Tag: belief

Ch 15: 1 After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying, “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward.”

Chapter 15 is one of the most important chapter in bible. we can spend hours just discussing verse 1 . There are six words mentioned in verse 1 for very first time and if you been reading previous chapters you know the importance of first mention. In ch 14 we see Abram going to war against 5 kings to save his nephew Lot  and afterwards having communion with Jesus ( Melchizedek ) , offering tithes and rejecting Satan in form of King of Sodom who offers him all the riches of war for soul of the men. After this great victory and fellowship, Abram his sitting and suddenly he is afraid , Maybe he fears that the kings he defeated will come against him. It often happens in christian life  when we have great fellowship with Christ or we have great victory in Christ, right after that we fall into temptation or tend to waver in our faith.Here we see Abram in same situation. Elijah the great prophet found himself in similar situation. He had just defeated all the prophets of Baal . Lord ignited a fire on his sacrifice after he poured water all over it. He had a great victory but right after that we find he is running for his life because he was afraid for Jezebel. He goes & hides in jungle waiting to die. So many times we act in similar fashion. We lose our faith even though we see the work of God in our lives.

Six words to study in verse 1:

After these things WORD of the Lord …. this means Jesus came to speak to Abram. John 1 say In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ² He was in the beginning with God. ³ All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. ⁴ In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.

Jesus is the word. He was there in beginning of the world. It was Jesus who came to speak with Abram. Whenever we are down and afraid , He is always there to come and comfort us.

Vision: This is the first time we see word vision in scripture. Abram was not dreaming about these things. He actually had a vision and he was wide awake.

Afraid: Why would God tell Abram not to be afraid? because he was afraid. He was fearful of the kings and consequences of his victory in previous chapter. Later we will read the same message when Moses passes away and Joshua is to lead the Jewish people . In Joshua 1 :8-9, God tells Joshua not to Be afraid and be brave matter of fact in chapter 1 of Joshua that same message is repeated number of times because Joshua was afraid. Today in your walk with Christ, are you afraid? Are you fearful of the surrounding storm like Peter was when he walked on water? keep your focus on Jesus and just like he told Abram & Joshua , he is telling you and me ….. DO NOT BE AFRAID.

I AM: God is great I AM.  Exodus 3: 13-14 ¹³ Then Moses said to God, “Indeed, when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they say to me, ‘What is His name?’ what shall I say to them?”¹⁴ And God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And He said, “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to yo.’”

Shield: God is telling Abram why he should not be afraid . It is him who is our shield. Message of Bible is so consistent it is amazing. Look at what Paul says in Ephesians 6  when he is talking about the armor of God, ¹⁶ above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. Now read this verse with what is said to Abram. God is our Shield and our faith is on him. This is why Paul is telling us to take the shield of faith. There is no other way to defeat Satan. If you are trying to do it on your own, you are going to fail. There is only one way and which is JESUS.

Reward : Abram was probably sitting and wondering about all the riches he gave up .  maybe his wife asked him if you won the war , where is the booty from the war. This is why God reminds him that he is his reward . what a lesson for us. Those of us who are in ministry or working in local church giving your time and service and lots of time all you get is blame . It seems like no one is noticing and there is no appreciation for all you do . I hope this verse is encouragement to you. He is your reward. Some day he will say My son , My daughter you have done well. Oh what a reward. Keep on working, keep on being faithful he will reward you in due time.

In verse 2-3  Abram tells God of his situation and he just does not know how what God has promised him is going to happen. Abram is not complaining to God nor does he have doubt, he just does not comprehend how it is going to happen. He is thinking with his limited understanding just like we do.

Verse 4-5 : God once again assures Abram of his promise to him of heir. He clarifies that the son is going to be his blood not a slave who was born in his home but his flesh & blood. Not only that but he takes him out and tells him exactly how many descendants he is going to have ( stars of the sky & sand on the beach ). Just keep in mind , at this time Sarai was in her 70’s & Abram was in his 80’s . He had left his home in UR over 25 years ago when God first gave him the promise. Would we have this kind of faith? sometimes we pray for something for a week or month or a year & we give up or get angry at God. Remember if God has given you a promise , he will fulfill it in his time. Later we will see how Abram & Sarai try to fulfill the promise on their own and mess they create in process.

Verse 6: And he believed in the Lord, and He accounted it to him for righteousness. This is  one of monumental verse in Bible. If you don’t have it jotted down in your bible, do it and remember it. For the first time in Bible word BELIEVE is mentioned.  It is our belief which makes us righteous. Not our works, not baptism , not which church we attend or how many bible study we attend nor how much tithes we give but it is the belief in Christ that gives us salvation. The word RIGHTEOUSNESS means rightly clothed. We lost it when Adam & Eve sinned. First they discovered they were naked ( unclothed)  and then they try to cloth themselves and all they got is itchy body and God looked at them and clothed them properly. It is a great illustration of our salvation. Paul uses this verse to explain our salvation in Roman 4. Read Romans 4 in context of this verse and you will have whole you new understanding of what Paul is saying. He repeats similar message in Galatians 3.  All of us who are born again are robed or clothed in garments of salvation.We are justified by our belief in Christ and what he did for us on the cross. Isaiah 61:10 I will greatly rejoice in the Lord,My soul shall be joyful in my God;For He has clothed me with the garments of salvation,has covered me with the robe of righteousness,

⁸ And he said, “Lord God, how shall I know that I will inherit it?”
Can you believe the Abram asked this question? This is so much like me & you. We believe but we always have doubt. We might even think God might be upset with Abram and even walk away and cut him off but God is so gracious that he understands us. He has same kind of patients with us although we continue to question and doubt he never abandons us. This also illustrates how even the mighty men of faith struggled with doubt & unbelief. So instead of being upset God tells Abram , let us cut covenant. In those days, it was common practice when 2 parties made a deal they would cut a covenant as described in Verse 9-10.
in those days there were no lawyers , no contracts and this is how they sealed the deal. So here Abram cuts the animals and he is waiting for God to show up . As he waiting the birds & vultures are circling the the cut meat and Abram is trying to fight them off but he gets tired and falls a sleep. This is when God shows him the future we read about in Exodus. How the Jewish people are going to go down to Egypt and be in slavery for 400 years and how they will come out with riches. In scripture birds are always symbol of evil . He might have been mocked by people passing by , they knew what was to take place. They knew Abram was ready to cut covenant and other party , in this case God had not shown up . Abram was ready to do his part but  he was fatigued and he slept. When he awoke God had already come through and had gone through the carcass . Abram realized that he was supposed to meet God half way but God had done it all. What a lesson for us. God has done it all . We still try to be like Abram and try to get salvation by works. God knows we are not capable of keeping our promises. We have best of intention to keep our promises. We want to obey the God but our flesh is weak and God knows it. Paul says ⁵ For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do. Jewish people at mount of Sinai meant to keep their promise but in 40 days while Moses was up speaking to God they made golden Calf  and started to worship . We are no better than them. God knows this and there for Jesus has done everything for us on cross.Like Abram we eventually get tired of chasing the birds away and we are not able to keep our part of bargain. What a wonderful merciful God that he knows me & you . He wants us to be  promise taker not promise maker. As it was with Abram, God’s Covenant with us is unconditional . All we need to do is BELIEVE. Do  you believe? Have you acccepted Christ as Savior? If not here is your chance. Like Abram all you need to do is believe. Many have such a hard time with this fact but that is all that is required.

Do not be AFRAID , Just BELIEVE in the WORD ( JESUS) , put on the  SHIELD of faith and be part of great REWARD.

May God add blessing to his word. Let those who read it be blessed by it. Amen