Week of May 28

C. S. Lewis once remarked that he had discovered why the Lord would not utter an answer. It was because, “You are yourself the answer.” Perhaps you wonder, like me, what was it that Abraham knew of God that led him to trust Him to fulfill His promise of an heir in his old age, or that he would become the father of many nations? He possibly knew by experience what the poet Ralph Waldo Emerson would later write: “All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.” Abraham knew enough of God, not only the goodies from God, to believe. He serves as an example for us today.

Paul concludes chapter 3 with Christ’s sacrificial atonement. These are concepts that are a bit foreign to some who are reading this devotional. Paul desires for Jews and Gentiles to understand that Jesus satisfies God’s holy demands. The Heavenly Father poured out His righteous wrath on Himself in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ (3:24).

I hope that you are able to visualize that He took the wrath for sin upon Himself (3:25; “put forward as a propitiation”). Therefore, God is “just and the one who justifies” all who have faith in Jesus (3:25, “to be received by faith”; HCBC)! “Wowza,” as we sometimes say in our household!

Paul opens our eyes to see what Abraham could not see at that time. God was at work providing salvation prior to Christ’s earthly ministry. Nevertheless, he uses Abraham as his example, knowing that the Old Testament patriarch served as a model of faith to both Jews and Gentiles (4:16). Abraham was 100-years old and could see no possibility that an heir would be born to him as God had promised (Genesis 15:3).

God, however, instructed him to look up at the stars and pledged that his descendants would be as numerous. No Bible in hand, no angelic choirs, just God’s voice. Abraham believed, while looking ahead, and God pronounced him righteous (cf. John 8:56; Galatians 3:16). We look back in faith to the cross, and God does the same in our lives.

Abraham believed two core things about God. He was the one “who gives life to the dead.” God was able to produce offspring despite the “deadness” (inability) of Sarah and Abraham. This God was also able to “call” (summons) into being, or existence, an heir (4:17). We would say that Isaac was real in the thought and purpose of God before he was ever conceived (EBC).
 
Even though he was faced with the fact of his physical condition, and Sarah’s, Abraham did not waver through unbelief. He, like so many men and women of faith through the centuries, experienced hesitancy, but this would pass (Genesis 17:17). He showed that he really trusted God by his actions (Genesis 17:23-27). His circumcision was an open testimony to others that he trusted God and His promises.

What does it take for us to believe the promises of God? I recently watched the cutest video on social media. A man was engaged in a physical therapy session where his therapist was encouraging him at one end of a two-railed walking path to grab hold of the dual supports and take steps toward him. No amount of motivation worked despite the patient’s best efforts.
 
Another therapist happened to be watching the entire scene, stepped forward, and helped the patient to tie his shoe. He had been standing on an untied shoelace with one foot which made it impossible for him to move the other foot and walk! He completed the exercise in short order, once the hindrance was removed. It appeared to me that the second healer had seen it all and knew how to engineer success.
 
Here’s my spiritual counsel about learning to walk again after brokenness. God, our Great Healer, uses every circumstance in our lives to prepare us for the future. Corrie ten Boom said, “This is what the past is for! Every experience God gives us, every person He puts in our lives, is the perfect preparation for the future that only He can see.” Whether our example today is Father Abraham or an observant professional or friend, we can walk confidently on God’s promises and know that the future He is preparing for us is sure.

1. Let me use another analogy. If you are having trouble seeing God’s future for you, then turn around in the boat! I’ve long thought that Israel lived a “row boat faith,” of sorts. I mean nothing negative by the statement. Israel overcame formidable obstacles ahead of them by looking back at God’s past deliverances—like rowing a boat. Give God His proper place at the bow of the boat. You row, and He will get you where He is taking you.
 
2. Perhaps you have been waiting for quite some time for God to fulfill a promise that He made.Write that promise on a piece of paper, fold it, and place it in this passage today. This will be your symbolic gesture that you trust God to keep His word. Then, follow Him.

3. For Families: What a lovely reminder for our families from this day’s passage! Abraham firmly trusted that God would keep His promises, even when they looked impossible. What might be your family’s crisis or seemingly impossible barrier? A steady paycheck? An illness and recovery? Absence of one of your family’s members? Rebellion of a child? Marriage that is growing distant? God hears us and promises to make thing right in His time. He always keeps His promises.

Have a heart check with your family members and see what’s on their minds. Share about problems or worries or doubts. Then share the message of this passage and memorize together this verse. Give your problems to God and write down in your family prayer journal what you prayed about today. Be expectant to see what God does in the next days as you live each moment confidently, trusting in Him.

“No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God,
but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God,
fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised”
(Romans 4:21, ESV)

May your paths be straight,
Larry C. Ashlock