Abraham

Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness (Romans 4:3).

For Christians, Abraham is one of the great men of all time.  He is regarded as an exemplar of faith.  In Romans 4:11 Paul says that he is the father of all who believe.  Abraham was living a contented life near the Persian Gulf when God told him to pack up his family and head west.  Abraham did not know where he was going, but he trusted God and did as he was told.  Nearly a thousand miles later Abraham finally saw the land of Canaan, a place where children he did not yet have would make their home.

This man of faith had to wait until he was a hundred years old before God provided the son that He had for a long time promised.   Then, when the boy was big enough to share in the chores, God tested Abraham’s faith by telling the old man to sacrifice his son as a gift to the Lord.  When it was clear that Abraham would follow through without hesitation, God put a halt to things and provided a male sheep to be sacrificed in the boy’s place.  In response to Abraham’s faith, God promised to bless all the world through his offspring.

But Abraham was not always so faithful.  His wife Sarah was a great beauty, and during a trip to Egypt Abraham worried that he might be killed so Pharaoh could claim the widow as his legal wife.  Instead of trusting God to take care of him, Abraham told Sarah to claim she was his sister; when the king tried to wed her, God cursed the ruler and his household with a serious illness until the truth came out.  Abraham and his wife left Egypt without incident, but the man of God did not learn his lesson; years later another king wanted Sarah for his bed, and Abraham repeated the same lie with similar results.  Although he had great faith, it was a faith that sometimes crumbled under pressure.

We can understand that.  Although we believe in Christ and trust in God, our faith is often much less than it ought to be.  Abraham is an example for us that is both good and bad.  What remains consistent is God’s faithfulness to us.  All the world has been blessed through Abraham’s offspring—his greatest descendent is Jesus, the Lamb of God who was sacrificed in our place so we might live, just as the male sheep was sent by God so that Abraham’s son might be spared from death.  There are times when our faith fails us; thank God that He remains faithful and forgives our moments of doubt.