I Am a Sojourner With You1
Genesis 12:1-8
1Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.
God elected Abram. Therefore in due time he called him and separated him to himself. All of God’s chosen must also be like their spiritual father Abram and be separated from the world and dedicated to the Lord.2 All of his chosen spiritual descendants must follow in the same path as the father of the faithful.
4So Abram went, as the LORD had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. (The same grace that chose him made him obedient. There was only one way for Abram to inherit this blessing. He followed the divine command and left everything. He turned his back on his past life and cheerfully followed his Lord.) 5And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people that they had acquired in Haran, and they set out to go to the land of Canaan. (It is not enough to begin the journey, we must continue to the end.)
6Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. (The Lord promised to give the land to the patriarch,3 but Abram did not actually own a single foot of it. Unbelief would have thought this inheritance was more shadow than real; but “faith is the assurance of things hoped for,”4 and makes us content to wait. The Canaanite is still in the land, yet we are correct to believe that all things are ours.)
7Then the LORD appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the LORD, who had appeared to him. 8From there he moved to the hill country on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. And there he built an altar to the LORD and called upon the name of the LORD. (Abram was careful to continue the worship of God wherever he might be placed. Go where we may, let us not forget to give devotion and obedience to God.)
Abram acted without delay. His reason is found in:
Hebrews 11:8-10
8By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. 9By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. 10For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.
Abraham had to leave idolatrous Chaldea. We must also separate ourselves from a world that is controlled by the wicked one. He understood he was like an outsider in this temporary life and we must too. This world is not our home where we can relax. Ours is the life of a traveler until we reach “the city that has foundations.”5 Abraham pitched his tent and wandered up and down in the land as a stranger, not as a citizen of Canaan. We do not have a permanent city here, but we look for one in the future. Those who find a place to rest here do not have one in heaven.
2 Corinthians 6:14-18
14Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? 15What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? 16What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said,
“I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them,
and I will be their God,
and they shall be my people.
17 Therefore go out from their midst,
and be separate from them, says the Lord,
and touch no unclean thing;
then I will welcome you,
18 and I will be a father to you,
and you shall be sons and daughters to me,
says the Lord Almighty.”
Oh, that the Lord would make us, as a family, separated to himself.
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1 Psalm 39:12
2 2 Corinthians 6:16a, 17a, “What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God. ... ‘Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord.’”
3 patriarch - A man regarded as the father or ruler of a family. Bible patriarchs include Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Jacob's twelve sons.
4 Hebrews 11:1
5 Hebrews 11:10