Abraham’s Faith and Obedience, Pt. 3
I’ve been in a series about God’s Faithfulness. I’ve been using the lives of Abraham and Sarah to demonstrate how loving, caring, and understanding God is toward us.
Know this: God is faithful, even when we are faithless!
Abraham is the only person in the Bible who is called a friend of God (James 2:23).
Although he was not perfect in his walk with God, scripture records him as God’s friend and his “friend forever” (2 Chr. 20:7). Faith is exemplified throughout his life. Even when Abraham was weak in faith, God saw him as a person of faith.
From this “friend of God,” we learn that faith is not perfect character or integrity. Instead, it is simply taking God at His word and trusting Him. By doing so, Abraham became the model of faith for all believers.
Here is the good news: God is a loving Father who calls us His friends through our faith in Jesus! It is an unconditional love given through Jesus.
Abraham Obeyed God’s Promise
In Genesis 12:1-4 God tells Abraham, “Get up and get out to a land I will show you.”
“By faith, Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going.” Heb. 11:8 NKJV
Abraham’s faith was demonstrated by leaving Haran and journeying to unknown lands. He and his family spent thirty years in Haran. They were comfortable and secure, and now God instructs him to leave the known and safe for a land never seen before.
And he obeyed, “…he went out, not knowing where he was going.”
He heard God’s voice, and now he had to believe and obey. The theme of God speaking to His people and God’s expectation that we believe and obey is repeated throughout the Old and New Testaments.
Has God ever asked you to leave the known and secure? Maybe it was leaving a career to launch into something new, perhaps a business or an area of ministry? We like the safe and predictable. But the Lord often leads us into places that require trust and obedience.
We’re walking a faith walk of obedience even when we don’t understand. Take the first step, Abraham; I’ll show you the second step. We often want the fifth and sixth steps before we’ve taken the first. Faith believes and obeys without leaning on our understanding.
This is not to say that we don’t get counsel and confirmation from other Godly people on significant decisions. But even then, you won’t know all the details with the Lord.
Faith chooses to listen; it obeys what God has spoken. It’s easy to “hear” what God is saying, but believing and obeying God is different. A promise or a dream is only an idea until you act on it!
See the Land and Walk in It!
14 And the Lord said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him: “Lift your eyes now and look from the place where you are—northward, southward, eastward, and westward; 15 for all the land which you see I give to you and your descendants forever. 16 And I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth; so that if a man could number the dust of the earth, then your descendants also could be numbered. 17 Arise, walk in the land through its length and its width, for I give it to you.” Gen. 13:14-17 NKJV
Abraham, walk around the land; it’s yours and your descendants forever. He doesn’t even have the son of promise yet! Just a word about a land and many descendants! He had to put feet with his faith!
Oswald Chambers, an early twentieth-century Christian evangelist, teacher, and author of the devotional My Utmost for His Highest, stated regarding Faith,
“Faith never knows where it is being led, but it loves and knows the one who is leading it.”
The critical point to this quote is, “…knows the One …” To obey God without hesitation and complete confidence requires us to know Him intimately as a loving Father with His best in mind for us.
Psalm 46:10 says, “Be still and know that I am God.” The word “know” comes from the Hebrew word yada; the same word used in Genesis when Adam knew Eve. It speaks of deep intimacy.
Abraham and Sarah had to believe and align their lives with God’s promise to fulfill it. God’s promises reveal the perfect heart of Father God—His love and goodness.
Abraham discovered God as a Father who deeply loves us. God communicates His vision to us through love—not demand. It’s an invitation to journey with Him. He builds us up through His revealed promises and inspires us to partner with Him.
Don’t lean on your senses; look to Jesus and trust His promises! Sense-knowledge faith insists on seeing and understanding before believing. Real faith is built on God’s Word and the leading of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus is the author and finisher of our faith … If you need more faith, look upon Jesus! (Heb. 12:1-2)
Faith says, “Jesus is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?” Faith says, “He will never leave nor forsake me—ever!” Faith says, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me!” (Phil. 4:13)
Faith that believes and obeys God’s promises isn’t always easy.
Obedience is costly and risky, and it involves trust, patience, and a willingness to take risks. However, when our faith is grounded in Jesus and He is at the center, it is much easier to follow God wholeheartedly.
Knowing that I am completely loved and forgiven enables me to receive His love and be confident in Him as He leads in unknown areas or situations.
It means waiting upon God and believing in God’s goodness when we might be tempted to give up.
How do we get to this place of faith and trust? Relationship!
The listening heart is close to the Lord, hearing and seeing what the Lord is revealing and promising.
Faith is fastened to the heavenly realm. Unbelief is attached to the natural (seen) realm. Sense knowledge faith versus real faith.
I have discovered that I can confidently believe the promise if I can hear and perceive what God offers.
God reveals His promises through His written word and revelation by the Holy Spirit to give you, and I hope!
9 But as it is written: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.” 10 But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. 1 Cor. 2:9-10 NKJV
The Holy Spirit reveals God’s plans … to give you hope. God reveals by His Spirit things that your eye hasn’t seen—things God has prepared beforehand for you.
Your mind can’t conceive it, but the Spirit reveals God’s plans for you. Your mind will eventually believe and receive the reality of God’s plans.
He is a loving Father! Identity, calling, and destiny are discovered through a father-son relationship.
God always honors obedience.
Jesus says, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep my word…” John 14:23 NKJV
Is there anything God has told you to do that you may be delaying?
Have you taken a shortcut or two hoping to fulfill His mandate?
Could it be that the heavens are closed – that the blessings are withheld because of your partial obedience?
Find out what God’s Word and the Spirit are saying and obey that!
