Thursday, August 22, 2013
Genesis 15:5-6 He [the LORD] took him [Abram] outside and said, "Look up at the heavens and count the stars -- if indeed you can count them." Then he said to him, "So shall your offspring be." Abram believed the LORD, and He credited it to him as righteousness.
LIKE AN ECHO
The Lord strengthened Abram's faith -- using the same means He employed to create it -- the Word of Promise. That Word from the LORD had its effect. Abram turned away from his doubts to trust God's promise renewed, turned from fear back to faith.
Now Abram could not see into the future any better at this point than before, but now with his hand of faith in the LORD's hand. Like a child with arm upraised at the side of a parent, his view of the future was different. Now, though it was still hidden, it was enough that the Lord could not only see what lay ahead but was fully in control. He would fulfill His promise when the time was right.
The promise of God which always centers in Jesus Christ the Savior is, and always has been, the source of faith. That promise is also the object of faith -- namely, that to which faith holds fast. And since Jesus is ever the heart of God's promises, faith's grip is always strengthened by the promise revisited.
So then, the promise of God which worked and renewed confidence in that promise in Abram's heart was the promise not only of the immediate gift of a son, but the later gift of THE SON who would be the Savior. As ever, saving faith holds fast to the promises of the Lord, and thus the believing heart is made one with the heart of Christ.
As someone once said, "As little as there can be an echo when there has not first been a shout, so little can there be faith in the human heart unless God's gracious promise with its creative call has first sounded in that heart."
