The Devotional Journey
Bible Reading 8
Yahweh chooses Abram
Read Genesis 11:27–12:9.
In today’s reading, we’ll look at three other books of the Bible to get a fuller picture of what God is doing with Abram (who is later renamed Abraham). Though we are following the history of Genesis, additional information about Abram is found in later books of the Bible. So we will read three additional sets of verses.
In Genesis 11:27–32, we are introduced to a man named Terah and his family. The family worshipped other gods. We learn this from the book of Joshua.
Joshua 24:2
Joshua said to the people, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: Long ago your ancestors, including Terah, the father of Abraham and Nahor, lived beyond the Euphrates River, and they worshiped other gods.
We are also told that Terah’s family lived in Ur and then later moved to a place called Haran.
Why did they move from Ur to Haran? Genesis 12:1–9 tells us what happened. While they were in Ur, God spoke to Terah’s son, Abram. Abram was 75 years old, prosperous and very established.
We know that the initial information about God’s rescue plan, His gospel, had been told to Adam and Eve—that the promised offspring of the woman (the “seed” of the woman) would crush Satan and deal with the problem of sin (Genesis 3:15). This information had been passed down by Adam and Eve to later generations.
And we know God also revealed more information as time past because the New Testament tells us that Abram knew more about Yahweh’s plan.
The New Testament book of Hebrews tells us the following.
Hebrews 11:8–10
8 It was by faith that Abraham obeyed when God called him to leave home and go to another land that God would give him as his inheritance. He went without knowing where he was going. 9 And even when he reached the land God promised him, he lived there by faith—for he was like a foreigner, living in tents. And so did Isaac and Jacob, who inherited the same promise. 10 Abraham was confidently looking forward to a city with eternal foundations, a city designed and built by God.
Hebrews tells us Abram knew from God about a great city that Yahweh Himself would build for believers.
But here in Genesis 12, all we are told is that Yahweh asked Abram to move out of Ur. And He also made Abram three very great promises: his family would be given physical land; he would have many descendants; and God would provide a worldwide blessing through his family.
Abram chose to believe all the information he had about Yahweh—the gospel information available at the time and His personal instructions to Abram. Abram obediently left Ur. The family first moved to Haran and after his father Terah died, Abram went on to the land of Canaan. There, at a place called Shechem, Yahweh appeared to Abram and told him that this was the land He was giving to Abram’s descendants (Genesis 12:7).
How did Abram respond? He built an altar right there in Shechem to worship Yahweh. And when he pitched his tent at another location east of Bethel, he also built an altar there to worship Yahweh.
Abram believed Yahweh and obeyed His instructions.
In the Bible, Abram is used as the picture of what faith, or trust, or belief in God looks like. We know this because the New Testament uses him as the example of faith in God.
Romans 4:22–24
22 And because of Abraham’s faith, God counted him as righteous. 23 And when God counted him as righteous, it wasn’t just for Abraham’s benefit. It was recorded 24 for our benefit, too, assuring us that God will also count us as righteous if we believe in him, the one who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.
Because Abram believed what Yahweh promised, Abram acted. And besides responding in faith, Abram also responded by worshipping Yahweh.
Remember that when we first trusted what God said about salvation through Christ, God had counted us as righteous too.
But let’s not just trust Yahweh, but also worship Him as well, for who He is and what He has done for mankind. Because through Abram, Yahweh initiated a chain of events that led to the start of the nation of Israel and later on, it led to Him sending Jesus, a descendant of Abram, to rescue the world from eternal death.