The Call of Abraham - Genesis 11:30 - 12:7 - January 10, 2021

God called Abraham and Sarah to a new way of life — not one built on human potential, but on the promise and power of God.

The purpose of this call was to create an alternative community within a world that had gone wrong. In Abraham’s call we find the call of faith for people of all times. We make our way forward by learning what it means to rely on God in the face of our own inadequacy and a world closed to promise. What the world has thought impossible is possible by the power of God.

We are not told why God chooses to speak to Abraham, only that he hears God's call and acts on it. If Abraham is to be commended for anything in this passage, it’s not in who he is or what he says, but how he responds. God makes great promises to Abraham, but to receive them he must leave the life he knows behind. This is an important lesson for anyone who desires to follow Jesus. We must exchange the known for the unknown if we hope to answer the call of God for our lives.

Notice that Abraham reaches the Promised Land and explores its boundaries, but he does not yet possess it. It would be hundreds of years before the nation of Israel would finally settle there. Yet here the Lord appears to him and here he builds an altar to the Lord. The response to God’s confirming appearance is worship, and the same is true for us today.

American Sign Language (ASL) Interpreted Service.