I am beginning a new volume about Abraham, and in this issue, talking about Abraham the father of faith. In this volume, we will discover the life lessons we can take away from Abraham’s life. I’m excited to embark on this adventure with you!
You hear people calling Abraham the father of faith, but why do we call him that? In this issue, we will be looking at why Abraham is the father of faith for both Jews and Gentiles. We can all look up to Abraham and learn many things from his life.
Our series will switch gears because I will no longer be translating verse by verse. Instead, I will make reference to a section of Genesis and mention specific verses. We are going to cover a lot of ground and it would take too long for me to translate before I write each issue. We will also be jumping around from time to time
Along the way, we will meet people like Sarah, Lot, Hagar, Ishmael, and others. I will take lessons not only from Abraham but from them as well. Let’s get started by talking about Abraham, the father of faith.
Following Abraham the Father of Faith to a New Home (Genesis 12:1-9)
In my last issue, I described how the last genealogies of Genesis 11 were a foreshadowing to push forward the next leg of our journey in Genesis. Genesis 11:31 states that Terah, Abraham’s father, was the one to decide to move to Canaan and take his family with him.
However, Genesis 12 opens by telling us that God spoke to Abraham and told him to “start walking.” God does not tell Abraham where to go at first. It’s an act of faith for Abraham to listen to God without the details.
In fact, it’s interesting that God tells him to leave his country and kindred, and his father’s house. Is this a contradiction? No. A closer reading of the next section makes it clear. Although and Abraham lived in Ur of the Chaldeans, Terah made the decision to move to Haran (as in the genealogy). Genesis 12:4 and following will make it clear that Abraham left Haran to go to the land of Canaan.
Abraham did not have a GPS like us today. Even if he didn’t, God did not tell him where to go. The only told him to start walking. Traveling without knowing where he was going must have been a strange journey. Can you imagine Sarah asking Abraham how long and him looking at her and saying, “Your guess is as good as mine.” I’m sure that instilled confidence in Abraham.
We will talk about God’s promised Abraham in the next section. Genesis 12:4 tells us Abraham was 75 years old when he left Haran. He left everything he knew in that life built with his father. For the third time, he makes a big move with his family and Lot.
He also took the people he had acquired through his years at Haran. No matter how far he was going, it was still an act of faith to leave a familiar place and friends he knew to go to the place he didn’t know. Haran was still in the land of Mesopotamia. It was still another 400 or so miles to get to Canaan.
That’s quite a way to trust God to lead you where He wants you to go. In total, it would have been 600-700 miles from Ur of the Chaldeans to Canaan. We don’t know how long he stayed with his father in Haran. But it must’ve been hard to leave because it required God telling him to do so.
Abraham, the father of faith, showed how to have faith in God by example. Here’s a map of what Abraham’s journeys would’ve looked like:
Abraham and Sarah, along with Lot, traveled a great distance because the Lord told Abraham to leave Haran and go to Canaan. He had faith to simply do what the Lord told him to do no matter how difficult it was. We must do the same when the Lord calls us to do something even if it is hard.
Can you imagine what it was like for a 75-year-old man along with all his possessions and people to go to a foreign land and start over? That’s what Abraham and his family and servants did. In those days, with such a large group, you could only travel about 15-20 miles a day.
At top speed, without leaving time to set up camp and tear down, pure travel, you are looking at 20 days at the very least. Even when they got to Canaan, God told Abraham to move farther south until he got to Shechem and Ai. Who knows how many children in their caravan were asking them, “Are we there yet?”
Abraham the Father of Faith Trusts the Promise (Genesis 12:2-3, 7-9; 13:14-17; 17:1-8)
Genesis 12:2-3, 7-9
Twice we see Abraham trusted and what the Lord said and going no matter what. In the beginning of Genesis 12, God promises Abraham that He will make a great nation out of his lineage. It took a lot of faith because Sarah is barren and he has no son to carry on the family line.
Abraham goes anyway, obedient and trusting. There is nothing to guarantee what the Lord says to him. Have you ever leaped from one place in your life to another by trusting God that He will fulfill whatever He has promised? That is walking by faith.
It is by no means easy to trust the Lord for the next step even if we don’t see it yet. But we can trust in God’s track record. He has never failed you before, and He won’t fail you now. It is not blind faith. It is trusting in the Lord to fulfill what He has promised because He is trustworthy.
Not only did Abraham have to trust God that He would lead them to the place He wanted them to be but that he had to trust God to fulfill His impossible promise of providing an heir to carry on Abraham’s legacy. I don’t know what was harder for Abraham, the father of faith. Trusting God for direction or trusting God for the impossible nation He was preparing for Abraham.
Genesis 12:7-9 further shows Abraham as the father of faith when God promises an heir and the land for this nation to become reality. Other people are living in the land when Abraham arrives. He had to trust God for a descendent and the land for him. God promised all that beyond what Abraham could see. And yet, he believed.
Abraham believed God so much that he built an altar there. The Bible doesn’t say he made sacrifices, but that is what an altar is for. He worshiped God before he saw what God would do. You can worship God for what He will do before you see Him do it. Worship and praise the Lord because He will come through for you. And He will often do it in miraculous ways.
Genesis 13:14-17
I want to fast-forward through the story of Abraham’s life to point out that God promised him the same thing – land and descendants repeatedly. We will get to Lot and his story a bit later, but I want you to see God promises these things to Abraham without skipping a beat.
He tells Abraham that no matter where he looks, God will give that territory to him. Abraham simply believed that God would do as He said even though he would never see the vast amount of descendants or how God would give the land to them. God literally tells him to walk around the land and He will give that to Abraham and his descendants.
This reminds me of William Penn who did the same sort of thing. He walked the land of Pennsylvania and they gave him the territory he could walk. They call it a “walking purchase.”
Abraham has yet to have an heir. He trusts that God will make descendants as numerous as the dust on the ground. Have you ever tried to count the little pieces of dust at your feet? That’s quite a promise! But Abraham doesn’t doubted for a minute. That’s why we call Abraham the father of faith. He was the first to believe, and we follow in his footsteps.
Genesis 17:1-8
Just one more place I want to jump to show you that God never wavered in His promises to Abraham. The father of faith had several encounters with God that reaffirmed his faith over and over.
We have skipped ahead to when Abraham is 99 years old. It’s been 24 years since God promised he would have a son. I will get to everything that happens in between because there is much that happens between God’s promise and the fulfillment.
But there Abraham, the father of faith, is, still trusting that God will do as He said. Abraham worships God when He reaffirms the promise again. Think about it. Twenty-four years without the evidence or proof of the promise, and yet he keeps trusting.
God continues to promise land and descendants to Abraham. He never gives up on God’s promise and its fulfillment. That’s why we call Abraham the father of faith.
Life Lessons from Abraham, the Father of Faith
One thing you might not notice is how much communication goes on between God and Abraham. Even in a foreign land where Abraham grew up, moving to Haran, and following God wherever He leads, Abraham learned to hear God’s voice so unquestioningly that he followed God’s instructions to the letter.
We all need to learn how to hear God’s voice better. I think it takes a lifetime for us to get good at hearing and obeying Him at every turn. God was Abraham’s GPS and Abraham trusted God’s voice so much that he will go to the ends of the earth.
Do you hear God’s voice in your life? How does it sound to you? For most of us, it’s not an audible voice, but we have learned to hear from Him and know God is speaking and not another voice is.
Start with reading your Bible. The Holy Spirit inspired Scripture, and He speaks as we read it. When you pray, give God time to speak. So often we think prayer is a one-way communication where we dump our laundry list of items on Him, say amen, and walk away. Let God speak first. Don’t speak until you hear Him.
Abraham didn’t move until God told him to. He stayed in every area until God gave him the go-ahead to move forward. When you’re making big decisions in your life and big moves, it’s unwise to move forward without knowing you are doing it in ways that please God.
Concentrate on moving when God wants you to move. The Israelites did not move their camp in the wilderness until they saw the cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night move. They could pack up the tabernacle and move almost at a moment’s notice.
Every Christian’s body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. It makes it a lot easier to move when He moves. But we have to know when He moves. We must become so in tune with the Spirit that we know when He speaks and acts. Then we must be obedient to His will. This also takes a lifetime of practice.
Abraham is the father of faith because he teaches us to trust God implicitly without wavering or doubting. God gives us all promises in His word that are still active today. Even if you don’t see it yet, you know God will do it. What has He promised for your life? Don’t question it.
Just move forward in God and trust He will do what He has said. Don’t let anything change your mind. Not hardship, trial, suffering, pain, or any other thing you think might change your mind. Refuse to give in to anything that takes you away from God’s vision for your life.
The Saga Continues…
We’ve just begun our character study of Abraham, the father of faith. In my next issue, I will continue to look at Abraham’s life and glean life lessons for us today. I will next look at manufactured prosperity Abraham thought he could create for himself, but that did not work out for him very well.
