FBT Daily Devotional: Genesis 12:1-13:8

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

So be it. So today we'll be talking about Genesis 12, chapters 12 and 13, and just a little brief uh background about Abraham, um, what is known as the father of faith. Um, Romans 4:16 tells us that promise comes by faith, so it can rest on grace and be guaranteed to all who share the faith of Abraham, right? For he is the father of faith, and we know that faith pleases our father God. And we know right now he is called Abram, and later God renames him Abraham, and he is the uh patriarch of not only the Israelites, but the Ismailite Ismites, the Edomites, and the Metonites, right? His story is uh of a life of faith and obedience, um, forming the foundation of a couple of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, believe it or not. But we all know that the promise of God is for the children of Israel and for those who call Jesus Lord and Savior. So Abram means exalted father, and God later changed his name to Abraham, which means father of many nations. So let us start. We're gonna begin at chapter one. I'm gonna read a few verses and then we'll go into. So the Lord had said to Abram, Go from your country, your people, your father's household to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation, 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 curse you, I will curse them, and all people on the earth will be blessed through you. So Abram went as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. And Lot went with him, right? And Abram was 75 years old when he um set out for Haran, and his and he took his wife Sarah and his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated, and the people they had acquired in Haram, and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there, right? So Abram, we just talked about him. He is a great grandson, 10 generations of Noah from the lineage of Shem. You know, his father's name was Tara. Now, Tara, you know, God had told Tarah his father to go to the land of uh to uh Canaanites, right? To Canaan. And so he did go as far. He came out of U of Chaldeas, and then he went to the Heron, and the Bible said he settled there, right? It doesn't tell us, it don't give us like details of to why he settled. All we know is when God told him to go to the land of Canaan, he just got as far as here, right? And so before we move forward, I just want to ask this question. Um where have we settled in life, even though we know that God is calling us up higher? Where have we settled in life where God is calling us up higher? And so I continue on. Abram continued to travel on. He he he went towards the promise, right? He went out. Let's say the Bible said he arrived in the promised land, right? He said they said they set out for the land of Canaan and they arrived there. And so um, when he got there, right, it was so good. God um just reminded him or reassured him and gave him more details in this, right? He said, I will give your offsprings um this land, right? So don't be moved, right? Because you know, the people, some people was in the land, even though he gave him the promise and said he was going into Canaan, it was still people in the land, the Canaanites, right? But God said, Don't but don't be moved by that, right? Um, don't be moved by uh people being in the land or in your position or anything that he promised you, right? He already given it to you. He don't go back on his promises. We just have to have faith in him, and so Abraham didn't treat that promise as a distance, he wasn't moved by the Canaanites, right? He responded immediately to wrote to worship, right? The Bible said he built the altar there, right? He worshiped and praised God, like you know what? I have faith in God, even though people are in the land, I am still worshiping, praising him, right? That's why we call this man the father of faith, right? He saw, but he didn't possess it yet, but he still praised God and just just vast in his presence and his promise. So God is faithful, even when we make mistakes trying to do things our own way. God remains faithful. His gifts and callings are irrevocable, right? He is a man that he should not lie, he never lies. He said, I will bless those who bless you, I will curse those who curse you. And Abram, right? He went down to Egypt and lied about Sarah. He's told them, That's my sister, right? But God kept his promise, right? God, right, kept his promise. And just talk about Sarah. Sarah's 65 years old, right? And these people are gushing over her beautifulness. You know, something about that anointing when you cast your care, he preserved your use, right? Amen. So, right, but she was so beautiful that Pharaoh gave, and this was a lot in their days. He gave them sheep, cattles, male donkeys, and everything else, right? Female servants and male servants, she must have been super fine, right? Because he gave him a lot of things, right? But God is faithful, don't touch his anointed, right? Don't mess with his covenant people because although Pharaoh didn't know, right? God said, uh-uh, don't mess with uh uh Abraham's wife. That's my chosen man, right? He plagued the place with diseases, you know. Uh um, so showing that on uh uh this faith journey, right? God deals with every person's systems and situations that try to rise against us, right? Sometimes even when we try to fight against each other, he'll deal with our hearts as well, amen. Amen. Because he is not a guy that he shall lie, he keeps his promises. So we're gonna move on to chapter 13. This is where it really gets kind of interesting and good, right? So Abram he left Egypt very rich, right? He was very rich. He went on to um back towards the place of altar and he worshiped again. He went back to the place where God said something to him and he worshiped again. This man was a worshiper, right? He praised God, right? He he knew God was just so good and just worthy to be praised, right? To worship, right? And so he said, It don't, I don't care what it looks like, it'd be good, bad, or indifferent. I'm gonna praise him anyway. And so, even when he didn't see the promises, God brought it back to his remembrance, and that's how good we serve a good, loving God, that he is so good and he will bring everything back to our remembrance, and we praise him in it in a good, bad, and I don't know, right? But the Bible tells us that um Lot and Abraham both became very wealthy, right? And the land could not support the two because the both of them two of them, he couldn't support the two because they was living too close together. Let's pause and think about this for a minute. What happens when you grow outgrow a situation? Sometimes spaces and places become too small or too big for the vision or too small for the vision that God gave you, right? Do you honor or dishonor? Because they started fighting amongst the two of them, right? Abraham, men, and lot. Not to mention you have a bunch of innocent bystanders in the midst, right? Maybe people who don't really know or believe about this Jesus, but they are watching, right? Because the verse in chapter seven tells us, and I love God, He's so intentional about his words. Who is so good? It said a dispute broke out between the herdsmen of Abraham and Lot. And at that time, the Canaanites and the Prezites were also living in the land. So you have people always watching, right? They always watch and they like, are these people really Christians? Who they say they are they gonna be, right? You know, or are they this God of the Bible really exist? Is it real, real, right? So you got these people, they arguing amongst each other, they don't know nothing about them, they just know that hey, we stand on God's business, we're walking by faith, right? And but Abram, right? Abram, a man of faith, right? He chose honor. He said to Eli, hey, we shouldn't be fighting, neither should our helps be fighting. We are family. Look at all this land, there's plenty of room. You can choose which parts you want. If you go left, I'll go right. If you go right, I'll go left. Lord, I said, Jesus, come on, Jesus. This is a prayer for we should have like Holy Spirit. You have your way. If you tell me to go right, I'll go right. If you tell me to go left, I'll go right or left. Have your way, have your way in our lives, right? That's a prayer, right? Simon, so we know Lot chose um the most beautiful part, the well watered everywhere. The Bible said it looked like the garden of the Lord, or even the beautiful land of Egypt. But what he was facing, and near was a place wicked, very wicked, and in this place consistently sinned against the Lord, Sodom. Right? But the Bible but when God do it his way, it don't matter what you're facing because God told us we are in the world, but we are in the world, but not we are not of the world, right? So when God gives us a strategy to partake and sitting us by even wicked things, right? We won't be in the next chapter sitting at the doorway telling people to come on in, right? Uh uh. We'll be knowing what to do, right? We'll be worshiping God, praising him. And so, you know, I love the Lord because he is so in the details. Oh my god, he is so in the details. Just check out, just check this out, right? And verse, in chapter, I mean verse 14, he said, After Lot had gone, the Lord said to Abram, look as far as you can see in every direction, north, south, east, and west. I am giving all the land, all this land as far as you can see to you and your descendants as a permanent possession. And I will give you so many descendants like that, like the dust of the earth that cannot be counted. Go and walk through the land in every direction. Ah, for I am giving it to you. So Abram moved to the camp of Hebrew and settled near the oak grove belonging to the mirror. There he built the altar to the Lord. This worship man, this man worshiped. Oh, he built another altar, right? And when people leave, that was probably never meant to walk alongside of us, right? Or even the whole journey, this is never gonna stop God's plan. But also, look, right, look at the what the scripture said. That that vision became a little clear. It starts talking about north, south, east, and west, right? Talking about permanent positions, right? You know, Abraham, ooh, he get his vision became clear when when Lot was gone, right? In some situations, people around us make so much noise, meaning they have too much going on, they create this um distractions, right? And that we can't even hear from God too much, right? They they doing too much, they they they uh compromising too much as well, right? So at the Imagine conference, and I'm ending here, um one of the speakers talked about catch up packages, right? How we try to save them, and for whatever reason, right, we don't want to get rid of these catch up packages, right? And so, but when we get rid of them, we open up ourselves for the more, right? Our vision becomes clear. God can give us more details and stretch our capacity for the more, but because notice he started, like I said, to describe south, even north. He gave him more details as the more he walked, right? And so when some people who probably, like I said, was never meant to walk the whole journey with us, their presence does not stop God's plan, but their absence often makes the vision clearer. Holding on to catch-up packages, old habits, fears, backup plans can block the more God wants to give us. When we release what we're clinging to, we make room for God's provision and direction. What are we holding on to, right? That's the question. On Wednesday night, Pastor Kara gave us the two questions: what can we do better, and what should I stop doing? So, really, what can we holding on to? And what have God given when God given us more to stretch our capacity, right? Who we might have to let go. So that's all my time. Thank you very much.