Abram’s Call
Genesis 12:1–9
Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. Genesis 12:1
God’s call to Abram probably came to him on at least two occasions, which suggests that Abram started out after receiving the first call but faltered or stopped along the way at Haran (11:31). This means that, although Abram believed God enough to start out on his journey after God had appeared to him in Ur, his faith was still weak and needed much cultivation. It is a way of saying that one does not need to be a spiritual giant to become a follower of God—after all, none of us is a spiritual giant. All one has to do is begin to follow him.
You can be in one of three places spiritually. You can be an unbeliever with no awareness of spiritual things. You can be an unbeliever with a dawning awareness of spiritual things. Or you can be a believer.
If you are an unbeliever with no spiritual understanding, the life of Abram should be a message of hope for you. Before God came to him, Abram had no understanding either. He had no knowledge of the true God. He was under the influence of his pagan environment. Yet God saved him by grace. It may be that God will work in your life in a similar way, especially as you hear and try to understand the teaching of God’s Word.
If you are an unbeliever who is nevertheless awakening to spiritual things and seeking to understand who God is and what he requires of you, then Abram’s life is one from which you can learn. Abram responded to God because God had first taken an interest in him. He answered because God had called. In the same way, if you are awakening to the claims of the gospel, it is because God is already at work within you. You must drop anything that holds you back and respond as he speaks. You must follow as he leads.
If you are a believer in Christ, the life of Abram shows how one man heard the call of God and was willing to abandon everything for the sake of the blessings God set before him. He left his country but he found a new country and even looked beyond it to that heavenly country and that city with foundations, whose builder and maker is God. He left his people but he became the father of a new people. He left his father’s house but he found room in the house of God in heaven prepared for him by the Lord Jesus Christ. So will it be for you. Those blessings are for all who set out on this pilgrimage.
Taken from Come to the Waters by James Boice ISBN 9798887790954 used with permission from P&R Publishing, Phillipsburg NJ 08865
Scripture quotations are from the ESV (the Holy Bible English Standard Version) copyright 2001 by Crossway a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. All rights reserved.