June 27 Daily Devotional

Bible Reading

Genesis 12:1-8

¹Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee:
²And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:
³And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.
⁴So Abram departed, as the LORD had spoken unto him; and Lot went with him: and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran.
⁵And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran; and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan they came.
⁶And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Sichem, unto the plain of Moreh. And the Canaanite was then in the land.
⁷And the LORD appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land: and there builded he an altar unto the LORD, who appeared unto him.
⁸And he removed from thence unto a mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, having Bethel on the west, and Hai on the east: and there he builded an altar unto the LORD, and called upon the name of the LORD.

Devotional

God had promised as early as Eden that the day would come when sin would be conquered by the seed of the woman. He has now begun to take steps toward bringing this about. In our reading we see how God chose Abram from the land of Ur of the Chaldees and gave him directions to leave his people and go to a land God would show him. God made a covenant with Abram that He would be his God and the God of his children after him. He changed Abram's name to Abraham, since he was to be the father of many nations (17:5). From him would come a people so closely identified with God that those who cursed the children of Abraham would find themselves cursed by God and those who blessed them would find themselves blessed by God. And God promised that through the seed of Abraham all the families of the earth would be blessed! If we did not know that God was here preparing the line through which He would some day send His Son, we would be completely unable to see how the family of one mere man, a man whose faith was sometimes very weak, could make such an impact on the world. But the faith of Abraham was kept alive through the generations ihat followed him and it lives today in the Christian church. What a heritage is ours as his

children!

Our pride is not really in Abraham, our father in the faith, however. We boast in God's Son, born of Abraham's line. He is the Seed who was promised. He is the One in whom all the families of the earth are blessed. All the families? Yes, the blessing of Abraham comes upon all who hear the gospel and respond in faith. And where the gospel of his Seed, God's Son, is poured out, blessing spills over and touches for good even the unbelieving. Western civilization with its many benefits and accomplishments is what it is because of the enlightenment of the gospel working in its people through the centuries. God's people are light, and that light reaches the remotest corners of the earth.

We may tell our Jewish friends that we, like them, are children of Abraham. We are his spiritual heirs. We who believe in Christ as our Saviour and Lord are adopted into the family of Abraham according to God's covenant. They, too, may become heirs spiritually as well as physically. So may any who will come to God through faith in His Son.

We praise God for the unity of believers, as we all claim Abraham as father. We praise Him for Christ to whose coming Abraham looked forward and through whom we as well as Abraham have life eternal.