Isaiah 41:8–9: “But you, Israel, are My servant, / Jacob, whom I have chosen, / The descendants of Abraham My friend. / You whom I have taken from the ends of the earth, / And called from its farthest regions, / And said to You, ‘You are My servant, / I have chosen you and have not cast you away:'”

September 4th, 2024 by Pastor Ed in devotional

We notice that God calls Abraham, “my friend,” speaking no doubt of Abraham’s faithfulness to God. God asked Abraham to leave the land of his birth, Ur of the Chaldees, and to go to wherever God sent him. “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness,” appears in both the Old Testament (Genesis 15:6) and the New Testament (Romans 4:3,22 and James 2:23). But how can this be true when we read in Genesis 12 and 20 of how Abraham lied, twice, while traveling south with his wife Sarah to escape a severe drought in Israel? We also find that Abraham was the father of 2 sons from 2 different women.

One of the reasons we find Scripture believable is that it refuses to gloss over its heroes. Moses is portrayed as the guilty murderer he was, and David the guilty adulterer and murder he was. Abraham, David, Job, Moses, and so many others tried to walk in righteousness, but life got in the way, and they all made bad choices. Their poor choices often cost them dearly and brought them both guilt and shame. God declared Abraham righteous because of his initial faith and because he kept turning back to God again and again. What we believe about God is critical. That is how Abraham became a friend of God, and we can too. Romans 5:17 says, “those who receive [God’s] abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.” We must believe God and receive the gifts of grace and righteousness from His hand continually.

D.L. Moody said it this way:

A man can no more take in a supply of grace for the future than he can eat enough today to last him for the next six months, or take sufficient air into his lungs at once to sustain life for a week to come. We must draw upon God’s boundless stores of grace from day to day, as we need it.

“LORD, we also want to be Your friend. Help us to accept Your grace-filled fellowship this day, in Jesus’ name.”