Abraham's Challenge! ---- Romans 4

It had been quite a while that I spoke to my bestie who lives halfway across the world from me. So yesterday, when we spoke, we should have had a handful of stuff to catch up on. Our conversation started with pleasantries that sounded so pitiful from both our ends. We both realized how sorry we sounded and just burst out laughing. You see, we are each going through confusing times in our individual lives and sometimes, although we tell ourselves we’re catching up, we really have nothing new to tell each other.

Before I continue…………

So, I know lately I’ve been telling y’all about trusting God a lot. Well, this is Temi’s Race! And Temi’s race isn’t very yuppy yuppy at the moment. Besides, I know quite a number of believers asides from me who are going through challenging times right now, and will appreciate any encouragement from the Word that they can latch unto until the stormy wind passes. Therefore, this article is for my bestie, Simi; my bosom friend, Chika, my mom, Lola, my sisters, Fiyin & Komi; my friend, Olumide, and every other child of God whose faith needs to be stirred up… Here’s a challenge from Abraham!

Anyway, about an hour after Simi and I spoke, sharing our tales of woes, I picked up my Bible to study. My study for yesterday was Romans 4:13-25. It is a passage about Abraham’s faith; and even though I knew what the passage was about before I studied it last night, it was very timely. Here are some of my jottings that I think you may find useful:

1.   Abraham and his seed received a blessing from the Lord, not because of anything he did, but just because He believed God. (Note that, if you’re a Christian, then you are a seed of Abraham. And that means you have the blessings of Abraham.) – Romans 4:13

2.   The promises made to Abraham aren’t for those who fulfill the law. They are ONLY for those who believe. – Romans 4:14

3.   Abraham believed God because of God’s mighty abilities. If you’ve seen or heard or read about God’s wonders in your life and in the lives of others, you have more than enough reasons to trust him on this matter (you know what your “this matter” is). Abraham knew that God could raise the dead and can bring something from nothing (Romans 4:17b). At that time, those have not been demonstrated in Abraham’s personal life; but he just believed. He held on to the God who is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that one could ever ask or think (Ephesians 3:20).

4.   Abraham believed in hope against hope. “Who against hope believed in hope…” (Romans 4:18a). I personally think that this means that despite the fact that there was nothing around him that seemed hopeful; that nothing around him impelled him to believe, he still believed. He was certain beyond all impossibilities that he would become the father of nations just as God had promised/spoken.

Permit me to describe Abraham’s hopeless situation in two short sentences:

a.    He was a hundred year old childless man with a dead body and was supposed to be the father of nations.

b.   His wife, Sarah, was a little younger; but with a dead womb. She was to be the one to bare the first child for Father-of-nations, Abraham.

Nevertheless, he believed in hope against hope…

5.   He was not weak in faith. A weak faith is a legalistic one (See Romans 14). Remember I said Abraham's faith didn't have anything to do with fulfilling the law? A strong faith looks to God's ability. A weak faith looks to man's ability.

6.   He did not stagger at the promise of God through unbelief. Stagger (Gr: diakrino) in that passage literally means ‘to separate’, ‘to make a distinction’ or ‘to withdraw from’. So it means, Abraham did not make the mistake of distancing himself or separating himself, his mind, his imagination from the promises of God. He did not second-guess God and say, “Am I sure I heard God well?” He gave no place at all to unbelief. For one whose body was described as dead, I think he does very well to challenge all of us. Our situations aren’t nearly as hopeless as his, yet we give up very quickly. Impatience makes us to throw in the towel and just give up on God. God made this promise to Abraham when he was seventy-five years old; and at 100, he was still holding on.

Challenge #1: Keep holding on. Stagger not!

7.   He was strong in faith and gave glory to God. Wow! One could ask, “… gave glory to God for what?” What was glorious around him? That’s where faith speaks louder than doubt.

Challenge #2: Praise God in the storm. Please, praise God in this storm. I tell you brothers and sisters, God owes you nothing. If you die today, He’ll remain God. If you live for 100 years, He’ll remain God. Praise Him. Satan can’t stand when you praise God amidst trials. Praise God even when nothing around you encourages you to. Just praise Him. It’s all about Him. That’s what I’ve been doing, and I tell you, it has helped wane off depression and sadness a great deal. Don’t do it one time. Do it all the time. When you see that sadness and depression setting in again, begin to praise God!

8.   He was fully persuaded that God was able to do what He had promised. I just can't stop wondering what made Abraham “fully persuaded”. Or did Apostle Paul use wrong grammar there? Fully persuaded!!! His body was dead; Sarah’s womb was dead. 25 years since the promise and nothing had shown up. Yet, he was FULLY persuaded. I don’t understand this one myself, but that brings us to …

Challenge #3: Be fully persuaded! God has not told a single lie since He became God (and that is, since forever), and He’s not about to start now. Don’t think you’re that special that God is going to change who He is on your matter… Pssh… He has never been unfaithful. Not once. Trust me; He won’t start unfaithfulness with you. Be fully persuaded that what He promised, He shall bring to pass.

I bit my lip yesterday for using negative words on my situation while speaking to Simi. I shouldn’t have. That just reflected unbelief. Like Abraham, let your actions and your words reflect how much you trust God. Remember to give Him all the glory in spite of whatever you’re going through.

HE CAME, HE DIED, HE ROSE

Jesus Christ came to the earth about 2000 years ago. The heavenly bodies announced his arrival with the extraordinary shining of the star which the wise men of the east used in locating the baby – Jesus. Multitudes of angels announced to men the arrival of man’s Saviour. The afore-mentioned is the general way the story of the birth of Jesus Christ is typically enumerated. However, there are certain questions that though subtle, lie on the inner recesses of our mind. The big one is, "how did God have a son to send to save man?" The general answer usually given is that God can do all things!!! My dear friends, you see God interestingly told us these words in Proverbs that: ‘While it is to God’s glory that a matter is concealed, it is to the glory of kings to search out the hidden issue’. So today, as kings, let us dig deep into Scriptures to understand the core of man’s salvation.

GOD CAME

The core of our salvation lies in recognizing that the person born of the Virgin Mary was not just a human, rather the baby in the manger was God in the flesh. 1 Tim. 3:16 describes this as a mystery. It was not public knowledge, it was hidden information. What was hidden was not the birth of the baby! What was hidden was the identity of the baby. The birth of Jesus was described here as God being revealed in the flesh i.e. in human form, with a body. By the very nature of who God is, it is almost unimaginable that God could become manifest in the flesh!!! God is known as the Invisible One! Who no man has ever seen! Who dwells in unapproachable Light! (1Tim. 1:17; 6:16). Here we must evaluate our knowledge with the simple question: ‘Who did God send to save man?’ God didn’t just send his ‘son’, as we are told in John 1:14, the Word of God was made flesh. Sonship came with the birth of the Word of God in human form. The person who came to save man was God himself. To put the entirety of John 1 simply, Jehovah, the Holy One of Israel is the Word of God, He became a human being; this human being is whom we know today as the Son of God and He is Jesus Christ.

GOD LIVED WITH MAN: We need to understand that God in human form is Jesus Christ!!! With this knowledge, comes the understanding of Scriptures that talk about Jesus. For example:

• Isaiah said: the child to be born will be The Mighty God and Everlasting Father (Is. 9:7). The only person who is called God and Father is God and no one else!!!

God in human form lived with humans; this is why He is called Emmanuel – God with us. God faced all the challenges we face today! He experienced hunger (Mark 11:12), tiredness (John4:6), storms (Luke 8:23) and agony (John 11:35), but that was not all, as everyday was a miracle as well. He healed the sick, fed the hungry, restored the disabled, showed man the true definition of man and did many other things that cannot be quantified in writing (John 21:25). However, we need to pay attention to the hints that were left for us by the very words Jesus said about Himself:

• I and the Father are One (John 10:30).

• The Messiah is Lord  (Matt. 22:42-44).

• He said he is: I Am (John 8:58).

It is vital to understand who the Saviour of the world is; to know that the man Jesus Christ (1Tim. 2:15; Titus 2:13) is God revealed in human form! The Son sent by God to save men is God in human form. In order words, it is to us – humans – that the idea of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Persons of Trinity exists; to God, the revelation as God-Jehovah/Father, God-The Word and God-The Spirit are all One and the same. So we must understand that the mystery of salvation lies in the fact that the Son of God, is God in human flesh, even as Jesus points out in John 3:13b (‘Jesus was on earth, yet he said the Son of Man-himself was in heaven at the same time as He was on earth). This is why Col. 1:15 enumerates that the entirety of God resides in Jesus Christ; every single aspect of God is revealed in Jesus Christ. Dear friends, though this is humanly incomprehensible, yet it is the basis of the beautiful mystery of our salvation.

HE DIED

So what made the death of Jesus on the cross special? After all, you may wonder: ‘He died ages ago in a country that has no business with me’. The first aspect of the death of Jesus on the cross is that it is towards God that this death was most important to God. When man does wrong, he does not just hurt himself, he also sins against God even as Joseph and David confirm (Gen. 39:9; Psalm 51:4). So to save man from sin, God also had to be appeased; man had to be saved in the way that pleased God! Is. 53:6 explains that God laid all sin on Jesus. You see this was God’s choice of salvation. To deal with sin, God chose to take all sin (both the sinful nature and the sinful deeds) and place it on Jesus. In death, God united Christ with all men, so that in God’s eyes when Jesus died all men died. Col. 2:20 and 2Cor.5:14b expatiate this; understand that what matters is that on God’s side/perspective, Jesus dying meant all men died! You see, on the cross what God did was to unite the whole of humanity with Christ, such that Christ carried all sin (Is.53:4). The blood of Jesus was shed on the cross so as to deal with sin. Col. 2:14b explains that Jesus nailed trespasses to the cross. By this blood Jesus opened up the Father’s realm and reality to man (Heb. 9:12).

God’s plan for sin was not to cover up sin using the blood shed on the cross. God’s plan is the most dramatic I have ever heard of!!! It is actually unfathomable. God’s plan was to wipe sin out of existence, as the angel first hinted to Joseph when he said that Jesus was born to save people from sin (Matt. 1:21). However we see the plan more clearly when John the Baptist met Jesus, he could not help but shout it loud: ‘See the Lamb of God who will take away the sins of the world – John 1:29’. Good news is that on the cross, Jesus did actually take sin out of existence. Heb. 10:4, 11 and 12 also expatiate on Jesus taking sins away. Finally, 1John 3:5 confirms that Jesus came to take away sin. You see, God’s plan in the eternal covenant is to remember sins no more (Heb. 10:17 and Jer. 31:34). In the Old Testament sin was present but covered by the blood of animals, however, in Christ, sin is entirely taken off!!!

So when does God forgive you of your sins? After you confess to God and say you’re sorry? No!!! God forgave all sins as soon as Jesus dealt with sin on the cross; Eph. 4:32 and Col. 3:13 both enumerate that God forgave us already, He is not about to forgive, He has forgiven us! In fact God does not live in the consciousness of sin anymore. Now this is God’s reality! A believer is a person who has accepted this reality that God has forgiven him. So man does not confess sin so that God will forgive (Acts 3:44 and 1John1:8), rather man confesses sin so as to receive God’s forgiveness. Don’t think that God waits for you to confess your sin, and then afterwards forgive you, Nopes! Rather, God already forgave you; this is what the Gospel preaches. We inform the world and ask them to believe in the truth of God’s forgiveness via the death of Jesus Christ in the cross. What is left is for man to accept and receive the reality of God: ‘that in Christ, sin is totally dealt with’. This is why God says we His children cannot sin and do not sin (1John 3:9) since He has already taken it out of the realm (God’s realm) that we have translocated into! So when Jesus died, God reckoned it as that all men died. Don’t bother your mind with the possibility of this (i.e. saying in your mind: ‘how does this make sense?’); it was God’s plan! Rather look at the abundance of love, wisdom, careful thought and intricate simplicity God set in place to save you! Your worth is the price God paid to save you and this price is God himself in human form!!! Can you see the ‘price’ tag God has placed on you?

JESUS AROSE

This is the apex of the tower, the apogee of the pyramid, the crest of the wave and the zenith of the plans of God for salvation! After 3 days and nights, Jesus Christ woke up from death via the power of God!!! Now you may still wonder: ‘how does this relate to me?’ Again, this answer is awesome! Remember that when Christ died on the cross, God reckoned it (i.e. set it in His own mind) that all men were united and died with Christ. Now with this in motion, God set it such that everything that happened to Christ afterwards happened to all man as well (all this in God’s perspective/realm). So when Christ arose, all men were: given life together with Christ, raised up together with Christ, (and when Christ ascended) we all were seated together with Christ (Eph. 2:5-6; Col. 2:13 and 3:1).

You need to see how this forms the core of our salvation! Our union with divinity, even with God Himself!!! You see, God’s accomplishment via salvation is mind blowing. You may say: ‘how now?’ Well see:

• Your spirit is one with God in spirit, completely united, same essence and perfect union. The very type of union Jesus has with God, we now all have with the entirety of the God-head, even as 1 Cor.6:17 explain and Jesus clarifies this in prayer in John 17:21. You see, when you believed, God (who is a spirit) gave birth to you (John 3:6).

• Today, God has given us His mind and He His daily melding our minds with His own. 1Cor. 2:16b shows God giving us His own mind. Philip. 2:5 explains that it is our choice to unite our mind with God’s, till God’s mind dominates us. Finally, Rom. 12:2 points out the need for persistence in letting God’s mind make the necessary change in our personality. So we no longer say God’s ways are higher than ours, rather we are the people of the way and we show the way to the world!

• Now our body is God’s dwelling place! This is in particular incredible. God is Invisible! God is Omnipresent! God is beyond human-word description! Then you go looking for God and find him living inside humans! Ain’t that seemingly implausible? Yet this is God’s lovely dwelling place, the body of men who have made the choice to believe in Him. Jesus explains this in John 14:23 and Paul expatiates in 1Cor. 3:16.

Dear friends, Jesus is alive! He is the first man to be born into this new life we live in! He is God with us! We need to see this reality, appreciate it, understand it and accept it even at the very level of our sub-conscious. Jesus is a living being! He talks, He speaks, He gives life and He is Lord of and over all!

With this, we round off our series on “Man” and we will be moving back to posting some of our inspirations and experiences on the Christian race. Kindly ask your questions freely and post comments as well! We hope that you learned one or two new things through this series and you’ve been able to come to a better understanding of who you are as a Christian, or if you’re not, of whom a Christian is.