Barnabas Bulletin ~0070 

God’s heart is that each of His disciples knows the joy and fulfillment of being a great blessing to others. In Genesis 12:1-4 we read of the great promises God made to Abram and of His desire to make of him a great nation, a great blessing, a great name, and a great impact throughout the earth. It seems that that was not the first time that Abram had received that promise: “Now the Lord had said to Abram: Get out of your country, from your family and from your father’s house . . .” Prior to this Abram was a virtual unknown who had been faithfully serving his father’s household at home. His family loyalties had been such that he was unable (or unwilling) to respond to that promise of God earlier. It was not until the death of his father, Terah (Genesis 11:32), that Abram was sufficiently challenged to leave home. He was 75 years of age! He had been faithful, loyal and true for a long time. But the promises of God were not being fulfilled, even though he was faithful at home. In order for the promises of God to be activated further, Abram had to have a change of environment, a change of locality, a challenge to change the way he was living. Is this a principle? Yes! Look at what Jesus taught: “He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 10:37-39). If you look at Matthew 12:46-50, Jesus declares that it is those who do the will of His Father in heaven who are His mother and brothers! (See also Matthew 19:29 and Mark 10:28-31).

It often takes the death of some one close to us, or the death of some thing dear to us, to cause us to make the radical decisions to get us from where we presently are to where we should be. Abram seemed unable to move out until Terah was dead. Once he worked through that death process he was much more willing to step out into the unknown and to trust God for that which He had promised. From that point on, Abram’s life and ministry comes powerfully to the fore. The little known became the greatly known. But it did not happen until he responded to the word of the Lord to leave his comfort and security zone! This is a major principle of Christianity.Simply put, God says we (the old you and me) has to die! Unless there is a death, there can be no resurrection! This principle of death should have been dealt with right back at the beginning of our Christian walk. It is called water baptism, which is all about dying to self (Romans 6). But, “the old man” does not want to die! Jesus also taught that “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much fruit” (John 12:24). (Notice Jesus said “a grain of wheat” – not a tare). The natural part of us always wants to hang on to what it has! That only causes us to be lonely and fruitless. Putting it bluntly, we have to die to self!

So, the questions need to be asked:

• What holds us back from stepping into the fulfillment of the promise of God to Abram, and the promise of Jesus to us?

• Are we holding on to a loyalty to a loved one (or someone who has become between us and God)?

• Why are we not forthright in obeying the call and command of God?

We Christians are living in a day when we do need to ask ourselves some hard questions. Our message is not impacting the unsaved – or the saved – as much as it should be! Have we become so complacent in our comfort zone that our faith, fervour and fire for Jesus have been affected to the point that we are nowhere as fruitful in the Kingdom of God as we ought to be? According to Jesus true fruitfulness only comes after there has been a death principle worked into our lives. ~Rodney W. Francis.

Bible  Readings:  Genesis 22:1-19; Mark 8:34-38; Roma ns 6; 2 Corinthians 4.  

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