LifeLink Devotions for Friday, September 6, 2024

Abraham’s faith was a work in progress. It was growing and being challenged to continue to grow, just as ours is every day. Faith grows every time we take another step of faith. No step of faith is the last one, but each step of faith leads to a greater one. Abraham demonstrated his desire to trust God for everything as we saw yesterday, and now God asks him to take yet another and even bigger step of faith.

In Genesis 15:1 God speaks to Abraham and says that He is his very great reward. Abraham hears this and his faith is challenged. Abraham is very wealthy already. He has a huge household of people serving him. He is in possession of a great land, and his fame is spreading. He has flocks and herds and camels and lacks nothing. But Abraham also understands that the heritage of future generations is the greatest reward any person can possess. This is obvious from his question back to God which is, “What can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?” Abraham knew that if he had no descendants he had no real reward.

Let me ask you at this point – where is your treasure? Jesus said that wherever your treasure is, that is where your heart is. Is your treasure in what you have or accomplish or is it in the people to whom you model true faith? Possessions cannot pass on heritage. Only people can! Put your heart into people, especially your family, and pass on the heritage of faith.

Back to the story: God gives Abraham more details of His incredible promise. God says that Abraham will have a son, and that through this son Abrahams offspring will become as numerous as the stars in the heavens. This is extrememly significant. God’s earlier promise to Abraham in Genesis 13, following the split with Lot and Abraham’s choice to trust God for his material rewards, was that his descendants would be as numerous as the dust  (or sand) of the earth. In his early stages of faith, Abraham needed to see things from a worldly, horizontal perspective. Isn’t it great that God understands the growing needs of our faith and meets us where we are to give us what we need to grow? Maybe right now in your life your faith is still small and all you can see is the world’s perspective. God will meet you there but be prepared – He will not leave you there. As Abraham’s faith grew, God asked him to change his perspective from looking at the world’s view to seeing a heavenly view. Abraham’s significant step of faith was to hear God say, “Look up, don’t look around.”

I believe that is the step of faith many of us need to take today. Stop looking around for the fulfillment of life and the greatest reward: look up with the eyes of faith and trust the Sovereign Lord. This is the first time in Scripture that anyone has called God Sovereign, and it is significant. Genesis 15:6 tells us that Abraham believed that God would accomplish His purpose, and even though he did not fully understand it, he surrendered to it, and God credited his faith as righteousness. Abraham did not work to receive righteousness; he believed the promise of a Son. It was more than a belief in a physical son named Isaac who would be born. By looking up Abraham saw the spiritual heritage that he would be given when the Son, Jesus Christ, would be born. Abraham’s reward was the spiritual understanding of God’s eternal purpose for man. He could not receive that reward by looking around: he looked up.

My friends, it is time for us to experience the fullness of God’s spiritual reward for our lives by looking up instead of looking around. It is time for us to take the next step of growing faith and surrender to the Sovereign One so that the spiritual overwhelms the sensual. This will eliminate the need for knowing and seeing and will solidify the reality of trusting. Will you take that step today? If you do, you will soon be saying, “Things are looking up!”

Pastor John