Genesis 12:1: Now the LORD had said to Abram: “Get out of your country, / From your family / And from your father’s house, / To a land that I will show you.”

September 27th, 2022 by Pastor Ed in devotional

The New Testament tells us that God had to tell Abraham twice to leave his father’s family. He had to repeat the call because Abraham was not fully obedient to God, and although he left Ur with his father, he for some reason stopped halfway to Canaan. It is interesting that Terah means “delay or tarry.” It is also probably not a coincidence that Ur means “flame” or that Chaldee means “destruction.” Even the name Haran has an ominous meaning of “parched and desolate.”

The plan of God, the program of God, for Abraham was delayed by Abraham’s attachment to his earthly father. Not willing to make the break, Abraham fell into the same trap we do of delayed obedience, which is in fact disobedience. In the New Testament, Stephen gives us more insight:

And he said, “Brethren and fathers, listen: The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Haran, and said to him, ‘Get out of your country and from your relatives, and come to a land that I will show you.’ Then he came out of the land of the Chaldaeans, and dwelt in Haran. And from there, when his father was dead, He moved him to this land in which you now dwell.” (Act 7:2–4)

The lesson here for us is about partial obedience. Abraham stayed halfway obedient until there was a funeral in his life. Many times we don’t obey until there is a funeral for something or someone in our life. So how are you living right now? Have you moved up river but failed to go completely into the land? Have you left one foot in the world, and are caught between it and your new life in God? We also notice that God doesn’t mention Abraham’s delayed obedience here. Why? God has promised that when we humbly surrender our life and confess our sin, He will no longer remember our sin.

“LORD, please help us to serve You today with our whole, undivided heart.”