Wide Angle: Mount Moriah

Posted on December 10, 2021 by salooper57

In Genesis 22:6 we find one of the great lessons of the story of Abraham and Isaac. It is a lesson St. Paul and St. James both recall. It lies at the foundation of the Protestant Reformation and, more importantly, at the heart of the Scriptures: “Abram believed the LORD, and the LORD credited it to him as righteousness.” God will not count a person righteous because they are religious or engaged in doing good works. God considers righteous those who believe in him, who put their trust in him through Christ. This was St. Pauls’ great theme.

But there is another side to that coin (which is St. James great theme), and it is found in verse 16-17: “Because you have done this. . . I will surely bless you.” Righteousness comes through faith; blessing comes through obedience. Abraham’s life was characterized by both. The fact is, the two are inseparable. Abraham’s faith produced obedience, and obedience strengthened his faith, and both were rooted in the promises of God. It would be good to pause and read Hebrews 11:17-19. You will see that faith and reason are not opposed; in fact, Abraham learned how to do faith reasoning, based on God’s promises. It is a discipline he invented. And if we are going to pass our tests, we will have to become proficient at faith-reasoning ourselves.

Now we need to zoom out, set our lens to wide angle. Abraham was told to sacrifice his only son. They went, on God’s specific instructions, to the land of Moriah. They looked up, verse 4, and saw the place (the place, where it was all destined to happen) in the distance. Isaac (verse 6) carried the wood on which he would be sacrificed.

 Do you know where Mount Moriah was? It is mentioned only one other time in the Bible, in 2 Chronicles chapter 3. Many scholars believe that mount Moriah was where Solomon built the great temple. It was the place where – for hundreds of years – sacrifices were made for the forgiveness of sins; where the Passover lamb was slain; where the high priest entered the holiest place each year to make atonement for the people of God. But the temple that Solomon built was utterly destroyed during the Babylonian invasion. And when Zerubbabel built the second temple, in the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, it is quite possible that it was built a little distance away from Moriah. We know that Herod’s temple – construction started in 19 B.C. – was built in the heart of Jerusalem.

When Isaac was spared, Abraham offered the ram in his place. The law of substitution is woven deep into the fabric of creation. Abraham had promised his son, “God himself will provide a lamb,” but God had not provided a lamb – not this time. He provided a ram. The promise of a lamb would go unfulfilled for the better part of two thousand years, then one day John the Baptist pointed to Jesus and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world!”

Abraham’s promise waited until a greater Isaac – one who will one day set all Creation joyfully laughing – carried the wood on which he would be sacrificed through the streets of Jerusalem. Perhaps he, like Isaac, looked up and saw the place rising in the distance. That place was called Golgotha by the Jews, Calvary by the Romans and, I think, Moriah by Abraham’s contemporaries. Abraham’s prophecy was at last fulfilled. God has provided the Lamb.

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Wide Angle: On the Mountain of the Lord it Will Be Provided

Posted on December 9, 2021 by salooper57

As Abraham came in sight of Mount Moriah, the place where Abraham was to sacrifice his son, Isaac spoke up: “Father?”

 “Yes, my son?”

 “The fire and the wood are here, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”

What was Abraham to say? What would you have said, if you were him? Notice how he answered – these next words are prophetic. “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.”

You know the story. Abraham binds his son – something that he could not have done had Isaac not been willing. Isaac was too strong and Abraham too old to have done it had Isaac resisted. Then Abraham laid him on the pyre and raised the terrible blade and was about to bring it down when…

Very rarely in the Bible does God repeat a person’s name. But when Abraham was about to sacrifice his own son Isaac, God called out to him, “Abraham! Abraham! Do not lay a hand on the boy … now I know that you fear God…”

Abraham untied his boy and, as he was doing so, he heard a noise in a nearby thicket. There was a ram there, caught by its horns, a ready sacrifice provided by the Lord. So, verse 14, “Abraham called the place, ‘The Lord will provide’” or in Hebrew, Yahweh Jireh. “And to this day it is said, ‘On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.’”

It is on the mountain of the Lord, the place where we come to God in obedience, that our needs are provided. It is not in the valley of self-indulgence. It is not in the place of personal ambition. It is where we sacrifice whatever keeps us from loving God most – the mountain of the Lord – that we will find him to be Jehovah Jireh, the LORD our Provider. In fact, many people who complain that God didn’t come through for them have never even begun the journey to the mountain of the Lord, which is begun, as we saw earlier, by faith-reasoning, by trusting the LORD to provide.

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Wide Angle: When “Laughter” Was Nearly Silenced

Posted on December 8, 2021 by salooper57

In Genesis 22, we see God doing something in Abraham’s life that Abraham needs, and that even angels, rulers and authorities may be watching. He said to him, verse 1, “Abraham!”, and Abraham answered as a slave answers his master: “Here I am.”

I like that. Abraham lived where I want to live—in the nexus between “Here I am” and “There you are!” Many people want to see God at work. Some are attracted to the excitement, some want to lay doubts to rest, but they very much want to say to God, “There you are!” However, those who can honestly and consistently say to God in delight, “There you are” are those who honestly and consistently say to God in submission, “Here I am!”

Verse 2: “Take your son…” “Uh, Lord, I have two sons. You remember Ishmael? He is living with his mom down in Paran right now. And Isaac.”

“Your only son…”

“My only son?”

“Isaac…”

“Oh, Isaac! My Laughter.”

“…whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah.”

“Hey, that’s not a bad idea. A trip with Isaac – a sort of father and son thing. Do a little hunting – I’ve heard the wild goat hunting up there is really good. We’ve never really done that kind of thing together. It will be great!”

“Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about.”

How could Abraham believe what he heard? Surely, he must have known that God would not require human sacrifice. If I awoke to a vision in the middle of the night, and in the vision God said to me, “Take your son, whom you love, and sacrifice him to me,” I would figure that I shouldn’t have put the banana peppers on my pizza that evening. I wouldn’t think for a moment that God was really asking me to kill my own son. Shouldn’t Abraham have known that as well?

The answer is, “no”. Abraham did not have a Bible. He did not have the prophets. He did not have 2,000 years of church teaching on Scripture. Moses had not yet given the law that forbade human sacrifice. Abraham came from a land where child sacrifice was not unknown. He had come to a land where child sacrifice was sometimes practiced. To Abraham, the call to sacrifice what was dearest in order to prove one’s allegiance to his god made sense. Abraham would not have had moral qualms about sacrificing his son.

What would have been utterly incomprehensible to him was the call to sacrifice the Child of Promise, the child of the covenant! God had made to him irrevocable promises, promises about heirs and about land, and for those promises to be kept, Isaac must reach adulthood and must have children himself. If he were to sacrifice Isaac, the line would be cut and the covenental promises broken. “The single plan-of-God-through-Israel-for-the-world” depended on Isaac, his Laughter. It looked as if Abraham’s laughter would be silenced.

If ever there was a time to hesitate, it was now. And yet, early the next morning Abraham set about obeying God’s command. Abraham understood the necessity of prompt obedience in the life of faith. Delay would have been devastating. So early next morning (v. 3) he saddled his donkey, took Isaac and two servants, cut the wood and set out. Now Moriah was located near what would later be called Jerusalem, about 45 miles north, northeast as the crow flies.

Now comes the question: Why Moriah? Why a three-day walk? Why not send him to Hebron, which was much closer?” Abraham, as far as we can tell, did not ask. He just obeyed.

Notice verse 5. When they were within sight of the mountain where the sacrifice was to take place, Abraham said to his servants, “Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.” We will come back. Was Abraham delusional? He was on his way to sacrifice his son, and yet he says, “we will come back.” But this was no delusion. As the author of Hebrews tells us, Abraham reasoned that God would being Isaac back to life, if that’s what it took. The “single plan-of-God-through-Israel-for-the-world” could not be terminated; God would fulfill his promises, Abraham was certain of it! Abraham was only able to obey in such circumstances because he knew something, something we also must learn: how to reason by faith!

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Build an Altar: Worshiping Well

Posted on December 5, 2021 by salooper57
Approximately 26 minutes

(Excerpt) Without real, joyful, from-the-heart worship, we will not live the beautiful life God intends. A Christian who doesn’t worship is like a computer that doesn’t compute, a boat that doesn’t float, a phone that doesn’t make calls. Of course, it is possible to repurpose the computer as a doorstop, the boat as a flowerpot, and the phone as a coaster, but they were made for something more—and so were we.

We cannot thrive when we do not worship God, but when we do, other things start falling into place. Decisions we once agonized over almost make themselves. Trials become easier to endure with faith. Relationships are set in order. We are nearer, or more continually near, to joy than ever before. But when we are not worshiping God, decisions paralyze us, trials defeat us, relationships get crazy, and discouragement dogs our every step.

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Presumptive Listening: Obstacle to Understanding

Posted on December 4, 2021 by salooper57

It is okay to disagree with what someone says. It is not okay to disregard what they say because we attribute to them motives that we cannot possibly know. Yet this happens constantly. It has become an American pastime.

I recently wrote a column about how America’s understanding of Evangelicals is changing. Many Americans now take for granted that the term “Evangelical” is synonymous with “political conservative.” I am deeply concerned about this misunderstanding, especially when it occurs among Evangelicals themselves.

In response to that column, I received a highly critical letter. It stated: “It is telling that you complain that there are too many Muslims, Catholics (read: Hispanics), and Hindus who claim to be Evangelical. This is easy to translate. These nasty brown people are contaminating your lily-white movement.”

The letter continued: “It is also telling that, in an article about the ills of Evangelicalism, you make no mention of Donald Trump. You can no more criticize your leader than a Nazi could criticize his Führer …You are White Supremacists. You were participants in, or supporters of, the January 6 Insurrection. You have MAGA gear and white hooded sheets in your closet, or you support those who do.”

I conjecture that the anonymous author of this letter is an educated male who has reached middle-age or beyond. I base this both on internal components like vocabulary and grammar and upon years of experience in receiving signed correspondence from people who did share information about themselves.

However, I know I might be mistaken; the author could be a 20-year-old woman. The possibility of being wrong is not, however, something that seems to have occurred to the letter writer, who thinks he knows me because he presumes to know Evangelicals.

How does he know Evangelicals? Does he have coffee with them? Do they share meals? Do they do life together? Or is his knowledge derived entirely from media stereotypes? Would he be surprised to know that my friends include those “nasty brown people” he wrote about or that one of my closest life-long friends is espresso-colored?

When he calls Evangelicalism a “lily-white movement,” he is clearly being provincial. Far from being lily-white, nine of the ten countries with the largest Evangelical populations are in the Global South. The Evangelical Church is growing most rapidly in Africa. Within 30 years, if trends continue, half of the world’s Evangelicals will be Africans.

Of course, the anonymous writer could not know that I once pastored a white church in a racially mixed area of the city where we lived. After my initial interview with the board, I interviewed them. One of the questions I asked was: “If I am successful in racially integrating this church, will you be pleased?” I spent seven years, as I have described elsewhere, trying to accomplish that goal.

The letter author writes, “You can no more criticize your leader than a Nazi could criticize his Führer.” He obviously did not read the columns I wrote in 2016 and again in 2020, explaining why I would not vote for Donald Trump. Neither did he read the columns in which I called for a compassionate immigration policy or warned against the dangers of idolatrous nationalism. After such articles, I received letters similar in tone to his, but they came from the opposite end of the political spectrum.

Still, this author claims to know what is in my closet. He assumes he knows all about Evangelicals. Yet, he seems uninformed about the many Evangelicals who have stood against the very views he believes they espouse.

This is not meant to be a self-defense nor an attack on the letter writer. It is a plea to listen to what other people are saying. It is a warning not to attribute evil motives to our opponents. It is an appeal to believe that other people desire what is right and good, even when we think they are going about it in exactly the wrong way.

I also am not defending Evangelicalism, which needs a good housecleaning. Those inside the house already know that and they are the only ones in a place to do the cleaning.

(First published by Gannett.)

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Wide Angle: Three Possible Reasons for Life’s Trials

Posted on December 2, 2021 by salooper57

God had a plan to undo the consequences of the Fall, to heal and restore humanity, and that plan began with Abraham. His line would lead to the Point-of-it-All. And God would get from Abraham to that Point by what one biblical scholar1 calls “the single plan-of-God-through-Israel-for-the-world.” There was never a Plan-B.

But (and this is a huge “but”) when the covenant was established, Abraham and Sarah had no child. God’s plan and promise of a family line required Sarah, who had been infertile, to conceive. And she did. I don’t think we can imagine the joy Abraham felt. He and Sarah had a child. They named him Isaac, which means laughter. That tells us something, doesn’t it? In his later years, Abraham took great pleasure in watching his son grow up. I wonder how often he found himself chuckling at the antics of his boy. But sometimes when he looked at him, he could see a line stretching into the future, embracing the promise, blessing the earth.

And then we come to chapter 22. Plan-A, Plan-Only, “the single plan-of-God-through-Israel-for-the-world,” which depended on only one person, on Isaac, on the boy called Laughter, was put at risk. And it was God himself who was to blame.

Our passage opens with a problematic statement: “Some time later, God tested Abraham.” The KJV has, “God tempted Abraham,” and the word is often translated that way in the Old Testament. Why would God tempt his own child? Or did he test him? Is there even any difference? I think there is. The difference between a test and a temptation is found in its origin and motive. If it originates in the Satan, we consider it a temptation. If in God, then it is a test. St. James says, “When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone.”2

Another difference between a temptation and a test has to do with the motive behind it. A temptation is an enticement to do evil. God never entices us to do evil—Satan does. But God will sometimes give us trials for the ultimate purpose of bringing about good. Deuteronomy 8:16 captures the idea when it says “God…tested you so that in the end it might go well with you.” God cares so much about the end that he is willing to employ hardship in the present.

But even we understand the difference – God tests, and the devil tempts – the difficulty is not cleared up. Why should God need to test us? Doesn’t he already know everything about us? Doesn’t he who sees the end from the beginning know how we will fare in the test? And if he knows already, why put us through it? Here are three possible reasons.

One: though God knows how we will behave during a test, we do not. Though God knew what Abraham would do, Abraham did not. It was important for Abraham that his loyalty to God be confirmed. Whether we succeed or fail, a test helps us to know where we stand. The truth about where we are is always our friend, even when it is hard to take.

Two: the Bible hints that others are watching how we go through tests. Unbelievers are watching. St. Peter tells us that, during trials, we are “to live such lives among the pagans that…they may see your good deeds and glorify God.”3 Believers are watching. Paul says that Christians watching him go through a painful trial were encouraged to speak the word of God courageously and fearlessly.4 How you go through a difficulty may be a source of strength and assurance to struggling fellow-Christians in your family, among your friends, and in your church. And then there is the suggestion that other, more august beings may be watching. Paul speaks of rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms who see in us the manifold wisdom of God being demonstrated.5 Remember that Job’s great test was played out before a heavenly audience. St. Peter speaks of angels who long to look into things dealing with our salvation.6

Three: tests do more than just reveal what is in us. They are designed to change what is in us, to make us grow, and to develop us in the image of Christ. St. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4 that God is working in us an eternal weight of glory – not in spite of such tests, but through them: “Our…troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.”7 St. Peter says that “Now, if need be, you suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith, of greater worth than gold…may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.”8

               1 Wright, N.T. Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision, IVP: Downers Grove, IL, 2009.

               2 James 1:13

               31 Peter 2:12

               4Phil. 1:14

               5Eph3:10

               61 Peter 1:12

               72 Cor. 4:17

               81Peter 1:6-7 (paraphrase)

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The Five Blessings of Genesis 12

Posted on November 30, 2021 by salooper57

THE LINE AND THE POINT.

Genesis 12 is one of the most important passages for understanding the Bible. It records the calling of Abraham, from whom the line begins that leads to the point – the point of it all; that leads to Jesus the Messiah.

There are five blessings in Genesis 12, which is significant because there are five curses in the previous eleven chapters of Genesis. God is putting us on notice that he intends to undo the curse, and he is going to use this man to make it so. The first blessing: “I will make you a great nation and I will bless you.” The second: “I will make your name great.” The people of Babel tried to make a name for themselves, but they succeeded only in making Babel a byword and a term of derision. Abram does not try to make a name for himself; he only tries to obey God, and so God makes a name for him.

The third blessing is in Hebrew an imperative: You will be a blessing. You see, God does not bless a man so that he can soak it in, but so that he can pass it on. Every one of God’s blessings is a call for us to bless. Our relationship to him is not guided by our small desires but by his transcendent purposes. We sometimes act like the Lord taught us to pray, “Our genie who art in a bottle.” But we don’t have a genie in a bottle; we have a Father in heaven, and he insists that we be a blessing to his other children.

“I will bless those who bless you” is the fourth blessing. And the fifth is the capstone: “All peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” This promise is so important that it is repeated five times in Genesis: here; in 18:18; 22:18; 26:4-8; 28:14. Through Adam all the peoples of the earth were cursed. Through Abram, they will be blessed. Abram is God’s answer – at least the beginning of God’s answer – to Adam. The first eleven chapters of Genesis pose a simple question: What is God going to do to fix things? Sin and evil and death threaten the planet. Will God do anything? And, if so, what will he do? The rest of the Bible is the answer to that question (and it’s a very long answer), but it starts right here. It starts with one man. It starts with Abram.

Now we need what film directors call a deep focus. A deep focus requires a lens that can keep an image in the foreground sharp while at the same time bringing an image in the background into focus. In the foreground we have Abram. He is about to launch out into uncertainty and change. He is an ordinary man, with family and career responsibilities, with hopes and fears. He does not know where he is going. He does not know what awaits him when he gets there. He is sometimes harried and afraid. Yet this man is the beginning of the cure of all creation.

He is the beginning of the cure because he is the beginning of a line, a very long line that we will follow throughout these posts. It runs through men of great repute, like David the king, and through women of ill repute, like Rahab the harlot. It runs through religious leaders like the high priest Joshua and through pagans like the Moabite, Ruth. It runs through forgotten people like Obed and unforgettable people like Solomon. The long line runs through a young woman – almost a child – named Mary. Then the line becomes a point: a point of contention for some, the point of no return for others, but the point of it all for us who believe. It is through him that the promise comes to fulfillment: all the nations of the earth are blessed, and creation itself will be cured.

That promise is not an empty one. If we flash forward to the end of the picture – a moving picture for us, but stationary to God – we find these stirring words from the seer of the Revelation: “I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language [Do you recognize them? These are the people of the blessing], standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice: “Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.”

“All the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures. They fell down on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying: “Amen! Praise and glory and wisdom and thanks and honor and power and strength be to our God for ever and ever. Amen!”” That is the end of the story that never ends, and not one of the myriads of people who fill this final scene are extras. Each one – and may you and I be numbered among them – is the result of this promise, the recipient of the blessing of Abram.

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You Are Perfectly Positioned (for what God wants you to do next)

Posted on November 29, 2021 by salooper57
Viewing Time: Approximately 25 minutes

This message explores the reasons why a Christ-follower might miss the fact that God has something for them to do, why they can believe that is true, and what to do about it.

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The Secret of Gratitude: Receiving Life as a Gift

Posted on November 27, 2021 by salooper57

What do Americans do for the Thanksgiving holiday? We gorge ourselves on food and then on Black Friday bargains, though we know the one is unhealthy for our bodies and the other for our bank accounts. We sit on the couch for hours watching Thanksgiving Day football, though we know that rooting for the Lions is never good for our mental health.

We do these things year in and year out at Thanksgiving, but do we give thanks? After all, that was what Abraham Lincoln had in mind when, in some of the darkest days of the Civil War, he issued his Thanksgiving Proclamation. It was for the same reason the United States Congress, amid the dark days of 1941, passed a joint resolution that declared the fourth Thursday of November would henceforth be known as Thanksgiving Day and observed as a national holiday.

Declaring a thanksgiving holiday was easier for Congress – and you know nothing is easy for Congress – than giving thanks is for us. St. Paul recognized this difficulty and located its source in a failure to relate appropriately to God: “…although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile.”

G. K. Chesterton wrote, half in jest: “The worst moment for an atheist is when he is really thankful and has no one to thank.” Never having been an atheist, I cannot know whether this is true, but I find it doubtful. I do know, however, that it is a bad moment when a believer who does have someone to thank is not thankful.

Many of us, including some who are well acquainted with suffering, feel we should be thankful. But feeling like we should be thankful is not the same thing as being thankful. Nor is giving thanks. Even unthankful people can give thanks because they think they should, or because they think doing so would be advantageous to them and not doing so would be disadvantageous.

Anyone can choose to give thanks, which is good, but no one can choose to be thankful, which is better. The former is an act; the latter is a consequence. The former is the choice of a moment; the latter is the result of a lifetime. The first requires a decision; the second depends on a set of beliefs.

It is possible to develop habits of gratitude, to be intentional about expressing thanks to people and to God. (Genuinely thankful people will do both.) But developing these habits will be difficult, perhaps even impossible, in the absence of the kinds of beliefs from which gratitude flows. Giving thanks does not make us thankful; beliefs do.

People who are routinely thankful have learned things that others do not know. They know, for example, that “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father…” They receive life and all its pleasures as a gift.

This means that they know that the goods they experience – family, friends, the bracing air of a frigid day, the warm home in which they sleep at night – are not things they deserve. They do not have an entitlement mentality. Entitled people are not thankful people.

Of course, they worked hard so that they could buy some of the things they enjoy, but they realize that the energy with which they worked was itself a gift. Life is a gift. They are a gift. And God is the giver.

Because thankful people expect the God who has been faithful to them in the past to be faithful to them in the future, they are learning to overcome anxiety—a primary obstacle to thankfulness. Because they have come to know God’s character, which is to say they have discovered what kind of person he is, they trust his care even when circumstances are difficult.

Most importantly, they know that God loves them, that God loves everyone, that God is love. At one time – and at many times – they struggled to believe this, but now they are confident of it. They feel loved and are therefore thankful, for they know that love, whenever it comes, is pure gift, and it is always coming from God.

(First published by Gannett.)

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Wide Angle: You Don’t Get to Know God in an Easy Chair

Posted on November 25, 2021 by salooper57

Wouldn’t it be great to be called by God to an important task?  Wouldn’t it be exciting to know that the God who created the universe, the God over all gods, the Lord of all lords, was speaking to you, directing you, employing you for some great purpose? 

That is what happened to Abram.  God spoke to him, and Abram heard.  He understood he was being called to something really big, something with life-changing potential, not just for Abram, but for everyone.  That would be wonderful.

Or would it? You see, God does not call people to comfort or ease.  When he calls a person, it always means change and challenge and sacrifice.  Too many religious teachers present God as a means to an end: come to God and have the life you’ve always wanted, a self-fulfilling, comfortable, interesting life.

But nowhere in the Bible do we find God calling people by saying, “I have a no-hassle life-plan for self-fulfillment, and it has your name on it.  All I ask is that you do me the honor of signing up.”   God’s call stretches people.  Moses was called to free a nation from tyranny.  Gideon was called to fight against impossible odds. The disciples were called to self-denial.  The call of Paul was to suffer for the name of Christ.  Do you really think our call will be to a cushy job, a comfortable home and a leisurely retirement?

God’s call to Abram was to leave his country, his people and his father’s household.  Imagine packing up everything you can carry and moving to another country – say Canada – with no particular destination in mind, without a cell phone, email, or a mailing address.  Leaving home, family, friends – you will never see them again; leaving restaurants, mechanics, barbers, grocery stores.  To answer God’s call meant that Abram would have to give up his identity (his name would mean nothing where he was going), give up his citizenship, his security and his autonomy. 

This verse hits the first note of a theme will repeat throughout this long story: The theme of give, and you will receive; lose and you will find; surrender, and you will conquer.  Leave land and I will give you your own land.  Leave kin, and I will make you the father of nations.  Leave family and I will give you offspring as numerous as the sand on the seashore.

This theme cuts across the modern notion that you can know God without making sacrifices.  Perhaps Abram could have said no, could have stayed in Ur or in Haran and been comfortable (at least some for a while).  But he would not have known God.  You don’t get to know God in your easy chair; you get to know him on the road of obedience.

If that sounds like knowing God is one, long, uncompensated drudgery, I can promise you it is not so. Doing what God calls you to do is not only the fastest way, but also the only way, to live the life you were meant to live, to be the person you want to be.  By heeding God’s call, Abram becomes Abraham.  He is a new person, God’s person and so, for the first time, his own person.

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