Trust

I had wrote in an earlier post that God had given me Romans 12 to read almost daily for several months. Lately it has been impressed upon me that I need to be in Romans 4.

I struggle with feeling worthy. I believe this has a lot to do with a lifelong dream I’ve had that has not been brought into reality.

I’ve had to realize that my worthiness is not in what I want in life, but who I am. And by saying “Who I am” I mean who I am in Christ and who I am because of Christ.

This is where Romans 4 comes in to play. Abraham was just an ordinary guy who was old and couldn’t have kids, but God called him to be something beyond himself. What made Abraham such a tool for God to use is trust. Abraham trusted God!

I LOVE this line in the MSG version…

…But the story we’re given is a God-story, not an Abraham-story. What we read in Scripture is, “Abraham entered into what God was doing for him, and that was the turning point. He trusted God to set him right instead of trying to be right on his own.”  (1-3)

God called Abraham, but Abraham trusted God before, get that, before anything happened in his life. And then Abraham “underwent circumcision as evidence and confirmation” before God gave Abraham the family God had promised him.

“That famous promise God gave Abraham—that he and his children would possess the earth—was not given because of something Abraham did or would do. It was based on God’s decision to put everything together for him, which Abraham then entered when he believed…” (13-15)

“This is why the fulfillment of God’s promise depends entirely on trusting God and his way, and then simply embracing him and what he does. God’s promise arrives as pure gift...” (16)

I so much need this! I don’t have to be found worthy in order to receive wholeness. It is by faith and trust and embracing God for what He does I am to be found “Worthy” and then God can give me, as pure gift, what He knows the desire of my heart is.

“…Abraham was first named “father” and then became a father because he dared to trust God to do what only God could do: raise the dead to life, with a word make something out of nothing. When everything was hopeless, Abraham believed anyway, deciding to live not on the basis of what he saw he couldn’t do but on what God said he would do.” (17-18)

I have felt so dead that I would have never thought I could be brought back to life, but as in Ezekiel He is bringing these dry bones back to life. God is making something out of nothing in my life. He can do the same with yours. Abraham could have been hopeless, he believed anyway. Not because he saw something, but because he trusted God and didn’t live in the hopeless. He lived with hope.

“Abraham didn’t focus on his own impotence and say, “It’s hopeless. This hundred-year-old body could never father a child.” Nor did he survey Sarah’s decades of infertility and give up. He didn’t tiptoe around God’s promise asking cautiously skeptical questions. He plunged into the promise and came up strong, ready for God, sure that God would make good on what he had said. That’s why it is said, “Abraham was declared fit before God by trusting God to set him right.” But it’s not just Abraham; it’s also us! The same thing gets said about us when we embrace and believe the One who brought Jesus to life when the conditions were equally hopeless. The sacrificed Jesus made us fit for God, set us right with God.” (19-25)

I love that, “He plunged into the promise…” How many times do I plunge into anything, much less, something I have no clue on how, why, when or where it is going to happen. NOT! I might tiptoe in, but not plung!

So if Abraham can trust God and God made him the father of great nations… then why can’t I trust God to make my life worthy of His greatness? And let me tell you, He is doing it! He is doing it! He is doing it!

I am so grateful, so thankful, so blessed! I look forward to seeing how he accomplishes the impossible. It’s a God-story, not a Christy-story! I just get to live it and see what happens!