Topic: Obedience through Faith [Wednesday October 28, 2015]
Text: Hebrews 11:17-22
Key Verse: “By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son” (Hebrews 11:17).
Our text, which gives a catalogue of people who exhibited absolute faith in God, discloses Abraham’s greatest trial of life and how he overcame. Isaac, his only son by Sarah, his wife, was earmarked for sacrifice. God had earlier promised that through Isaac, He would bless mankind. With this development, Abraham obviously found himself in a dilemma. Should he kill Isaac as God commanded, how would the promise be fulfilled? And, if he refused to do what God asked him, would the promise still be there?
Finally, he decided to ignore his personal inclination, and do what He told him to do. For Abraham, God must find a way to keep His promise. What a challenge for all. Isaac believed what God promised his father when he blessed his two sons, Jacob and Esau. Jacob, when he was about to die, equally blessed Joseph’s two sons – Ephraim and Manasseh. Joseph, who also believed and trusted God’s promises, was sure that He would deliver the Israelites from Egypt and asked his family to take his bones along with them to the land of Canaan after his demise. How many of us have such an unalloyed faith as Abraham, who overlooked his own predilection to please God?
How many of us could comfort ourselves like Isaac, who built upon what God promised his father to have a better future? There are many who still scoff at God’s promises. Despite all odds, our confidence should be in Christ, not in man; our sustenance should be in things He provides, not in things we receive through strife and vainglory. Until we re-order our lives to fully trust God, we will not please Him completely and unreservedly.
Thought for the day: The difference between an overcomer and the defeated is faith.
Bible Reading in one Year: Proverbs 21-23
DCLM Daily Manna was written by Pastor William Folorunso Kumuyi; is the founder and General Superintendent of the Deeper Life Bible Church situated at KM 42 on the busy Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, Nigeria.
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