world.

 

Such is the case with Abram and his victory over the temptation of evil King Sodom. You recall, from last week, that God knew Abram was about to be tempted with receiving the spoils of war, amazing possessions, which had proven to be the one thing that had lured him into disobedience in the past. So God sent mysterious and powerful priest and king of Himself, Melchizedek, to prop up and encourage Abram right before he had to take on the tempting wiles of King Sodom.

 

In this regard, how beautiful it is to see that God, will never send us back into the ring to do battle on His behalf unless He has prepared us for such combat. That would be anathema to Him. If He ever does allow temptation or trials of any kind, it will ONLY be after we are fully ready to face whatever difficulty is imminent. How beautiful He is, how kind!

 

Once Abram had had Melchizedek’s food, bread and wine, and after he had learned a lesson about giving of ourselves and our resources, and he had tithed, and, finally, once he had been in the presence of this righteous Melchizedek and he then aspired to the right choices in life, THEN, he was ready to face the King of Sodom. And, Abram knocked the ball right out of the ballpark. He shut down this tempter, saying, in so many words, that he would take none of the possessions the king offered, saying, that the King of Sodom would

 

“…never be able to say, ‘I made Abram rich.”

(Genesis 14:23) NIV

 

His old nemesis, possessions, no longer had power over him. We are front row witnesses to the evolution of Abram, to Abram growing into the name of Abraham. He wasn’t there yet, but he was getting there. He didn’t just start out as the icon, Abraham. Michael says it well:

 

“Abram was a regular, powerful guy whom God blessed.”

 

That’s it. We are regular people, most of us would acknowledge. But, we are also powerful because, God, the reservoir of all power, made us in His image and with the attribute of power. Its source is Him; its manifestation is in us through Him.

 

Looking back a few years, it would have been unimaginable for the Abram of Harran and Egypt, where the accumulation of things and people had taken center stage in Abram’s life, to have turned down a bonanza like that King Sodom offered. Now, he had power from On High and victory over something that had its teeth in him for a lifetime.

 

And, as Michael said, Abram was blessed by God. Seeing His Patriarch-To-Be leave King Sodom in the spiritual dust,

 

“AFTER THIS, the word of the LORD, came to Abram in a vision:

 

‘Do not be afraid, Abram.

I am your shield,

your very great reward.”

(emphasis added)

(Genesis 15:1) NIV

 

Would God hold back on the coming blessing, the one of which Michael spoke? Oh no…NOT AT ALL! God never thinks small. If we feel God has small, modest plans for our lives, than we are misinterpreting. While we may often NOT SEE where God is leading us or the generational, far down the line impact of what He wants us to do, this in no way obviates the fact that it is something big, something iconic, something FAR REACHING.  With Him, it is always individual but, also, generational, with what we do and its impact on some great, great grandchild and, then, his or her great, great grandchild. Michael says,

 

“Your life is a thread. At the end of the fuse, there is a continuum. “

 

My goodness! Yes, this is how it is – both individually and generationally.

 

This, the following, was to be the subject matter of the famous conversation between God and Abram that occurred after God’s telling Abram that He was Abram’s great reward:

 

“But Abram said, ‘Sovereign LORD, ‘What can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?’ And Abram said, ‘You have given me no children, so a servant in my household will be my heir.’

 

Then the word of the LORD came to him: ‘This man will not be your heir but a son who is your own flesh and blood will be your heir.’ He took him outside and said, ‘Look up in the sky and count the stars – if indeed you can count them.’Then He said to him, ‘So shall your offspring be.”

 

And what was Abram’s reaction?

 

“Abram believed the LORD, and He credited it to him as righteousnesses.”

 

We will address the immense import of this statement regarding righteousness, of which books have been written, in a later blog.

 

“He also said to him, ‘I am the LORD, who brought you out of the Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take POSSESSION of it.’

 

‘But Abram said, ‘How can I know that I will gain POSSESSION if it?”

(Genesis 15:2-8) NIV

 

What follows is the continuation of a sacrificial system, which we will spend significant time discussing in future blogs. This will culminate in the famed covenant with Abram, one in which God focuses on the “great POSSESSIONS “ Abram’s progeny will receive. (Genesis 15:14) NIV

 

God continues to use Abram’s desire for possessions but they would become a SPIRITUAL possession a million miles from the physical possessions that had proven so detrimental to Abram’s early years with God.

 

This God of the Old Testament, slow to anger, patient with mankind’s mistakes in a Book of mistakes, protective to prepare us before trials and temptations and lavish in being our reward for the victories of our lives. Surely, He will guide us all into a fuller understanding of His perfect will for our lives and bestow on us the power to find our ways to it, to find victory for us and our generations to follow. May we see the big picture and our place in it – as He views and ordains it.