When they arrived, his nephew Lot, who’d come along for the ride, took over the rich bottom land, leaving Abraham with the left-overs. Then Abraham found out his wife couldn’t have children. But even with this rough start (and after some reassurance from God), Abraham never stopped believing God was going to keep his promise.
Twenty centuries later God spoke to a man named Paul on the road to Damascus. Up until then, Paul had been racking up brownie points as a super religious guy, keeping every rule he could find. But after God literally knocked him off his horse, he realized that God didn’t accept you because of what you’ve done, but because of what Jesus did for you. (This was the point of The Plan.) From that day on Paul told anyone who would listen that being on good terms with God – being right or righteous – wasn’t about earning brownie points, it was about trusting God’s grace.
When some said this was too good to be true and wanted to see it in writing in God’s word, Paul went back to the day God gave Abraham The Plan. (You can check it out in Romans 4.)
“Abram believed the Lord and he credited it to him as righteousness.”
- Paul Abbott
One of the things that struck me in this chapter was not only God's plan for us to accept and trust his grace (actually, I only got that after reading Paul's blog!) but the minute details of the individualized plan that God has for each of us. The details of the plan shows God's amazing and crazy complex love for us. By all accounts, it would be crazy believe that Abram would have ANY descendants in his advanced years. Yet Abram believed in God's plan and he was blessed with many! Abram is an amazing example of remaining steadfast in his faith and in trusting God's plan.
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