The Calling of Abraham – PCS Reading Challenge, Week 2

We’ve been reading through The God of Abraham, Isaac & Jacob by Watchman Nee for our summer Reading Challenge. Last week we finished up Chapter 2 for Week 2 of the challenge.Check out what we’ve been enjoying below:

God calling Abraham was to call him out of the sinful situation. God appeared to Abraham as the God of glory. Pray that we also experience and see God as the God of glory!

God trained Abraham so that God can have the full way in Abraham. Likewise, the Lord seeks to always train us so that He can have the full way in us. We shouldn’t look at our situations and circumstances as something to be forsaken, but another opportunity for the Lord to train us, deal with us so that He can use us the way that He wants us to be used.

This chapter presents the importance of Abraham in the context of being a Christian. Because of his faith, Abraham was blessed by God to be the father of all the nations. I love that we can relate to this through our own faith in answering God’s calling. Finally, there was a statement from this reading that especially enjoyed, that the success or failure of God’s work is determined by the fight or flight response of His chosen people. While this may be a bit of an exaggeration, in that the will of God will ultimately be done, it does speak clearly to the importance of staying faithful to His purpose.

Before Abraham, God worked in individuals and they received something from Him. They were good, but none of them could change the sinful situation they were in. Abraham was chosen to be God’s first point of recovery. God needed him in order to recover man from the sinful situation by bringing His authority and will to the earth. Abraham not only received grace; he was a transmitter of grace. This also needs to be our experience.

I enjoyed that “in order to be God’s people we must have some definite experiences in Him” which is why it is so important to see what those experiences are through these three men. I also enjoyed that we can use Abraham as a pattern. Although he is a giant figure in the bible, actually he was an ordinary man. “It was not Abraham who made himself different from others; it was God who made him different.” We have to learn that we have nothing to boast in, but it is God who initiates and is the source of our faith.

The calling in Ur and in Haran show that God is the one initiating and is persistent. Ordinary Abraham was able to act as a critical person for turning the situation because of God’s calling and God’s persistence. Abraham did not possess a special, natural skill to make himself the one God used. Rather, God was the one who called Abraham. Abraham did not completely follow God’s instructions. Yet, God called him again. When God initiates, He follows through!

I am the Lord’s! I belong to God! I appreciated this week that I am not my own, but I belong to God. God wants to gain a group of people for Himself who will declare that they belong to Him and are for Him.

I enjoyed that God works through begetting, not just preaching. Preaching about God is empty unless you have experienced God. If you have, then rather than doctrines, you have a subjective experience to share.

Gen. 12:3 “In thee shall all families of the earth be blessed” I enjoyed that God works on one man first and not the nations/families directly. We need to be fully filled with God’s grace, power, and authority so that these can be dispensed to all men.

I enjoyed that although there were many great individuals in the bible such as Enoch, Abel, and Noah, they were not used by God in order to change a sinful situation. It isn’t enough for us to receive the grace of God just for ourselves, we need to have an active role shepherding others and allowing God to impart His grace into others as well. We need to be “transmitters” of grace.

God called Abraham twice to make him able to reach Canaan. God was persistent, when Abraham failed to absolutely follow God’s calling at first, God never gave up calling Abraham,. Thank you God you are the persistent one, you never stopped calling us, even though sometimes we got distracted and forgot our serving for you. We are so honored that God speaks to us again and again to remind us His purpose.

I am thankful that I am part of the Lord’s recovery. He has had mercy on us and has called us for His purpose even when we had no care for what He desires. His recovery work began with Abraham, is centered on Christ, and will be completed after the millennium. He is persistent and will see it all the way through.

I enjoyed that calling Abraham was not just to recover Abraham, it was to turn a sinful situation around and save more people through him. His calling was not for him to receive grace or transmit grace but to do work. This connected the lines for me.. when we pray for God to do his work in us, this is what we mean.

I really enjoy the that God chose Abraham to be His person and Abraham followed God’s calling to do the recovery work. From the beginning of the work with Abraham to the center of this redemption which was acomplished by Lord Jesus, it continued throughtout the millennium. God is persistent and always has plans for people to go all the way through.