Acts 7:1-51 \/ 4-5\u00a0<\/b>–\u00a0\u201cSo he left the land of the Chaldeans and settled in Harran. After the death of his father, God sent him to this land where you are now living.\u00a05\u00a0He gave him no inheritance here,\u00a0not even enough ground to set his foot on. But God promised him that he and his descendants after him would possess the land,\u00a0even though at that time Abraham had no child.<\/i><\/p>\n
\u201c<\/span>\u201cSo he left the land of the Chaldeans and settled in Harran. After the death of his father, God sent him to this land where you are now living.\u00a05\u00a0He gave him no inheritance here,\u00a0not even enough ground to set his foot on. But God promised him that he and his descendants after him would possess the land,\u00a0even though at that time Abraham had no child<\/i>.\u201d \u00a0Stephen tells how Abraham was obedient to the call of God.\u00a0 God told Abraham\u00a0\u201c\u201cGo from your country, your people and your father\u2019s household\u00a0to the land\u00a0I will show you. 2\u00a0\u201cI will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. 3\u00a0I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.<\/span><\/i>\u201d (Genesis 12:1-3<\/b>).\u00a0 Here we see that God promised the land of Israel for all of Abraham\u2019s descendants.\u00a0 God promised to bless them and said that He will cause Abraham\u2019s descendants to be a great nation.\u00a0 He said Israel would be a blessing to the world and that He would bless all who bless Israel.\u00a0 He also let Abraham know that He would protect Israel and that those nations that oppose Israel would find their opponent not to be a nation of men, but their opponent would be God Himself.\u00a0 God will curse those who curse Israel.\u00a0 What a great promise!\u00a0 This promise was made to only one people and those people would be the descendants of Abraham.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Abraham did not go straight through to the Promised Land that God was leading him to.\u00a0 He stopped at Harran as it seems his father was ill.\u00a0 Abraham stayed there till his father died and then he continued on.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Abraham in listed in\u00a0Hebrews 11<\/b>\u00a0list of Heroes of The Faith.\u00a0Hebrews 11:13<\/b>\u00a0says of Abraham and the other heroes \u201c<\/span>All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised;\u00a0they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance,\u00a0admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth.<\/i>\u201d\u00a0 Abraham lived in faith in God and in the promise He gave Abraham.\u00a0 Abraham never physically possessed the Promised Land, but believed God that his descendants would.\u00a0 Abraham obeyed God and set up his descendants to also walk in the faith and for them to inherit the promises that God had given to Abraham.<\/p>\n God promised in\u00a0Genesis 12<\/b>\u00a0that Abraham\u2019s descendants would possess the land of Israel when he was already an old man with no children.\u00a0 Abraham, when he continued on from Harran, was seventy-five years old without any children.\u00a0 Abraham, a childless man, believed God and faithfully followed Him even though the promise seemed too much to believe.\u00a0 God promised Abraham that his many descendants would possess the Promised Land even when Abraham was childless.\u00a0 Abraham left the city he lived in, most of his family and the inheritance he would receive, to receive a promise of God that seemed impossible.\u00a0 He travelled across land where he expected to survive because God would protect him and provide for him.\u00a0 Abraham did not know how God would fulfill His promises, but Abraham wholeheartedly, and was firmly convinced in his mind that God would.\u00a0 Amazing faith!<\/p>\n How about us?\u00a0 If we were called by God to leave all we knew to go to a foreign land to fulfill the will of God, would we?\u00a0 Do we even to submit to God to do his will in the land we live in, around the home that He gave us, or in the work and life that He gave us?\u00a0 If we won\u2019t share the Gospel with all those around us as we are commanded to do (Matthew 28:18-20<\/b>), because man tells us not to, or intimidates us, how would we be as faithful as Abraham?\u00a0 Abraham had no reason to believe that at his age he would have a child.\u00a0 He had no reason to believe that at his age he would be able to make this long journey safely.\u00a0 He had no reason to believe that his descendants (whom there was no physical evidence of) would possess this land that he had not previously seen or even known of.\u00a0 He had no reason to believe any of these things except for God.\u00a0 And because God said it Abraham believed it and that settled it.\u00a0 Abraham did not have any scriptures to read, re-read, and lean upon.\u00a0 He had the word of God and that was enough.\u00a0 How about us?\u00a0 With the Word, we have so much more (volume, not truth) to lean upon, to encourage us, and yet, do we have even a little of the great faith that Abraham had?\u00a0 Really?\u00a0 Family, let faith transform what we know God promises us in His Word and make it something tangibly real and proof positive that all God has said to us is truth and reality to us now (Hebrews 11:1<\/b>).\u00a0 Let us walk on the bridge that we cannot see.\u00a0 Why, because God said we could.\u00a0\u00a0 Let us believe as Abraham believed and obey as Abraham behaved.\u00a0 Because Abraham walked in faith God used Abraham for great things.\u00a0 The heroes of faith have all walked in faith and by doing so were approved of and blessed by God (Hebrews 11:2<\/b>).\u00a0 If we have faith in God, and that is borne out by what we do, then God will also use us.\u00a0 God using us is the highest honor.\u00a0 And He does.\u00a0 Praise God!<\/p>\n Psalm 150:6<\/b>\u00a0–\u00a0Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.\u00a0 Praise the Lord!<\/i><\/p>\n Micah 7:7<\/b>\u00a0–\u00a0But as for me, I watch\u00a0in hope\u00a0for the\u00a0Lord, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear\u00a0me.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n Micah 6:8<\/b>\u00a0–\u00a0He has shown You, O man, what\u00a0is\u00a0good; And what does the\u00a0Lord\u00a0require of You but to do justly, to love mercy, And to walk humbly with Your God.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Acts 7:1-51 \/ 4-5\u00a0–\u00a0\u201cSo he left the land of the Chaldeans and settled in Harran. After the death of his father, God sent him to this land where you are now living.\u00a05\u00a0He gave him no inheritance here,\u00a0not even enough ground to set his foot on. But God promised him that he and his descendants after…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1192],"tags":[82,1865,104,101,94,17],"class_list":["post-1482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-devotion","tag-acts","tag-genesis","tag-hebrews","tag-matthew","tag-micah","tag-psalm"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1482"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1482\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1486,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1482\/revisions\/1486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}