LifeLink Devotions for Monday, September 16, 2024

When the Lord had visited Abraham prior to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah He told him that he would have a son within a year. Sarah had overheard that conversation from the tent, and she had laughed in disbelief that something so absurd could really happen. Not only did she laugh, but when confronted with her disbelief she lied about it because she was afraid. Imagine what kind of faithless fear is necessary to lie to the face of the Lord. Instead of being humble and asking for the faith necessary to believe what she had been told, she lied because she was afraid of what would happen to her for her unbelief. Had she not considered that if there was punishment for unbelief there would also be punishment for lying? But in defense of Sarah, we probably would have responded the same way because the fear of self-loss blinds us to the consequences of future actions, and we only see the need for self-protection.

So here we are several chapters later, and the time has come for Isaac to be born. The story of Isaac’s birth begins with a most incredible statement about the character of God  in Genesis 21:1. “Now the LORD was gracious to Sarah as he had said, and the LORD did for Sarah what he had promised.”

One translation of that text is “Now the LORD graciously visited Sarah.” Based on Sarah’s response to the news and the lack of any information in the Bible about a confession and apology for that response, the visit of the LORD was a gracious one. I wonder how many promises of God are being graciously fulfilled in our lives by a God of grace when we don’t really believe He can do it.  In fact, I would go a giant step beyond that and consider that all the promises of God are fulfilled only because of His grace, and that nothing we receive from Him is earned or deserved. Otherwise, none of it is grace. According to human standards of relationship Sarah had certainly lost the right to have a promise fulfilled: but not according to God’s standards. God deals with us by grace, not by grudges: by mercy, not merit.

I want to burst out in praise as I consider all of the times I have walked by sight for selfish reasons, and yet God continues to fulfill His promises. Every day I awake from sleep is a gracious visit from God with life. Every event of every day is a gracious visit from God with direction, guidance, and wisdom. Every improvement in my life of faith is a gracious visit from God who is finishing the work He started in me. Every blessing in my life is a gracious visit from God who has promised every spiritual blessing from on high. Every test and trial is a gracious visit from God to make my faith stronger. None of these things is earned: all these things are God’s gracious visits to me.

I pray that today, and every day, will be a celebration of God’s grace for you. He is visiting us, and He is fulfilling His promise. That is reason to rejoice!

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions for Friday, September 13, 2024

It’s true that like Abraham no matter how strong our faith has grown, there are areas in which we still walk by sight, primarily for one of two reasons: fear of others and fear of self-loss.

Abraham has been traveling around the magnificent land that God has promised him, and he arrives in an area that is currently under the control of a king named Abimelech. Abraham, for the second time recorded in Scripture, tells a lie about his marital status with Sarah.

Genesis 20:11-13 “Abraham replied, “I said to myself, ‘There is surely no fear of God in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife.’ Besides, she really is my sister, the daughter of my father though not of my mother; and she became my wife. And when God had me wander from my father’s household, I said to her, ‘This is how you can show your love to me: Everywhere we go, say of me, “He is my brother.”’”

As a result of their lie, Abimelech decides this new woman to the territory needs to be a part of his harem, so he brings Sarah to his tents to make her his wife. Imagine again the emotional responses of Sarah to all of this, especially since she has just been told that within a year she will have a son with Abraham. God intervenes and speaks directly to Abimelech, telling him the truth of the situation and give him directions to remedy the near tragedy. When Abimelech asks Abraham for an explanation, Abraham responds with an admission of walking by sight rather than by faith but he shows his human nature by trying to justify his actions.

I want us to notice two very important lessons from Abraham’s confession:

1.      Abraham’s faith faltered because of the fear of others. Abraham was more concerned with what men thought about God than with what God thought about men. He allowed his fear of what men could do to him to overwhelm his faith in what God could do for him. Think carefully about this and let the Holy Spirit apply it to your life right now. There are areas in all our lives where this is true. Maybe it’s at work, or in a relationship, or maybe even in church, but somewhere in our lives there is an activity that is motivated by the fear of how people will respond to us rather than by faith in how God will reward us. Growing faith in God’s promises conquers the groveling fear of people. 

2.      Abraham’s faith faltered because of the fear of self-loss. Let me share with you a very significant point that each of us needs to consider very deeply and historically in our walks of faith: decisions motivated by fear rather than faith become almost unbreakable chains of bondage that can affect us for the rest of our lives.  Notice in today’s Scripture that Abraham admits to Abimelech that he made the decision to portray Sarah as his sister at the outset of his journey from his homeland. It was a condition of his walk of faith. When God told him to leave his family and comfort zone, Abraham agreed, on the condition that he would do what was necessary to protect his own life. That decision at the early stage of his faith held him in bondage for a long time. I believe that we all need to seriously consider what conditions we have placed on our walk of faith. What areas of our lives have we decided are ours alone and that we are solely responsible for them? What decisions did we make at an early age that still hold us in emotional and spiritual bondage? How have we limited God’s power in our lives because of human restrictions we have placed on ourselves? These are serious questions, and how we answer them will seriously affect us for a long time. Don’t be like Abraham and try to justify the decision that was made by saying that there was a small element of truth to it. We all know in our hearts what was of faith and what was of fear, and that which is of fear must be confessed and surrendered to God so it can be replaced with His promises.

My friends, there is hope. No decision of the past that led to an emotional or physical addiction is permanent: that is the wonder of the forgiveness of Jesus Christ. Abraham learned from this mistake, and conquered his fears, and passed every additional test of his faith from this point. So can you! God can and will forgive and restore. He will replace your fear with faith. Simply confess your need, make a decision of your will that your will was wrong, and surrender to God’s will. He will make you whole!

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions for Thursday, September 12, 2024

In Genesis chapter eighteen we read the story of three visitors that come to see Abraham and Sarah. The Lord Jesus Christ is one of them in His pre-incarnation form. He confirms that in one year they will have a son. The two angels that accompanied Jesus have left to go down and visit the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to see the terrible sinfulness of the people living there. Jesus stays behind with Abraham and they have a conversation about the impending judgement on the two cities where Abraham’s nephew Lot lives.

Genesis 18: 22-25 The men turned away and went toward Sodom, but Abraham remained standing before the LORD. Then Abraham approached him and said: “Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked? What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? Will you really sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing-to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. Far be it from you! Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?”

We can learn some lessons from their conversation.

1.      Abraham’s relationship with God had grown to the point where he was able to ask God to explain His purpose. Abraham asked Jesus to explain the relationship between God’s choices and actions and His character. This is an important step in our growing faith – to humbly seek to know more about God’s character by asking questions about circumstances that don’t make sense according to what we know to be true about God. Abraham wanted to know God more deeply and intimately, and he humbly sought to understand Him better. Abraham was not attempting to correct God or manipulate Him into a self-centered outcome: he was genuinely seeking to understand the relationship between God’s justice and the treatment of the righteous and the wicked. It is ok for us to seek the heart of God when we don’t understand His actions, so long as we do it with a humble and submissive heart.

2.      Abraham was a man of intercession on behalf of others. He had already rescued Lot once, and now was pleading with God to save him again. I wonder how consistent we are in pleading to the Lord on behalf of the lost around us. We are surrounded by people, even in our own families, who are trapped in sin. They are headed for the proverbial precipice of destruction, and they need an intervention of God to turn them away from certain judgment. The angels are ready to be sent, and God’s compassion is ready to be extended, all as a response to the intercessory prayers of God’s people on their behalf. Let us remain consistent and persistent in our prayers for the unsaved and for the saved who have fallen away.

3.      God’s mercy protects the righteous in judgment. The last statement we have from the Lord in this conversation is this – “For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it.” Abraham was confident that there were ten righteous members of Lot’s family left so that the city would be spared from destruction. He was wrong. His sons-in-law rejected Lot’s request to leave the city. Would Lot now be destroyed in judgment with everyone else? No! In His mercy the Lord had the angels remove the righteous ones from the city before it was destroyed. What great assurance that gives us who are righteous! But God wanted the righteous to live by their faith in Him, and not by any connection to the world, so He put them to a test of their righteousness: don’t look back once you have left the city. Lot’s wife failed the test and suffered the judgment of worldly attraction. We must be careful to live in the righteousness we claim, and to walk in the faith we profess. 

May God use these thoughts to build us up in our faith, fill us with confidence in His saving power, and overwhelm us with compassion for the lost around us.

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions for Wednesday, September 11. 2024

True faith involves obedience, even when it hurts. God has just confirmed his covenant with Abram by giving him a new name – Abraham (which means father of many) – and promising him a son with his wife Sarah. God asks Abraham for a step of obedience to become a participant in the covenant. It was to be a painful step that would require days of healing. It would put the entire household at risk of attack by enemies. It would mean that daily chores would not get done. Animals would be unprotected. Women would have extra responsibilities added to their already busy schedules. This would take some planning and preparation, right? Wrong! Abraham obeyed immediately. He did not ask for time to make sure everything would work out right and that all the administrative issues could be resolved. He simply immediately obeyed.

Genesis 17:23 “On that very day Abraham took his son Ishmael and all those born in his household or bought with his money, every male in his household, and circumcised them, as God told him.”

Years ago, I discovered I needed hernia surgery. It was the spring of the year.  I made plans to have the surgery at a time that would least interfere with my schedule and plans. I knew I would be laid up and in pain for a while, and that my activities would be limited. I chose a date for the surgery that best fit into my plans. Now granted, my hernia surgery was not a step of faith that God was asking me to take, but I wonder how many other times I have delayed immediate obedience because I needed obedience to be convenient.

Complete faith does not take partial ownership in the outcome. Read that statement again carefully. Complete faith does not take partial ownership in the outcome. Sometimes God may give us responsibilities in determining the outcome, but when He clearly states what activity we should be involved in to accomplish His will and purpose, we must obey immediately as Abraham did. The teaching of James in the New Testament verifies this.

“Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it-he will be blessed in what he does. What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him?  Faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.” Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do.” 

God has ownership of the outcome: we are obligated to obedience. Not to earn anything from God, but to joyfully participate in His covenant promises. We are obligated by love, as Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:14 – “Christ’s love compels us.” By faith we are saved. By faith we continue to live. By faith we obey, and we trust the next step to God.

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions for Tuesday, September 10, 2024

 Sometimes our faith in God’s promises is tested by another person’s lack of faith. Abraham has just been through some exciting faith-building experiences, including an upward look into the spiritual kingdom of God that would result from God’s covenant with him, but his wife was not on the same page. We can only speculate as to why she didn’t have the faith of her husband. Was she tired of the social stigma of being childless? Was she simply devising a plan to protect herself as her husband had done when they went to Egypt? Did she know more about Abraham’s doubts than we are told because she lived with him every day? Did she think that God had given her special permission to break His covenant because the end would justify the means?

Whatever the reason for her small faith, Sarai devised a plan to help God out in the accomplishment of making Abraham the father of a great nation.

Genesis 16:1-2 “Now Sarai, Abraham’s wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar; so she said to Abraham, “The LORD has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my maidservant; perhaps I can build a family through her.”

While presenting the plan to her husband, she justifies it by blaming God for her condition. There is no faith demonstrated in the power of God to change her current condition; there is only the scheme to humanly fix the condition. Abraham’s response shows us that his faith still had some growing up to do also: he accepts the plan and participates in it.

Just think of all the emotional tension that must have existed in Sarai and Abraham at this time. Both want God’s promise to be fulfilled, but for different reasons. Sarai wants a family. She wants to be a respected part of society. She has given up hope that it will happen naturally for her, so she chooses to give another woman to her husband and share him with her. She is willing to suffer those emotional consequences for the emotional benefits she hopes will come later.

Abraham also wants a family, not for the emotional benefit but rather for the spiritual. His motives may be more pure, but his method is still wrong. In fact, we can call his motives sinful, because Romans 14:23 says that “everything that does not come from faith is sin.”  When we set aside the power and provision of God to accomplish His promise and use our power and provision instead, we sin.

My friends, there are some important issues for us to consider in this story as they relate to our own walks of faith. How many of our choices are made based on human reason and understanding rather than faith in God’s purpose and plan? How many of our choices are based on emotional responses to circumstances rather than faith in God’s power to provide? How many of our choices are our attempts to hurry the process and bring fulfillment to the promises of God? How many of our choices are responses to our emotional need to fit in and be accepted by others?

Consider carefully your circumstances right now, and before you make your plans, seek God’s purpose, seek His plan, and trust His promise. Then WAIT. Because faith waits. And while you wait, your faith grows, and in the end, God’s glory will be experienced.

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions for Monday, September 9, 2024

When I read the next step of faith God gives to Abraham, I recognize a difference between me and him. Abraham believed in the impossible but needed proof of the probable. I tend to be the opposite. When God speaks in terms and circumstances I can understand in my finite thoughts, I believe Him. It’s the hard-to-believe conclusions that give me problems. But Abraham was the opposite.

Genesis 15:7-8  “God said to him, “I am the LORD, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it.” But Abraham said, “O Sovereign LORD, how can I know that I will gain possession of it?”

Abraham believed in the impossibility of a son, and in the future Son of God that would come 1500 years later, but he could not accept without proof that the land in which he was already living would be his. Sometimes our faith can be so fickle. What amazes and thrills me is that God meets us at the neediest point of our faith. The LORD God did not reject Abraham for his need of proof, nor did he criticize him and tell him to grow up. He answered the request for proof by establishing an unbreakable covenant that guaranteed the outcome.

There is great comfort in knowing that God does not require our faith to be perfect: He only requires that we be willing to be taught to have greater faith. I am so thankful that God is patient with us and graciously deals with our weaknesses. Imagine what a horrible condition we would be in if God were to treat us in any way other than with grace and mercy. We would live in fear and total despair because we would be constantly reminded of our failures. It breaks my heart to see parents treat their children this way, and to see the broken spirits of the children resulting in lives of either criminal rebellion or emotional separation. So many of the drug, alcohol, and sexual addictions of our youth are directly traceable to their lack of personal value that should have been bestowed through the grace and mercy of parents. It may be because the parents weren’t present, or maybe because they didn’t model grace.

God’s grace is amazing. Even the sound of that word is sweet. His grace saved sinful wretches like us. You remember the song: “Amazing grace how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost but now I’m found; was blind but now I see.”

I praise God that he does not treat me as I tend to treat others, but rather meets me at my point of need and graciously meets that need. It is vital to the growth of our faith that we trust the grace of God so that we can be honest with Him about where we are struggling. Tell Him your struggles today and listen for His response. He will confirm His promise and affirm your faith.

Pastor John

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

LifeLink Devotions for Thursday, September 5, 2024

In our ongoing saga of the life of Abraham, from which we are learning great lessons in faith, Abraham has become very established in the land of promise and has grown in wealth and power. Lot has moved from his tents on the outskirts of Sodom to living in the city.  He is captured in a war with neighboring territories. When Abraham receives word that his nephew has been taken prisoner, he organizes a small army of 318 men from his household and pursued Lot’s captors. When he catches them, he routs them in a nighttime battle and recovers all the stolen property and the captured people. This was a great act of faith on Abraham’s part, to take 318 men into battle against five kings and their armies from their respective cities.  But there is an even greater act of faith to follow. We read about it in Genesis 14:17-20.

“After Abraham returned from defeating Kedorlaomer and the kings allied with him, the king of Sodom came out to meet him in the Valley of Shaveh (that is, the King’s Valley). Then Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. He was priest of God Most High, and he blessed Abraham, saying, “Blessed be Abraham by God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth. And blessed be God Most High, who delivered your enemies into your hand.”  Then Abraham gave him a tenth of everything.”

On their way home, the King of Salem, now modern day Jerusalem, came out to meet Abraham. King Melchizedek held a dual office of king and priest of God Most High. He blessed Abraham and gave the glory for the victory to God. Then, in phase one of Abraham’s incredible act of faith, he gives Melchizedek one tenth of everything they had recovered in the war. Before there was any law that required tithing, from the love in his heart for God, Abraham gave a tenth of everything to the Lord. This is a great lesson for us today. We do not give to the Lord’s work because the law obligates us to: we give to the Lord because love motivates us – God’s love for us and our love for Him. If you wonder how much you should give, here is the starting point – 10% of everything you receive.

But that is not the end of Abraham’s faith in this story. The king of Sodom approaches Abraham and tries to bargain for the rest of the spoils, specifically for the people. This king was smart and knew that people were far more valuable than possessions, and people would generate greater wealth. He offers to let Abraham keep the material prizes in exchange for the people. But Abraham models incredible faith for us and says this, “I have raised my hand to the LORD, God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth, and have taken an oath that I will accept nothing belonging to you, not even a thread or the thong of a sandal, so that you will never be able to say, ‘I made Abraham rich.’ I will accept nothing but what my men have eaten and the share that belongs to the men who went with me-to Aner, Eshcol and Mamre. Let them have their share.”

WOW! Abraham’s faith was so strong that he gave everything away except his actual expenses and the fair share for his men. Abraham kept nothing for himself. Why? Because he never wanted any credit for his life to go to anyone but God. He trusted the promise of God so completely at this point in his life that he could give everything away and have complete confidence that God would continue to provide for him. Yes, Abraham still had great wealth and power, but it was all given to him by God and not by man.

 What a great lesson for us today – God alone is our provider. God alone receives the glory for what we have and what we accomplish. We will cease from our personal agendas, plans, pursuits, and power struggles, and relinquish everything to the promises of God. Let it never be said of our lives that anything of the world made us what we are. Let us raise our hand to the Lord, God Most High, Creator of the heaven and earth, and swear an oath to Him that we will accept no glory for ourselves from the world, nor will we allow the world to take any glory for who we are, what we have, or what we accomplish, and that all of the glory go to God alone. Let it be so!

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions for Wednesday, September 4, 2024

In today’s story of faith, we see yet another example of Abraham trusting God’s promises.

Genesis 13:5-11 “Now Lot, who was moving about with Abram, also had flocks and herds and tents. But the land could not support them while they stayed together, for their possessions were so great that they were not able to stay together. And quarreling arose between Abram’s herdsmen and the herdsmen of Lot. The Canaanites and Perizzites were also living in the land at that time. So Abram said to Lot, “Let’s not have any quarreling between you and me, or between your herdsmen and mine, for we are brothers. Is not the whole land before you? Let’s part company. If you go to the left, I’ll go to the right; if you go to the right, I’ll go to the left.” Lot looked up and saw that the whole plain of the Jordan was well watered, like the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt, toward Zoar. (This was before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.) So Lot chose for himself the whole plain of the Jordan and set out toward the east. The two men parted company:”

Let’s learn a couple of lessons from this story:

1.      Lot was selfish. He had made the great journey from Ur to Canaan on Abraham’s bootstraps. He had gained his wealth and prominence by following Abraham. Yet when a problem developed, Lot showed no humility and gratitude, but rather took advantage of the situation to further his own objectives. In such a situation I would hope that we would respond with humility and faith in God’s ability to provide for us, rather than with self-serving responses.

2.      Abraham was a man of faith in God’s Word. He has just been through a learning experience in Egypt, and when he returned to Canaan he built an altar and called on the Name of the Lord. He was reminded of God’s promise and that he was to walk by faith every day, and he passed the first test that came with flying colors. He totally trusted God with the outcome and gives Lot the first choice of land for their flocks and herds. Following Lot’s choice, God affirmed His promise, and rewarded Abraham’s faith by giving him not only the land He was left with, but all of the land Lot had just chosen as well.

3.      Abraham was a content man in his faith. Lot chose city life, with all its pleasures and conveniences. Abraham was left with his tents. But immediately he built another altar to the Lord, content in knowing that God would fulfill His promise. The walk of faith would be exciting as he would move through the length and breadth of the land to experience the fullness of God’s provision, and he did not allow himself to be sidetracked by fleshly desires and worldly allures, as did Lot. When we are on God’s path of faith, moving through the entire coverage area of His provision, we can be content knowing that God is fulfilling His purpose.

These three lessons are great reminders for us in our current situations of life. In every circumstance there is the potential for faith-walking or sight-walking. Sight-walking is selfish and ends in destruction. Faith-walking is fulfilling and ends in honor and glory. Make your choices accordingly.

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions for Tuesday, September 3, 2024

As we look at the life of Abram and learn some great lessons on faith, we discover in the last portion of the twelfth chapter of Genesis that Abram had made a terrible mistake and done something by physical sight rather than spiritual faith. He saw a famine in the land, and how it would affect him, and he made a fleshly decision to move to Egypt. Along the way and while he was there one bad decision led to another and he got himself and his wife into serious trouble. His walk of faith quickly became a walk of sight and bad judgment. Whenever we walk by our sight we have only our wisdom to trust, and that inevitably leads to bad decisions and trouble because our wisdom is so limited, and our judgment is so flawed. It is only when we walk by faith in God’s wisdom that we experience the provisions that God promises.

At the end of his time in Egypt, Abram made a wise decision of faith.Genesis 13:1says, “So Abram went up from Egypt to the Negev, with his wife and everything he had, and Lot went with him. Abram had become very wealthy in livestock and in silver and gold.”

Notice the words at the beginning of this passage. “So Abram went up”. No greater words of encouragement can be found than these, for after a failure God provides a way to go up again. There is always a way back to the Promised Land of God’s blessing. The road back begins with humble honesty. Abram had to finally admit to Pharaoh what he had done, and when he did, he was sent on his way back to the land of blessing. Besides that, his honesty allowed him to keep all that he had acquired while he was there. Be careful here – don’t let Satan misuse this story to lead us into thinking that we can gain personal prosperity under false pretenses and then at the end admit the truth and keep all the gain. That would be arrogantly presumptuous of God’s holy character and justice. But in this case, God showed us that even in our moments of bad judgment and faithless decision-making, God is merciful and working to restore us to the land of blessing and accomplish His purpose in and through us. It all goes back to what we talked about yesterday – the original vision. God has not withdrawn it. We may have walked away from it, but God is working to complete the purpose in us to which we were called, and that means He helps us to go up again after we have gone down the wrong path.

What past failures and fears have led you down the wrong path and kept you from the land of blessing? Maybe you are still on that path and need to be humbly honest and repent and go up again on God’s path of faith. Maybe it is a path you took some time ago, but its effects have lingered on into today and hold you in a sort of faith-bondage. Maybe today is the day you step out in faith and go up again to accomplish God’s original vision for your life.

Mark this day on your calendar and write these words in your journal – “Today I went up from _____________ to _______________. (Fill in the blanks with where you have been and where God has called you, respectively.) Make this the day that is commemorated in your spiritual journey as the day you returned to a walk of faith.

Pastor John