Daily Meditation

Waiting in Faith

Ligonier Ministries

When Abraham arrived in Canaan, it was by no means a great nation. But he dwelt there, living in tents. God may have prepared a mansion for him in heaven, but in Canaan all he had was a tent. The only parcel of Canaan he ever actually owned was his burial plot.

Most importantly, Abraham waited. This is perhaps the hardest test of faith. Unrealized expectations make for bitterness and despair in many people’s lives. But Abraham waited in faith, just as God later required of the prophet Habakkuk, when He said: “Write the vision and make it plain on tablets, that he may run who reads it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time; but at the end it will speak, and it will not lie. Though it tarries, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry” (Hab. 2:2–3).

Abraham waited in faith and died in faith. With the rest of the Old Testament saints, it was said: “And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise, God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us” (Heb. 11:39–40).

Coram Deo

Do you have a good testimony of faith? Have you learned to wait in faith for God to move on your behalf?

Passages for Further Study

Habakkuk 2:2–3
Hebrews 11:39–49

Daily Meditation

Moving Out in Faith

Ligonier Ministries

Abraham went to a far country at the bidding of God. He was not young and foolish. He was advanced in years, being seventy-five years old when God said to him: “Get out of your country, from your family and from your father’s house, to a land that I will show you” (Gen. 12:1).

Abraham’s move was not a temporary trip for purposes of study or relaxation. It was to be a permanent uprooting for himself and his immediate family. It meant leaving both his father’s house and his fatherland. It meant leaving everything that was a part of his security. He left his home, his property, his business contacts, his doctor, and everyone else that was integral to his community. He took his wife, his nephew, and some servants. The only other person who went with him was God.

What made Abraham’s departure all the more startling was that he had no idea where he was going. He was a pilgrim with no place to call his home. But he went with a promise, a sacred pledge from God Himself that the Lord would show him a land wherein Abraham would become the father of a great nation.

This moment in his life was memorialized by the author of Hebrews: “By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance” (Heb. 11:8).

Coram Deo

Is God asking you to move out by faith in some area of your life or ministry?

Passages for Further Study

Hebrews 11:8–10

Daily Meditation

Waiting in Faith

When Abraham arrived in Canaan, it was by no means a great nation. But he dwelt there, living in tents. God may have prepared a mansion for him in heaven, but in Canaan all he had was a tent. The only parcel of Canaan he ever actually owned was his burial plot.

Most importantly, Abraham waited. This is perhaps the hardest test of faith. Unrealized expectations make for bitterness and despair in many people’s lives. But Abraham waited in faith, just as God later required of the prophet Habakkuk, when He said: “Write the vision and make it plain on tablets, that he may run who reads it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time; but at the end it will speak, and it will not lie. Though it tarries, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry” (Hab. 2:2–3).

Abraham waited in faith and died in faith. With the rest of the Old Testament saints, it was said: “And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise, God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us” (Heb. 11:39–40).

Coram Deo

Do you have a good testimony of faith? Have you learned to wait in faith for God to move on your behalf?

Passages for Further Study

Habakkuk 2:2–3
Hebrews 11:39–49

Daily Meditation

Who Are the Children of Abraham?

In you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. (Genesis 12:3)

John Piper

You who hope in Christ and follow him in the obedience of faith are Abraham’s descendants and heirs of his covenant promises.

God said to Abraham in Genesis 17:4, “Behold, my covenant is with you and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations.” But Genesis makes plain that Abraham did not father a multitude of nations in a physical or political sense. Therefore the meaning of God’s promise was probably that a multitude of nations would somehow enjoy the blessings of sonship even though physically unrelated to Abraham.

That’s no doubt what God meant in Genesis 12:3 when he said to Abraham, “In you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” From the very beginning, God had in view that Jesus Christ would be the descendant of Abraham and that everyone who trusts in Christ would become an heir of Abraham’s promise.

So it says in Galatians 3:29, “If you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.”

So when God said to Abraham 4,000 years ago, “Behold, my covenant is with you and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations,” he opened the way for anyone of us, no matter what nation we belong to, to become a child of Abraham and an heir of God’s promises. All we have to do is share the faith of Abraham — that is, bank our hope on God’s promises, so much so that if obedience requires it, we could give up our dearest possession like Abraham gave up Isaac.

We don't become heirs of Abraham’s promises by working for God but by being confident that God works for us. “Abraham grew strong in his faith, giving glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised” (Romans 4:20). That’s why Abraham could obey God even when obedience looked like a dead-end street. He trusted God to do the impossible.

Faith in God's promises — or today we would say, faith in Christ, who is the confirmation of God’s promises — is the way to become a child of Abraham; obedience is the evidence that faith is genuine (Genesis 22:12–19). Therefore Jesus says in John 8:39, “If you were Abraham’s children you would do what Abraham did.”

Children of Abraham are people of all nations who put their hope in Christ and, like Abraham on Mount Moriah, therefore don’t let their most precious earthly possession stop their obedience.

You who hope in Jesus Christ and follow him in the obedience of faith are the descendants of Abraham and heirs of his covenant promises.