Fear not, you got a shield

Matt — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 07:31:08 +0000

In reading Genesis tonight, I found it ironic how we are built to learn by cause and effect, while we must learn to have faith. Let me explain: When we are children, we learn by our actions. Put your hand on the stove, it is going to burn and hurt tremendously. And as we go through life, we continue to learn that way. I failed at that, so I can’t do that anymore. I keep getting rejected, therefore I should give up and not try anymore. But the Bible teaches us that if we have faith in God, anything is possible. Even things that we believe and taught ourselves are not.

There are so many examples of this in the Bible, but none better than Abram. In Genesis 15, God speaks to Abram:

After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: “Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.” Genesis 15:1 ESV

Abram had just turned down a great reward from the king of Sodom. How hard must it have been to turn that down? But here, God is telling him that there is even greater reward! Then God let’s him know that his offspring will outnumber the stars, as the guy is in his 90’s. If you have been trying to have children for that long, it’s pretty easy to see that you would think that it is not going to happen. Yet, with faith, anything is possible. We see here that we are rewarded for our faithfulness:

6 And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness. Genesis 15:6 ESV

How cool is that? Personally, from my reads, I know that God has something cooking for me. I don’t know what it is yet, but by faith I know that it is going to happen. It’s probably something that nobody, even myself, would think possible from me. But, I have faith that it will happen and I am fired up! How exciting is that? I’ll keep you posted…

Bible 09 » learning

Fear not, you got a shield