WHAT DID ABRAHAM SEE?
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Opening Prayer
Father, thank you for the many ways your Spirit speaks to encourage me and build my faith. Help me to listen and apply what he teaches me.
Read JOHN 8:48–59
For additional translations of the passage, use this link to Bible Gateway.
Jesus’ Claims About Himself
48 The Jews answered him, “Aren’t we right in saying that you are a Samaritan and demon-possessed?”
49 “I am not possessed by a demon,” said Jesus, “but I honor my Father and you dishonor me. 50 I am not seeking glory for myself; but there is one who seeks it, and he is the judge. 51 Very truly I tell you, whoever obeys my word will never see death.”
52 At this they exclaimed, “Now we know that you are demon-possessed! Abraham died and so did the prophets, yet you say that whoever obeys your word will never taste death. 53 Are you greater than our father Abraham? He died, and so did the prophets. Who do you think you are?”
54 Jesus replied, “If I glorify myself, my glory means nothing. My Father, whom you claim as your God, is the one who glorifies me. 55 Though you do not know him, I know him. If I said I did not, I would be a liar like you, but I do know him and obey his word. 56 Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was glad.”
57 “You are not yet fifty years old,” they said to him, “and you have seen Abraham!”
58 “Very truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!” 59 At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds.
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
“’I am the Alpha and the Omega,’ says the Lord God, ‘who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.’”1
What did you see, Abraham (v. 56)? When God called you to a radically new life of obedience and trust … when you and Sarah were childless, old, and barren … when he promised to bless the peoples of the earth through your offspring … what filled your faithful mind’s eye? When you contemplated the myriad stars in the dark night sky, did you picture the faces of your descendants shining with God’s light? When your toes felt the heat of millions of grains of sand, could you imagine them in their own land, blessing the world? When at long last you gazed into your baby son’s eyes, the incarnation of God’s everlasting covenant with you, what was that joy like? Did you, as the rabbis maintained, have a vision of the coming Messiah amid your laughter?
Abraham, as you scrutinized the distant horizons of time, how did you envisage your descendants enjoying the fruits of the promise? Claiming physical and spiritual kinship with you, yet no longer knowing your God? Religiously unwilling to imitate your obedience to God’s radical call to a new life? Did God whisper in your ear, ‘I will go to introduce myself to your offspring. I will fulfill our covenant perfectly’? Could you have conceived that your God would be unrecognized, deemed a liar, a heretic, a crazy man, demon-possessed?
Abraham, when you assured Isaac, ‘God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son,’2 could you have imagined you were mouthing echoes of another Father, another Son? In the supreme irony of your children’s murderous intent, temple stones in their hands, could your joy stretch to see the Messiah’s coming glory? In that space, held only by faith and not reason, what was it like to be overjoyed? To visualize the blinding splendor of Jesus’ day?
Apply
What are those things that assure you God will keep all of his promises?
Closing prayer
Eternal God, you keep your promises. Help me to honor you today and to trust you with all I don’t see or understand.
1 Rev 1:8 2 Gen 22:8
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