Good morning, friends. A few devotional thoughts this morning as I read. Soon shall be time for church, but thought since my heart was encouraged as I read this morning, thought I may as well share! Reading through Genesis currently and it’s one of those books that at times can be easy to skim through. All the well-worn stories, all the narratives you’ve been through countless times before. I’m attempting to slow down a bit and truly ponder what I’m reading. Today, Abram entered the picture. God tells him to go forth from the city where his family has settled and so he does indeed go forth. Abram and his family have some adventures and we are given almost immediate proof that he does not have perfect faith and is really not a perfect man. Yet, what do we see Abram doing in Genesis 12-13? We see a pattern of him building altars and calling upon the name of the Lord. Even though Abram is but a fallen man, imperfect in so many ways, he does consistently seek to honor his God and cry out to Him. Do we do such? Do I do such? Is it a pattern in my life that I take time and effort to show my reverence and awe for my God? Do I consistently call upon the name of the Lord, crying out to him all the day long? Oh that I long that I could say this is always so. I am also an imperfect man, so feeble and frail and negligent of the duties I ought be performing day and night. Yet I know that my salvation cannot be achieved by anything I can do. No, I can never be good enough to warrant divine favor. It is an impossibility that I can be called God’s friend, signed and sealed the moment man turned away from God in the garden.
Yet. But God. Before time and throughout time and in the fullness of time, God had and has smiled upon me and has had great compassion upon my soul, reaching out his hand to pull me up and show me the way that I might be called a friend of God. So just as Abram built alters and called upon the name of the Lord, so might I turn to my God in faith and hope and new-kindled love, knowing that there is a God with whom there is forgiveness of sins. I fear Him and love Him, believing in Him now though I have not seen Him. And in this hope I have of one day being with Him, I have blazing in my soul joy inexpressible and full of glory I call upon the name of the Lord in praise that He has called me first. Oh what joy it is to know that I am a forgiven son. I think on the name of Jesus, God descended to this earth to die for me and then rise in blazing glory as proof that death truly has been conquered and salvation has been won. Oh that we might now turn back to God as we in this garden kneel to hug his feet in newfound love! Let me go through this day now resolved to build an alter to my God in proclamation of what He has done for me. Let me never cease from praying to my Father in heaven. Let me never cease from walking upon this earth as one who has been called to follow Christ. Let me never cease from deliberately and sacrificially loving those around me who all too are made in the image of God Most High. I am weak and broken sure. Yet inside me a divine Spirit lives and unites me to power unimaginable. I am not alone.
