Genesis 12: 1<\/a> \u201cNow the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy<\/p>\ncountry, and from thy kindred, and from thy father\u2019s house, unto a land<\/p>\n
that I will shew thee:\u201d<\/p>\n
Within scripture we find one of two things happening to the Lord\u2019s<\/p>\n
people. One, the Lord God sends them his faithful messenger to reside<\/p>\n
with them and feed his sheep with the word of the risen Lord Jesus<\/p>\n
Christ right where they are, or two, the Lord gives them a heart to<\/p>\n
depart from the place where they reside to the place where they will be<\/p>\n
edified and God will be honored. In this text we find the Lord directing<\/p>\n
Abram [Abraham] to do the latter.<\/p>\n
This country was Abraham\u2019s country. This kindred was Abraham\u2019s kindred.<\/p>\n
This house was the house of Abraham\u2019s father. The Lord told Abraham, I<\/p>\n
will make of thee a great nation\u2014when in fact, his wife Sara was barren<\/p>\n
and Abraham had no children. From the viewpoint of the natural heart,<\/p>\n
Abraham had every reason to stay right where he was.<\/p>\n
The natural heart looks at the sentimental\u2014this is my country, my<\/p>\n
kindred, my father\u2019s house\u2014this place has been passed down for<\/p>\n
generations. The natural heart looks at what seems impossible\u2014where will<\/p>\n
I live? How will I make a living? What will become of my family? The<\/p>\n
natural heart looks at past failures and future difficulties, the steep<\/p>\n
mountain ahead and the green pastures behind. The natural heart looks to<\/p>\n
its own wisdom\u2014anyone with common sense would have told Abraham he was a<\/p>\n
fool. Remember this: Whether it is concerning salvation by the free<\/p>\n
grace of God in Christ or it is concerning God\u2019s sovereignty or any<\/p>\n
other thing which is godly\u2014the enemy of righteousness always says the<\/p>\n
opposite of what God says, hence the serpent beguiled Eve with\u2014Ye shall<\/p>\n
not surely die! The natural heart says to the one in whom it resides, to<\/p>\n
you, and to anyone who will listen\u2013\u201dI can\u2019t\u201d but it is really saying,<\/p>\n
\u201cI won\u2019t!\u201d<\/p>\n
However, by the Spirit of God, true faith trusts God to do what he says<\/p>\n
he will do. Thus sincere faith obeys God. The spiritual heart looks to<\/p>\n
Christ. Even against all natural reasoning, the spiritual heart believes<\/p>\n
God. Thus Abraham departed, as the Lord had spoken to him. And through<\/p>\n
God\u2019s promise to Abraham came the seed of promise\u2014Christ Jesus the Lord.<\/p>\n
A man made wise by God, once gave me a word of encouragement set forth<\/p>\n
in scripture, I will pass it on to you. Though the believer is faced<\/p>\n
with many daily trials in life, God gives the true believer only a few,<\/p>\n
weighty trials by which he proves the sincerity of our faith. As you<\/p>\n
face the trial of your faith, in whom will you trust to deliver you?<\/p>\n
Abraham believed God.<\/p>\n
Clay Curtis<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
GET THEE OUT OF THY COUNTRY Genesis 12: 1 \u201cNow the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father\u2019s house, unto a land that I will shew thee:\u201d Within scripture we find one of two things happening to the Lord\u2019s people. One, the Lord […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-author-clay-curtis","category-grace"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3487"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3487\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3488,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3487\/revisions\/3488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}