Day 8- Genesis 12

It has been a while since I blogged about my readings.  My deepest apologies, I'll try and catch you up on each one!

"Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you." Genesis 12:1

A clear message. One without a specific destination- only one command: Leave.

It reminds me of my year in Bible School.  As the year drew to an end, I had been planning to either continue on or pursue further biblical education through YWAM. I prayed and prayed for guidance.  What did God want from me? I really wanted to go back to CLBI.

One thing was clear. "Don't go back to CLBI"
It wasn't because it was a bad school, or a place where God surely was not.  I couldn't sort it out. And I spend the whole summer wrestling through what I would end up doing. Everything was unsure, but the only thing that was clear was that I wasn't to go back.

It is one thing to be called to leave one place to arrive at another.  It is another thing to be called to leave a place with no destination in mind.

This is what Abram did!

"By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. " Hebrews 11:8

 And of course, we look at the promises from God that come right after his command to leave and why wouldn't he go?

"I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you;

I will make your name great,

and you will be a blessing.  

I will bless those who bless you,

and whoever curses you I will surely curse;

and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you." 

Genesis 12:2-3


(An interesting note is that this covenant can be broken into seven parts. The perfect and whole number.
Also note that there is no condition on Abram's part of this covenant.  These are unconditional promises from God.)

The city where Abram was living at that time, Ur, was a highly advanced city.  It was very settled and would have had the opportunities and benefits of being a modern and advanced city. 

It also had all the evils and temptations of a city consumed by greed and idols.  Abram's father, Terah, worshipped the idols in that city. 

*(As I travel through the Old Testament, I have been putting together parts of Jesus' story that have always been there and I never connected them.  We know that Jesus' ancestry comes from Abraham, which means that in Jesus' lineage, we have Terah- the idol worshipper as well.)  

Living in the setting of a wicked and depraved city, with a patriarch who worshipped false gods, Abram could've lived a very different life.

Yet God called him. 

May you find encouragement today in knowing that God does not call people and bless them according to where they are from, but because of where they are going. It's not about where you've been, but where God is taking you.

What is He asking you to leave today?