Devotion #6: Father Abraham
Like so many have, a friend of mine struggled to accept the simplicity of salvation: “Believe and you will be saved.” She spent years trying to understand what she needed to do or become to feel she was acceptable to God. Ten years went by before she was able to see that God loved even her so much that He sent His Son to die to pay her debt of sin, and nothing she did or did not do could change the love God had for her. After ten long years, she realized that she was a broken sinner who just had to put her faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus. She heard the Good News of the Gospel, she believed in her heart, and the Lord counted her faith as righteousness.
Before we ever knew Him, God loved us. Before we ever looked for Him, God pursued us. Psalm 139:14-16 reminds us that God has always known us and loved us. He has always had good plans for us.
In Romans chapter 4, Paul reminds us of the covenant that God made with Abraham, an outward sign of being set apart for God. However, this covenant was not made until after Abraham had put his faith in God. God saw Abraham’s faith. God spoke to Abraham; he heard and believed. Genesis 15:6 records, “And he believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness.”
Romans 4:9-12 says, “Is this blessing then only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? For we say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness. How then was it counted to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised. He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised, so that righteousness would be counted to them as well, and to make him the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.”
Abraham believed God. Abraham did not have to do anything, God did everything. He would send the Messiah, Jesus, to die on the cross to pay the price for our sins. We are counted righteous by God because of our faith and not any ritual.
Philippians 3:9 (NLT) adds, “And become one with him. I no longer count on my own righteousness through obeying the law; rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ. For God’s way of making us right with himself depends on faith.”
We can sing praises to the Lord for His love for us. For just like Abraham, we are found righteous in our faith.