The promises of God

Thursday 24 June 2021

The promises of God

And the Lord said to Abram : Leave your land, your homeland, and your families, and go into the land that I will bring you up. I will make you a great nation... ; and all the families of the earth will be blessed in you. Genesis 12:1-3

It is the start of an extraordinary story in an amazing context. In fact, two major events preceded this account : first, a judgment which reduced humanity to one family, that of Noah saved from the flood ; then a crazy epic where men seek to take control of their own destiny and begin to build a city and the Tower of Babel. God stops them, scrambles their language so that they no longer understand each other and scatters them.

After these events spread over several centuries, God chooses a man, Abraham, to whom he makes promises. These promises announce the great plan of God for rebellious humanity : from the people born of the Patriarch will be born the Messiah who will bring salvation to men.

To fulfill such promises, God uses man, proof of his concern and his deep love for his creature who has strayed on the paths of independence.

His choice bears the mark of his sovereignty. He calls Abraham, who does not seem to have the right characteristics because he is 75 years old and his marriage is barren (Genesis 11:30). But God knows in advance the response of faith that Abraham will show.

All initiatives come from God. He gives Abraham a firm order to go to an imprecise destination, Go from your country..., which robs him of all his national and family roots. But God associates obedience to this order with personal and universal blessings.

A man who receives such promises must continually look beyond himself to God, and thus experience faith. For Abraham faith was the assurance of what he hoped for and the conviction of realities he did not see (Hebrews 11:1).

Abraham's response to God's call is a dazzling display of faith: Abram set out according to the word of the Lord and then there he built an altar in honor of the Lord and he called in the name of the Lord (Genesis 12:4,8).

Source (Pleasing the Lord)