Our Example of Faith

Galatians 3:8- And the scripture foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying "In you all the nations shall be blessed."

Can you imagine what it was like for Abraham to have God, the Creator of the universe appear to him and personally preach the Gospel to him? The Lord first instructed Abram to leave the land of his father and promised him that if he would obey, all the families of the earth would be blessed. Abram did obey and entered into covenant with God. When Abram was 90 years old the Lord again appeared to him and again acknowledged the covenant that He had with Abram and changed his name to Abraham, which means father of many nations. Isaac was born when Abraham was 100 years old, so for ten years he called himself the father of many nations before the child of promise was born.

Romans 4: 17 tells us that the God of Abraham calls things that are not as though they were. That is what He taught Abram to do when He changed his name to Abraham. This was the method by which Abraham received the promise of God. We, like Abraham, receive the promises of God in the same way. We have a choice to call ourselves healed when our body is dealing with sickness and pain because 1 Peter 2: 24 says that by the stripes of Jesus we WERE healed. Whatever problem we may be facing, there is a promise of God to cover it. The gospel is the "good news". We receive the good news by faith and begin to speak as though it is a higher truth than the existing problem. It is not that we deny the circumstance, but we deny its right to exist in our lives when Jesus paid the price to make the promise of God available to us. Abraham is called the father of faith. He was personally taught by God himself. He is our example of how to operate in faith. Romans 4:19 tells us that he did not consider his own body which was already dead as far as reproductive ability was concerned, and he did not consider the deadness of Sarah's womb, nor did he waver at the promise of God through unbelief. He gave glory to God and was fully persuaded that God was able to perform what He had promised.

James says a double minded man is unstable in his ways a should not think that he will receive anything from the Lord. So let us follow the example of Abraham and speak as though the promises of God are true and God is faithful who promised.