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Day 25: Romans 4/Psalm 47
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Saturday March 20, 2004
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When everything
was hopeless, Abraham believed anyway, deciding to live not on the
basis of what he saw he couldn't do but on what God said he would do.
And so he was made father of a multitude of peoples. God himself said
to him, "You're going to have a big family, Abraham!"
Abraham didn't focus on his own impotence and say, "It's
hopeless. This hundred-year-old body could never father a
child." Nor did he survey Sarah's decades of infertility and
give up. He didn't tiptoe around God's promise asking cautiously
skeptical questions. He plunged into the promise and came up strong,
ready for God, sure that God would make good on what he had said.
That's why it is said, "Abraham was declared fit before God by
trusting God to set him right." But it's not just Abraham; it's
also us! The same thing gets said about us when we embrace and
believe the One who brought Jesus to life when the conditions were
equally hopeless. The sacrificed Jesus made us fit for God, set us
right with God.
Romans 4:18-25 (The Message)
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Taking the
Plunge
Abraham, the father of Israel, is the father of all those believe--Jew
and Gentile alike. By faith in Christ, we are grafted into his
family--one family saved by faith, not by law. God’s chosen people.
This was a radical
thought for a people who had spent centuries following the law.
Righteousness for a faithful Israelite was earned by works. Now, says
Paul, it is given freely as a gift. And, even more astoundingly, it was
given as a gift to their father Abraham.
God promised
Abraham that he would be a father to many nations. Now that would be a
big promise for anyone--but for Abraham it was bigger than big. It
seemed to be the impossible. His wife Sarah was barren, he was about
100 years old, and they had no hope of bearing a child.
Yet, Abraham
believed. He looked straight at the facts, accepted a paradox of
impossibilities, and believed.
“He [Abraham]
didn't tiptoe around God's promise asking cautiously skeptical
questions. He plunged into the promise and came up strong, ready for
God, sure that God would make good on what he had said.”
Abraham took the
plunge--that’s a great image. Picture yourself for a minute, standing
on the edge of a cliff, high above sparkling blue waters. Face the most
impossible thing in your life right now. Believe God’s promise for
you--and dive in.
I'm diving in, I'm going
deep, in over my head I want to be
Caught in the rush, lost in the flow, in over my head I want to go
The river's deep, the river's wide, the river's water is alive
So sink or swim, I'm diving in
--Dive by Steve Curtis Chapman (Speechless, 1999)
That’s the kind of
faith that changes a life, that changes a city, that changes a world.
Abraham’s faith made him a father of nations--a father for all of us
who believe. Are you ready? Sink or swim, I’m diving in.
Today’s
Prayer:
Thank you, Father, that you are bigger than any impossibility in my
life today. I choose to believe you, to take the plunge, and to trust
you to do all you’ve promised. I desire to experience fully all you
have for me in and through the impossibilities of my life. Today, I’m
diving in.
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Memory Verse of the Week:
"...for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that
came by Christ Jesus."
Romans 3:23-24 (New International Version)
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For a complete
listing of all the previous devotionals in this "50 Day
Experience," click here.
To read the chapter or psalm of the day online, click on one of the
following links:
o
Romans
4
o
Psalm
47
Susan Carson, carson@cincyvineyard.com,
Director of Curriculum at VCC
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