WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?
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Opening Prayer
Loving Savior, you deserve more thanksgiving and praise than I could ever offer you. Holy Spirit, help me in all that I am—my thoughts, my words, my actions—to testify and bring glory to Jesus.
Read GENESIS 12:1–9
For additional translations of the passage, use this link to Bible Gateway.
The Call of Abram
12 The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.
2 “I will make you into a great nation,
and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
and you will be a blessing.[a]
3 I will bless those who bless you,
and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
will be blessed through you.”[b]
4 So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Harran. 5 He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Harran, and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there.
6 Abram traveled through the land as far as the site of the great tree of Moreh at Shechem. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. 7 The Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring[c] I will give this land.” So he built an altar there to the Lord, who had appeared to him.
8 From there he went on toward the hills east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. There he built an altar to the Lord and called on the name of the Lord.
9 Then Abram set out and continued toward the Negev.
Footnotes
- Genesis 12:2 Or be seen as blessed
- Genesis 12:3 Or earth / will use your name in blessings (see 48:20)
- Genesis 12:7 Or seed
New International Version (NIV)Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Reflect
Read 1 John 3:2. Allow God to remind you of who you really are, through Jesus.The popular British TV show ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ takes a celebrity into their family history. The title implies that your past explains who you are. You are the sum of your history.
Abram’s family history, given in Genesis 11, dominates our introduction to Abram. His life is dictated by his father, who inexplicably makes the decision to leave Ur, the center of civilization in the ancient Middle East, planning to take his entire family to Canaan (Genesis 11:31). Abram has no choice. His past is his destiny.
Genesis 12 changes everything. The call of God sets Abram on the path to become the father of all who have faith in God (Romans 4:11). He starts a life not predetermined by his father or ancestors, but by the call of God (12:1). He will leave behind his country, his people, and his father’s household. He is an ordinary man, but his response to God’s call gives his life enduring significance. Interestingly, the journey begins with a call to move further in the direction his father has already begun to take him (v. 5)—God was already at work in his family. Can you offer yourself again to become all that he wants you to be?
Apply
Read John 1:11–13. Our identity and destiny depend not on our past but on our response to Jesus now. Is there anything you need to leave behind in order to wholeheartedly embrace God’s call?
Closing prayer
Holy Spirit, thank you for your work that gives and builds my faith, for your direction as I follow Christ, and for your power that conforms me to his image. Thank you that I can always trust in your work, in your direction, and in your power to transform me into who God calls me to be.
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