This Land is My Land


Genesis 12:6–8 (ESV) Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. 7 Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him. 8 From there he moved to the hill country on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. And there he built an altar to the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord.

If you remember from Genesiss 11 Abram made a mistake to settle halfway to the land of Canaan. He also settled there with his father. Here now, with his father gone, Abram has entered into the land that would be his. God shows up in the land and promises it to him. Yet Abram is living among strangers and moving around constantly. He never stays in one place.

James Boice puts this passage interestingly:

"Of all the persons then living in Canaan, Abram was the most permanent; he was there for the duration. Yet at the same time, he was the least attached to the land or his possessions."

The land was his but he would move about as if it were not. Abram in these verses describe what the Christian must be like in this present world. It is our Father's World, and we are to inherit it (Matthew 5:5). But we are not going to settle down and live as if it were ours! We hold on to nothing. We wait for the Lord to give it to us in His time. 

We do as Abram did:
Hebrews 11:10 (ESV) For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.

Christians are not to live in this world as though we belonged to it's system and values. There is a firm confidence that God will give us the world one day but we are to live as strangers and aliens. We are to trust God's promises rather than enjoy the world's pleasures.

I see many Christians living as everyone else in this world, attached to it, owned by it, making their lives centered here, no different from non-Christians. This is not to be so. We are pilgrims! Our home is coming from God down to this Earth one day. The city Abram looked toward is the city we look toward and John saw in Revelation... hope fulfilled!

Revelation 21:2–3 (ESV) And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.

Right now it looks like the unbelievers own the world. That's what it looked like for Abram. But he trusted God's Word over the World's reality. In the end, God proved faithful. 

And God will be faithful to us!

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