12:1-3 - This is the covenant that started it all...the beginning of the Israelite nation - a chosen people, a priest nation, a light to the world...from this foundation would come the Savior of the world - God made flesh - Jesus. Did you notice how the covenant starts out? Go! God calls Abram into action. He calls him into leaving everything that Abram knows...the place where he feels safe...to go out into the wilds...to start a nation when Abram and Sarai have never even been able to have any children. God is going to do all the work...God will be ever faithful...but He demands that Abram move...He demands that he go...He demands that He trust in His Creator. As Christians we are people under a different covenant...we are under a covenant bought by the blood of Jesus Christ - God Himself. He paid the price for our failure. He took away our shame. He made a personal relationship with God possible for us once again. And our end of this covenant is very similar to Abram's...Go! And make disciples. Trust that God's way is better. Offer your bodies as living sacrifices. Abram trusted God and without a word...he went. If we trust in Jesus Christ and the power of his sacrifice...we will go too. We will leave the "safety" and "comfort" of our little self-focused worlds and MOVE. We will act. We will trust. We will love. We will be true disciples of Jesus Christ.
12:10-20 - Thank you Abram...seriously, thank you. I hope this doesn't sound terrible, but from time to time I need confirmation that I am not the only screw up in the world. Just before this, Abram leaves everything he knows to blindly wander into the desert because he trusts God. That is incredible...it is an amazing picture of faith...I want to have faith like that! Yet, a short while later he is heading into Egypt and he decides to forget all about trusting God and take matters into his own hands. He lies and gets his wife to lie...he takes advantage of Pharaoh financially ...his choices lead to his wife being apparently becoming one of Pharaoh's concubines...he royally screws up! Abram, who will become Abraham...the Father of the Jewish nation...the man revered in the Old and New Testaments because of his faith...he had moments where his faith was lacking. And I am sorry for that, but I also need to know that. I need to have the hope that this story brings. God continues to work even through our failure. God continues to love us, even when our actions show that our faith is lacking. I need to be reminded from time to time that God's faithfulness never fails...even when mine does.
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