Who would I become if I fully embraced God’s promises?
Ok…new revelation here. This is something that I’ve known and believed for a long time, but today it must have hit my spirit from a different angle and it pierced my heart. It hit hard and splattered over all my dreams. Like Gal 2:20 says, ‘when I am crucified with Christ, it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me…’ – so, there’s a good chance that my dreams and visions and passions are really God’s invitation or His gift to me in order to join him in what he is already doing.
This revelation came while I was reading Romans 4 in The Message this morning. Abraham is our faith father, not our ‘biological or racial’ father. He is our father not because he was a saint or was perfect; in fact, at the time God called him to be ‘Father of multitudes’ he was still childless. But Abraham trusted in the identity God gave him and stepped out in faith trusting in God that He would fulfill the promise He made with Abraham and the whole human race. Here are some snippets from Romans 4:
“The 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.”
“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.”
“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. And so he was made father of a multitude of peoples.”
“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!”
Wow! It’s not at all based upon what Abraham did for God, but about the faith Abraham had in God and that he was truly who God said he was – father of a multitude of peoples. This is beautiful. It doesn’t make the walk easier necessarily, but it does take the pressure off to try to pull it all together ourselves. It doesn’t take us off the hook either. We still need to walk where God is calling us; it’s just where we place our faith – in ourselves or in God and His promise!
As many of you know, the Lord has placed in me the desire to set off on a Matt 10 journey. The more I see this vision becoming a reality, the more anxious I become. But the beauty is that it’s not up to me. He is inviting me to join Him. It’s not what I can do for Him, but in surrendering my step to his guidance. In trusting He will be God. I am a ‘nobody’ – nothing special – but the Lord wants to use the weak. For it is when I am weak that I am made strong in Him. The pressure is really on Him. He must deliver, because He is a God that can not change. He can not go against who He is: Provider, Healer, Comforter, Master, King, Redeemer, Messiah, All-in-All…
So, this leads me to think…Who is God saying I am? Am I putting my faith in his promise and who He has created me to be or in my own inabilities? What would my life look like if I truly embraced my identity and God’s promise? Would my life change?
