The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.  I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you;  I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.  I will bless those who bless you and whoever curses you I will curse;  and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”

Our scripture passage today starts with God telling Abram to pick up and leave everything he has known.  Now Abram is not a young man here.  He’s not in his 20’s or even his 40’s.  He is 75 years old.  So he has lived in this land with his family for his whole life and God tells him to pick up and go.  God makes some great promises though.  He promises him that He will make him into a great nation.  He promises to give a land over to him.  Then God makes a few really awesome promises, God promises to bless anyone who blesses Abram.  He also promises to curse anyone who curses Abram.  God also promises to bless all the people on the earth through Abram.  Wow!  That’s some awesome promises, but they come with a heavy price.  Abram and his wife Sarai, must pack up and leave their home and their families.

Now this gets Abram a mention in Hebrews 11 which is considered the Hall of Faith in our bibles.  Abram was a man of great faith.  You see he packed and left with no idea where he was going.  He just followed God’s instructions. He just simply did what God told him to do.  He was faithful. He trusted God with all his heart, all his soul, and all his mind. He just trusted God.  Can you imagine what we could accomplish if we had a faith like that?

Now you should also keep in mind that these promises didn’t all fall into place at one time.  Abram was 100 years old when his son, Isaac was born to him and Sarai.  Now this could be a whole other blog, and just might be someday, but Abram and Sarai grew tired in trusting for God to give them a son.  Sarai told Abram to go sleep with her maid.  Abram did and she conceived a son who was named Ishmael.  Ishmael and his mother were sent away as his mother and Sarai couldn’t get along after this.  Imagine that.  Then God later blessed Sarai and Abram with a son of their own, Israel.  Now the interesting thing is that this makes Abram the father of the Arabic nation through Ishmael and that father of the Jewish nation through Isaac.  Isaac was father to Jacob who later became Israel.  You can usually see stories of the constant conflicts between these two nations even today.

Often times when we pray to God and ask for his help I believe we are hindered by our lack of faith.  We pray hoping that God will do this or that, but do we really believe that He will?  Do we trust with our whole heart that God truly has our best interest at heart.  God had promised Abram and Sarai a son and that Abram would be a father to a great nation, but they grew tired of waiting.  Sound familiar?

If you want to experience the best God has to offer, you have to believe.  You have to have faith.  I consider faith to be so important that I dedicated an entire week to it last fall.

I have asked God to help me through some pretty hard times.  I have learned that when I cry out to God, to do so knowing that He will deliver.  He may not give us exactly what we are asking for, but He will always do what’s in our best interest, even if it doesn’t seem to be at that particular time (Romans 8:28).  Know that His will and His timing are perfect.

I recently had a comment posted on one of my blogs that said I had the same thing in several different blogs.  If you have read more than one of these blogs, you have seen Romans 8:28 mentioned many, many times.  I do repeat several verses because I feel that if we can’t wrap our heads around these promises of God, then we can never completely trust in Him.  Trusting in Him is so important.

Now in our scripture passage, God tells Abram to do these things and He will bless him.  Maybe God has not yet called you to do anything major.  Maybe you haven’t yet established that type of relationship with Him.  But know this, when we enter into a relationship with Jesus Christ and trust Him as our Lord and Savior.  It can’t be all take and no give.  God expects things of us too.

You see getting saved is a lot like getting married.  We are entering into a marriage contract with God.  We are focusing on Him and forsaking all others.  We are devoting our lives to Him.  But we must be careful.  Just like any other marriage that involves a big wedding, sometimes we get caught up in the act or the celebration and then the real work begins and we have problems.

I recently heard a report on the radio that said that the reason so many couples have problems in their marriage is that they put all this time and effort into planning this big wedding party and then when they get married, the reality of life is just too much.  They were excited about the party, but now they have to work to make it work.  Not so much fun, huh?

If you are in a close relationship with the Lord and He is calling you to do something, let me tell you that the reward far outweighs the sacrifice.  Let me tell you that if you don’t do it, you will probably end up regretting it.  I’m speaking from personal experience here.

We are God’s children. He loves us with a love that we can’t even begin to comprehend.  He wants good things for us, but he has chores for us to do before we get the reward of eternal life in heaven with Him.

I have been called to do some things that were really out of my comfort zone in the last few years and I have found that when I just go ahead and do them and trust God that I am happy and blessed.  When I don’t do them or procrastinate, I have no peace until I do them.

So if you want great rewards, be willing to make great sacrifices.  And yes, it may even require some big changes in your life. Don’t let that scare you. Believe me, it is well worth it!

Have a great day!