The Call (Part One)

“Now the Lord had said to Abram:

‘Get out of your country,
From your family
And from your father’s house,
To a land that I will show you.
I will make you a great nation;
I will bless you
And make your name great;
And you shall be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you,
And I will curse him who curses you;
And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’”
(Genesis 12:1–3)

The call to Abraham was a specific call, but, as we can see clearly, both God’s call and Abraham’s answer had an impact, direct and indirect, on countless others, including you and me. Because God chose Abraham, because God honored His word, and because Abraham obeyed and followed God, your family and my family and all the world have received the blessing given in this one call.

God calls each one of us in a similar way. God may not call each one of us to leave our native land—especially at age seventy-five when most folks are thinking more about settling down! But God does call each of us, at least in one sense, to “leave his father and mother” (Genesis 2:24), begin to live his own life responsibly before God, and leave his own mark on the world. And we will, you know, one way or another. Whom I marry, how I raise a family, how I respond to life as it comes to me, what I do with both the little things and the big will all have an incredible effect on those whom my life touches in some way—those around me now, my own descendants, and all of the others (a lot more than one might think) who are affected indirectly by my obedience and disobedience, my maturity or lack thereof, my living-by-the-grace-of-God and faith.

God also calls each one of us to leave “the world” behind in following Him, just as He called Abraham to do. Abraham left behind a lot more than relatives. When he chose to answer the call and follow Jehovah, he left behind his gods. And he left behind an entire culture shaped by those gods. He left behind a life lived by faith in gods who cannot and will not deliver and began to live by faith in a God whose blessing reaches not only his life but throughout the world and throughout eternity.

As I said, this is our call as well. God has obviously called us to live in the physical world—that is the one He has created and the one in which He has planted us—so that is not the world from which He calls us. Rather, God calls us out of the world of sin/the flesh/and the devil that we might live in the world as citizens of another Country, blazing lights shining in what is otherwise darkness, citizens of the New World for which Christ has died and risen again, members of a New Family, a New Humanity, with Jesus Christ as our New Adam and faithful Father of All Nations.

Answer the call as Abraham did: by faith and in obedience. You have answered the call by following Christ and being separated from the world. Be a faithful follower, travel the course, plant yourself in the new land, lead your own family as those who inhabit a new culture and a new world, and look for the blessing of God not only to be poured out on your own family but to overflow to the whole world.

“Great and heavenly Father, we thank You for Your call to Abraham, for Your choosing him and blessing him, which blessing has reached to us. We give You thanks for Abraham’s faithfulness and obedience, and we pray You would make us like him, answering Your call to us, following You into new worlds, leaving behind the gods who do not satisfy. Thank You above all for our faithful Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who also answered Your call with faith and obedience, resulting in our salvation and the salvation of the world; and we pray gratefully in His most holy and wonderful name. Amen.”