The Penetrating Call of God


Genesis 12:1–2 (ESV) Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.

 I never noticed before but the call of Abram goes from the outside in, from the most outward experiences to the deepest seat of his heart. Notice how God says it...

Go...
  ... from your country... 
      ... from your kindred (family)
           ... from your father's house (heart)...
       
This is the work of God's grace in our lives. Often times we will experience God from the outside in of our lives. He will call us away from the the environments that are unfit for our new life in Him. He will call us from the relationships that will distract us from Him. Finally, He will even separate us from that thing our heart loves the most. 

 We've already seen that when Abram first left, he had dad come along with him. Evidently, that was a sort of compromise. Abram went, but he needed his father to come along. Eventually his father died and Abram went without him. In the ancient world, everything was tied to your progeny. Who your father was and how many kids you had spoke volumes about your whole identity. 

 God's call will often disturb us from the outside in. He's going to get to the heart eventually. Why we do what we do is periphery. It's the heart that God is after. 

 Secondly, notice that God blesses from the bottom up:

"I will make you...
   ... a great nation...
      ... I will bless you...
          ... you will be a blessing...

Abram was to receive wonderful things from God. To have a nation - that's fantastic. To be blessed of God is wonderful. But to be the blessing - that's even better.

In this small section of scripture we see something important about God's work in our lives. The more we let him have the deepest areas of our hearts, the more he can make out of us. He cuts us deeply to use us greatly.

Of course we know this from Christ Himself. He was cut deeper than any of us, forsaken by the Father, made sin and a curse so that we could be accepted, made righteous and be blessed. This is how our salvation came through His Son. Now let us give Him access to the deepest parts of our hearts so that the Nations can see and hear about the greatest blessing in our lives.

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