Obedient Faith

Life Lessons: Obedient Faith

Genesis 12:1-20

SITUATION: God promised Abram that many nations would come from his descendants. Abram believed God and obediently moved to an unknown land.

OBSERVATION: Although old, Abram left his comfortable life in Ur with only the Lord’s word as a guide. The life changes that he experienced were undoubtedly difficult, but he persevered through the difficult times.

INSPIRATION: A man once found a cocoon of an Emperor moth and kept it with the purpose of watching the beautiful creature emerge. Finally the day came and it began to struggle through the small opening at one end of the cocoon. The struggle continued for hours, but the moth could never force its body beyond a certain point.

     Finally believing that something was wrong and that the opening should have been larger, the man took a pair of scissors and carefully clipped the restraining threads. The moth emerged easily, and crawled out onto the windowsill. Its body was large and swollen, its wings small and shriveled. He supposed that in a few hours the wings would develop into the beautiful objects that he had expected. But it did not happen. The moth that should have been a thing of great beauty free to float and fly, spent its short life dragging around the swollen body and shriveled wings.

     The constricting threads and the struggle necessary to pass through the tiny opening had been God’s method of forcing fluids from the body into the wings. The “merciful” snip of the threads was the cruelest thing possible.

     Often God lets us struggle rather than stepping in like a big brother to do our fighting for us. No doubt he could make it all so easy and every moment of life so pleasant. But as we struggle, becoming exhausted almost beyond endurance, changes occur in us which could not happen otherwise: the “fluids” expand our wings, and in time we are able to fly. Cut the struggle short at some crucial point and we are crippled forever . . . or until God gives another opportunity for struggle that will do what the first aborted struggle should have been allowed to do. 

APPLICATION: Are you experiencing a painful restriction on your lifestyle right now: a broken relationship, a betrayal of trust, a budget squeeze, some debilitating illness, jail time or some other discipline from the Lord? Can you see the plan God may have for you, turning evil into good—as he did for Abraham? Face your struggle courageously and patiently; God may be using it to prepare you for his promised land.

EXPLORATION: Obedient Faith: Genesis 22:2-3; Deuteronomy 26:16; Joshua 1:8; 11:15; 1 Samuel 15:22; John 14:31; Acts 5:29.

CHRIST through THE BIBLE

Jesus: Grace Before the Cross

     Abram was far from perfect. There were times when he trusted the Egyptians before he trusted God. He even lied, telling Pharaoh that his wife was his sister. But Abram made one decision that changed his eternal life: He “believed God, and God accepted [Abram’s] faith, and that faith made him right with God” (Romans 4:3).

     Here is a man justified by faith before his circumcision (v. 10), before the law (v. 13), before Moses and the Ten Commandments. Here is a man justified by faith before the cross! The sin-covering blood of Calvary extends as far into the past as it does into the future.

     Abraham is not the only Old Testament hero to cast himself upon God’s grace. . . . We must not see grace as a provision made after the law had failed. Grace was offered before the law was revealed. Indeed, grace was offered before man was created! “You were bought, not with something that ruins like gold or silver, but with the precious blood of Christ, who was like a pure and perfect lamb. Christ was chosen before the world was made, but he was shown to the world in these last times for your sake” ( 1 Peter 1:18-20).