The Faith of Abraham E-Book

Edir Macedo

• Herausgeber: Unipro
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 99

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

In this new edition of "The Faith of Abraham", Edir Macedo talks about the importance of having a faith that is based upon the solid foundation of the Word of God — a faith of real quality. Having faith without quality is exactly why most religious people don't receive practical results from the faith they have, even though it is a faith in God. Life depends on faith. Yet if faith lacks quality, then life will also lack quality.These 104 pages delve into various Bible passages, and show how Abraham used courage and boldness to materialise his faith. With faithfulness and sincerity of heart as the basis for his life, the patriarch Abraham became an heir to all the promises of God, raising the quality of his faith to an even higher level."Look up toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them." And He said to him,"So will your descendants be." Genesis 15:5

Leseprobe

Copyright ©2001 Unipro EditoraNo part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means. Transgressors will be prosecuted according to the law.Scripture taken from the Modern English Version. Copyright © 2014 by Military Bible Association. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

General Coordinator: A. Lobato

Editor: Mauro Rocha

Design Coordinator: Paulo S. Rocha Jr.

Art Director: Rafael Brum

English Version: Renato Cardoso and Sandra Gouvêa

Editorial Assistant: Regina Dias

2nd edition

M141F

Macedo, Edir, 1945 -The Faith of Abraham / Edir Macedo. Rio de Janeiro: Unipro, 2018.ISBN 978-85-7140-839-5

1. Abraham (Hebrew patriarch). 2. Faith (Biblical doctrine)I. Title.

CM- 222-11

Estrada Adhemar Bebiano, 3.610 — InhaúmaCEP 20766-720 — Rio de Janeiro, RJ — BrazilTEL.: [phone]www.unipro.com.br

:: ABRAHAM’S ELECTION

:: ABRAHAM’S CALL

:: ABRAHAM’S RICHES

:: LOT’S VISION

:: THE TWO NATURES

:: GOD MAKES A COVENANT WITH ABRAHAM

:: ABRAHAM MAKES A COVENANT WITH GOD

:: THE BIRTH OF ISAAC

:: GOD PUTS ABRAHAM TO THE TEST

The objective of this study is to lay the foundations to what we call “beneficial faith”, that is, a faith that brings benefits.

Most people have faith in God, but not everyone has achieved success in their faith simply because their faith lacks foundation. When faith is based upon the solid foundation of the Word of God, it has quality. And it is exactly this kind of faith that we can call “quality faith” — a faith that promotes or brings a life of quality.

The lack of quality in faith is exactly the reason why most religious people do not obtain practical results from their faith, even though they have faith in God. Life depends on faith. But if a person’s faith lacks quality, then their life will also lack quality.

We are going to take our father in faith, Abraham, as an example because the Lord Himself teaches us to “look to Abraham” (Isaiah 51:2). In other words, we should imitate him in faith and in obedience.

It was through his courage and boldness that he materialised the faith of the heart, when he offered his son Isaac.1 Besides having a courageous faith, he was patient to wait for the fulfilment of the promise.2

Abraham had the privilege of being the first to receive the promise of God with an oath.3 Through him, all those who believe are blessed,4 but only those who are of his faith are the true Abrahamic descendants and heirs.5

It is not according to the law that Abraham’s descendants will inherit his blessings, but according to the same quality of faith in God that he manifested.6

Because of the nature of his faith, Abraham became God’s friend and heir to all His promises.7 He was elected by Him because of the sincerity of his heart and, ultimately, because of the covenant.8

Why did God choose Abraham? What moved God’s heart in this choice? The answer is “faithfulness”. Without a doubt, faithfulness was a remarkable characteristic in the life of this man.

Even though he lived in a pagan land, where promiscuity was an object of worship, Abraham remained faithful to his only wife. Sarah was loved and respected by him and she consequently responded to his faithfulness to the point of considering him as her lord.

Certainly, God saw that, if Abraham could be faithful to his wife even though she was barren, he would certainly be faithful to Him also as a servant! And here we see one reason for the difference between “servants” and servants, “Christians” and Christians.

Before a person is chosen, first he must offer himself up for election. The elect is the one who, having passed through the process of election, is approved. The Lord Jesus Himself said, “Many are called, but few are chosen” (Matthew 20:16; 22:14).

We could also understand this word as “many are the candidates, but few are the elect”. The choice of candidates for election requires that a person be, above all, faithful. If a person cannot be faithful to the one he sees, how can he be faithful to the one he does not see?

God’s promises are clearly directed to the elect, in other words, to those who have remained faithful until the end. Revelation 2:10 says, “Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.”

For such who are faithful, it has been determined: “They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat; for as the days of a tree are the days of My people, and My chosen ones shall long enjoy the work of their hands” (Isaiah 65:22).

Would a rich father bestow an inheritance to the son who is faithful or to the son who is unfaithful? Likewise, God cannot entrust His blessings to the hands of the unfaithful. Therefore, before someone can demand God’s faithfulness in fulfilling His promises, he must first examine whether he has been faithful to God in his Christian conduct.

After God elected Abraham in His heart, He called him and told him clearly: “Go from your country, your family, and your father’s house to the land that I will show you” (Genesis 12:1).

This was the first test of Abraham. He had to leave his homeland, his properties, his customs, his friends, in short, he had to leave everything behind.

His surrender to God meant separation from his familiar world. God’s divine plan demanded his total departure from that place. The Lord could not shape and mould him according to His will, while he was subject to the influences of that society.

Getting him out of there and teaching him to depend on his faith in the promises of God was fundamental for the creation of a strong, invincible, and unshakable nation.

On the other hand, going out into the desert without a map and without a clue where he was going was a true challenge to his faith. At first, God gave him no direction where he should start, let alone direction to the north, south, east or west.

First, he had to leave the place where he was, and only then the Lord would guide him. Abraham had to learn to depend on God to provide the daily bread, day after day, through the desert.

Similarly, the Lord Jesus teaches us, saying, “If anyone will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me” (Matthew 16:24).

But follow Him where? It doesn’t matter! Whoever wants to follow Him doesn’t need to know where. It is enough only to trust in His leadership. Christians live by faith, in other words, in the certainty that God will do exactly what He promises to do.

Ur was a city in Mesopotamia, the land of the Chaldeans, situated between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates. It was a prosperous, important and well-developed city.

Abraham needed courage and boldness to give no ear to his relatives and friends, but only to God. The Lord Himself would guide him through the desert and show him the Promised Land. The absolute certainty that God would fulfil what He had promised was the only evidence that would beat in his heart.

Truly, if anyone wants to reap the same fruits of Abraham’s faith, they must pay the price that he paid. It is extremely important to note that, in his call, the first word God used was, “Go.”

We may admire the greatness of faith and its results in the life of Abraham during his one hundred years of communion with God, but we cannot forget that his first attitude in relation to the Lord was one of unconditional obedience, when he left his land, his household and the house of his father.

Through this, we learn that before God turns us into a blessing, we must leave our land, symbolising our sinful habits; leave our household and our relatives, symbolising our old customs and religious traditions; and, finally, leave the house of our father, in other words, leave behind the leadership in the voice of our parents in our hearts, and replace it with the voice of God.

Many people have strongly resisted leaving behind their sinful life for an encounter with God, but they fight with all their strength that God may leave His throne and come to bless them while they are living in sin.

In Abraham’s time, only people who were extremely poor or fugitives would abandon their relatives and their homeland. He wasn’t a “John Doe” who had nothing to lose leaving his land, his household and the house of his father. No! The fact that the name Sarai meant “princess” and Abram meant “exalted father” brings the idea that Abraham belonged to an important family in his generation.

To the eyes of reason, leaving one’s land behind meant denying the inheritance of his parents’ assets. Leaving the household or relatives behind meant denying one’s tribe. And leaving the father’s house meant denying responsibility for the leadership of the family. Certainly, Abraham would be his father’s substitute in the establishment of the next generation.

And on top of all that, Abraham left his land, his household and his father’s house with a barren woman! If he remained among his relatives, he could even have children from among his relatives and thus, obtain offspring; but to leave everything in obedience to the Word of Someone who was still unknown was, humanly speaking, foolishness; it was madness. That’s just like faith! Faith is madness; it is foolishness to those who are lost (read 1 Corinthians 1:18).

Today we have an abundance of examples of God’s faithfulness in fulfilling His promises. But Abraham did not enjoy the same privilege. Whose example could he look at in order to believe? What guarantee did the Lord give him for leaving everything behind? God ordered him to leave his land, leave his household and the house of his father right on the first time that He appeared to him.

Therefore, Abraham’s obedience to God wasn’t something so simple as many would have thought. He left all his responsibilities behind, his dreams, his future, in order to go to a land still unknown at the time of his call.

No one should aspire to be a vessel in God’s hand without leaving behind the state of life where he finds himself in and denying his plans for a supposedly promising future.

One cannot wish to serve God and himself at the same time. If he wants to serve God, he must abandon the life of sin; he must crucify his own will, his personal lusts; he must sacrifice his future; in short, he must die to himself, to his relatives and, above all, to the world. In fact, this is exactly the price that the Lord Jesus demands from His followers.9

The Lord’s promises to Abraham were indeed very great, far beyond what he could ever imagine. He had no idea of the greatness and the extent of His promises, but certainly having one son with Sarah was an idea he had fixed in his mind. Let’s now look at each of God’s promises to Abraham:

I WILL MAKE OF YOU A GREAT NATION — But how could a great nation come forth from someone who was faithful to only one infertile woman?

Similar questions are asked day after day when people face an impossible problem or an incurable disease, or when the medical reports show that there is no hope.