![]() This chapter contains both the faithful obedience of Abram and the doubting failure. But this is a lesson that Abram learned over time. Abram knows that even when he fails, God will not. It’s not that he has great faith, but that he has a great God. And that is why he is the father of faith. Abram was a man of faith because when he failed, when he fell flat on his face, he got up, brushed himself off, and started over again. Abram was a man of faith not because he never doubted, and not because he never failed. So here is the difference between a man of faith and a man of fear. In four of these tests, Abram failed miserably. You would think that a man of faith would easily pass all the tests. In Genesis 12 and following, God appears personally to Abram multiple times, each time to develop faith in his life. No, Abram became a man of great faith because for many years he had very little faith, and even in those times, God continued to keep his promises to Abram. Nor did he have some spiritual gift of faith, or some secret to trusting God. ![]() Abram was not naturally a man of great faith. But when we get a real honest picture of Abram’s life, his times of great faith and trust in God, are balanced and offset by times of great doubt and disobedience. And I could beat myself up all day about how Abram lived that way, and so I should too. I want to trust God in all things, and never doubt, and never fear, and never worry. But do you want to know what encourages me most about Abram? It’s not his faith, but his lack of faith. That, however, is not quite the Abram of the Bible. But God told Abram to go, and so Abram went. He didn’t know how he would feed himself or his family when he got there. We think of Abraham, or Abram, as this man of great faith who left his family, his home, his possession, and just picked up and left one day when God told him to go. Christianity, which is all about faith in Jesus Christ, and walking with God by faith, holds up Abraham as an example to live by.īut it’s awful hard to live up to that kind of standard. It is repeated over and over in the New Testament that He believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness. Not necessarily as our physical descendant, but as our spiritual one. This magazine was primarily interested in why both Israel and the various Arab nations claim Abram as their forefather, and yet are constantly at war with one another.Ĭhristians also hold up Abraham as our forefather. A leading news magazine had him as their cover story article not too long ago. ![]() Though he lived about 4000 years ago, he is still a prominent figure today. ![]() Failure (Genesis 12:10-20)Ībraham is one of the most important men in all of history. It is with the calling of Abraham that God really begins to set a plan in motion to deliver the world from the problems that have occurred up to this point in the Bible. It forms the basis for pretty much everything that follows. Genesis 12 may be one of the most famous chapters in the Bible. ![]()
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