The Evidence of Things NOT Seen

 

Friday, February 26, 2021

Some time later, the Lord spoke to Abram in a vision and said to him, “Do not be afraid, Abram, for I will protect you, and your reward will be great.”  But Abram replied, “O Sovereign Lord, what good are all your blessings when I don’t even have a son?  Since you’ve given me no children, Eliezer of Damascus, a servant in my household, will inherit all my wealth.  You have given me no descendants of my own, so one of my servants will be my heir.”  Then the Lord said to him, “No, your servant will not be your heir, for you will have a son of your own who will be your heir.”  Then the Lord took Abram outside and said to him, “Look up into the sky and count the stars if you can. That’s how many descendants you will have!”  And Abram believed the Lord, and the Lord counted him as righteous because of his faith.  Genesis 15:1-6

There is so much more to this story than whether a good man like Abram gets a blessing from God.  In fact, Abram said it plainly, that all the wealth, position, and power that was lavished on him was useless without fulfillment of God’s plans. 

The unspoken part of that is whether Abram was going to be patient enough to see God’s plan through.  At this point in the conversation what was unmentioned was faith, the evidence of things NOT (as yet) seen.  Of course, Abram had no choice but to wait; neither do we.  None of us can push time ahead; we only think we do so when we rush around like chickens who’ve lost their heads, assuming our hyperactivity will somehow pay off in the end with a better life.  And such activity only proves the opposite of faith – it shows our nervousness about what will happen.

Abram had some of that nervous angst about the future.  He looked around at the sea of God’s blessing on his life, but, as most lonely people do eventually recognize, all the stuff and perks in the world is meaningless.  One of Abram’s descendants, King Solomon, found that out.  From his diary (Ecclesiastes), we find out that the King tried it all, had it all, and all of it was empty as a puff of smoke:

God gives some people great wealth and honor and everything they could ever want, but then he doesn’t give them the chance to enjoy these things. They die, and someone else, even a stranger, ends up enjoying their wealth! This is meaningless—a sickening tragedy.  Ecclesiastes 6:2

So, what sense are we to make of such a truth?  Is life meaningless?  Not according to God’s “end” of that story in the last verse of today’s Scripture:

And Abram believed the Lord, and the Lord counted him as righteous because of his faith.  Genesis 15:6

Reading all of Abram’s story we find that Abram’s belief was faith, that substance of things hoped-for, the evidence of things not seen.[1]  God promised Abram a heritage of so many descendants he could never remember all the names; he might as well have tried to count and name the stars.  And Abram, possessor of so much stuff people chase after on this planet, decided trusting the God with no face to see, and no name other than I AM, made more sense than trusting his portfolio.  This is what caused God to count on Abram as one who was righteous, a person in right-standing with his Creator, a person of true faith.

For You Today

If you’re looking for meaning in this life, skip the lifetime experimentation with all the glitter, gold, and getting; that will be wiser than Solomon’s approach.  Instead, start with the evidence of the unseen; start with God’s love for you.  That’s where you’ll find the greatest response of your heart, because that’s how He designed and created you.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

[1] Title Image:  Courtesy of Pixabay.com    Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©

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[1] Hebrews 11:1

 

The Problem With Worship at the Altar of Wealth

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Thursday, March 14, 2019

So Abram left Egypt and traveled north into the Negev, along with his wife and Lot and all that they owned.  (Abram was very rich in livestock, silver, and gold.)  From the Negev, they continued traveling by stages toward Bethel, and they pitched their tents between Bethel and Ai, where they had camped before.  This was the same place where Abram had built the altar, and there he worshiped the Lord again.  Lot, who was traveling with Abram, had also become very wealthy with flocks of sheep and goats, herds of cattle, and many tents.  But the land could not support both Abram and Lot with all their flocks and herds living so close together.  So disputes broke out between the herdsmen of Abram and Lot.  (At that time Canaanites and Perizzites were also living in the land.)  After Lot had gone, the Lord said to Abram, “Look as far as you can see in every direction—north and south, east and west.  I am giving all this land, as far as you can see, to you and your descendants as a permanent possession.  And I will give you so many descendants that, like the dust of the earth, they cannot be counted!  Go and walk through the land in every direction, for I am giving it to you.”  So Abram moved his camp to Hebron and settled near the oak grove belonging to Mamre.  There he built another altar to the Lord.  Genesis 13:1-7, 14-18(NLT)

Scripture tells us both Abram and Lot became very wealthy.  However, the difference between the two that made all the difference in the world as to how their stories turned out, was this:

No matter how wealthy Abram became, it never prevented him from building an altar to worship the real God, while no matter how wealthy Lot became, it never was enough to keep him from wanting more.

Frankly, not everyone is hard-wired to handle wealth alongside faith; in those cases, one of them must take a back seat.  Abram was on a mission to serve God, while Lot was always moving towards what he saw as the next level in climbing the ladder of personal success.  The difference in the two families was contentment and focus.  Abram focused on pleasing God; Lot was always moving in the direction of Sodom.  In the end, when Lot was fully-entrenched in Sodom and God sent his angels to destroy the place, those angels just about had to pry Lot and his wife away from the city.

Corrie ten Boom wrote about that kind of attitude; she said:

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For You Today

The choices with wealth are always two:

1.     Worship the wealth and have your attention always drawn to it.

2.     See the wealth as a blessing, and have your attention focused on how God wants you to use it as a channel of blessing for others.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day.

Go to VIDEO

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[i] Title Image:   via Wikimedia.com

[ii] Source not remembered, image via Wikimedia Commons

Yield - Part 2

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Wednesday, March 16, 2016

VIDEO

Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take.  Proverbs 3:5-6^(NLT) 

Yesterday we began this short series on Yielding to God, and the differences we can expect when we choose to bow the knee in prayer…to yield to God’s Lordship. 

The idea of trusting the LORD with all your heart, even past the limit of your own ability to reason things out, leads us to what you’re saying with the first phrase that comes out of your mouth when you bow in prayer:

You’re yielding to follow anywhere God leads

Abram (who would later become Abraham, father to us in the faith) never saw it coming.  He took a walk one day and God spoke to his heart:

The Lord had said to Abram, “Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land that I will show you.  I will make you into a great nation.  I will bless you and make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others.  I will bless those who bless you and curse those who treat you with contempt.  All the families on earth will be blessed through you.”  So Abram departed as the Lord had instructed, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he left Haran.  Genesis 12:1-4^(NLT)

Did you get that?  God spoke to a 75 year-old man who had lived all that time in one spot, and told him to get up, leave everything except one nephew, and take those aching bones on a journey to….well….somewhere out there!  And the man did it!

There are many kinds of calls – letting go of things, places, people, ideas – many of them familiar and comforting – some in which we frame the very identity of our lives.  In the case of Abram – it was to physically leave it all behind.

Sometimes God leads people to make major changes, and we cannot really foresee where the journey will take us.  Although the short beginning to Abram’s adventure makes it seem as if it all happened in one day, real time, I suspect there might have been a little (or a lot) of time in-between God’s call and Abram’s leaving Haran to follow that faceless God out into the dessert.  That’s not something you decide lightly!  Abram probably wrestled with this whole thing for a while…maybe some months, even years!

I say this because you cannot read this story and not remember your own call experience.  Mine was a growing (and rather uncomfortable, unnerving) sense of dissatisfaction with how little it actually cost me to serve God.

Doesn’t make sense, right? 

Well, it does when you begin to recognize the cost to God for the overwhelming gift of grace to forgive my sins, which is what happened to me.  How could I not give everything to Him, when God had held nothing back for me?  When I finally yielded to the call, God put it in our hearts to follow Him anywhere.  For our family, it meant what it meant to Abram – leaving the familiar place and life we’d known to follow him into the unknown! 

So scary! 

And somehow, once the decision was made to yield, it was so much more comforting than scary to place yourself totally in the hands of One who promised to never leave nor forsake you as He leads you into that unknown.

And that’s the rub…the comfort of His care only comes after you make the first step in His direction; only after you yield!

For You Today

Tomorrow we’ll talk about a few more yield-points in our lives. 

But, for right now, ask yourself the question – what yield has God asked of me…and am I still holding on when I should’ve let go?

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road today…and have a blessed day!

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[1] Title Image:  By Yield_sign.svg: derivative work: Fry1989 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons