Leave and Go

 DEVOTION

GENESIS

LEAVE AND GO

Gen 12:1-5

12:1 The LORD had said to Abram, "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you. 2 "I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you." 4 So Abram left, as the LORD had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Haran. 5 He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Haran, and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there.

NIV

The call of Abram is the call of every person who hears the voice of the Lord. That is the difference that is everything. We are told that the LORD had said to Abram, that he was to leave his country, his people, his father’s household and go where the LORD would show him. This is the call we hear when the Lord speaks to our hearts and minds. We wonder if Abram heard the audible voice of God, or if this was one of those deep inner senses, that one just knows it is God speaking. Either way, when we hear God calling us, we too must leave our country. We abdicate our citizenship in the world we were living in, the world in which we were known as a sinner, living for our own personal pleasures and gains, where we did not concern ourselves other than our “self”. We needed to leave all that world behind and go to a land, a kingdom that God would show us, a place where Jesus went to the cross for us and redeemed us, and so God offered us a place in his kingdom. We also needed to leave our people and our father’s household. It is interesting as soon as we make the journey across that bridge, the wooden cross, from that city of sin, darkness, and death, to the city of light, and life, those people we once lived in sin with no longer want to be near us, because we are now speaking about the things of God, the grace we received and that we no longer what to live in the same manner as they. The leaving seems to be twofold, we leave them and they leave us because they love the darkness and are ignorant of the death that awaits them. We may also need to leave our father’s household, which could mean family, Jesus spoke about how he would cause families to separate from each other because of one finding grace, and the other refusing grace. The journey of God will always take us to that place he wants to show us, to reveal to us the city of God, the place of eternal rest and joy being in a place prepared for us by Jesus. So, when we heard the voice of God, we left where we were and followed Him. God blessed Abram, and God has been blessing us because, like Abram left as the LORD had told him, we left as the LORD had told us. It is all about leaving and going.