It's a new day, the episode yesterday went as well as could be hoped, God answers prayer. I should also comment that I have been looking for proper work and struggling with knowing what direction to move in, and things are being to clarify, I praise God for his continued supportiveness and for helping things to work out. I am now returning to my study of Romans where I left off.
Last time I looked at Romans this is what I wrote:
"Because all are guilty of breaking God's law and all need Jesus to be saved by his blood which is beyond them to purchase we can conclude a few points… So the deeds of the law themselves have no power to save, they are an end of salvation not a means… Does the fact that faith is the source of our law-keeping make the law itself useless? That is a ridiculous proposition; the law tells us right and wrong but does not empower us to do it. Knowing right and wrong is not enough; we must do right and reject wrong. Only by faith will we be able to keep the law; faith establishes the law in our souls. That does not change the law itself; but our way of striving to keep it."
Abraham is the father of the Abrahamic religions, and his faith should serve as a model for our faith. Was Abraham considered good by God because he did good things? If he was that would be to his credit but he still would owe everything to God. The scripture says And he believed in the Lord; and he counted it to him for righteousness. (Genesis 15:6) Why does the scripture say "he counted it to him for righteousness"? Why not "and he was shown to be righteous"? Because Abraham was not yet righteous in practice (or in reality) when God ascribed (imputed, claimed the presence of) righteousness to him. Abraham did not yet deserve the label "righteous", he had not earned it, but God chose to give it to him because he had faith in what God had said, he took God at his word. If Abraham had managed to attain (get) righteousness by his own efforts he would have felt he deserved to be declared righteous. Remember though that Abraham was only born at all because of God's mercy, and his good upbringing was through God's providence (influence) and his own life was sustained daily by God's power. So in reality nobody can presume to deserve anything from God. However, earning his own righteousness would have created pride and self-sufficiency which would have made Abraham like Satan in character. Abraham never would have felt his need to obey God; he never would have been really righteous. But by relying on God and choosing to obey him (even to move to another country) and especially by accepting that God would work a miracle in giving him a son, Abraham exercised the kind of faith in God that is needed to be given salvation by God. He that makes the choice to proactively believe God's word that it can save sinners; his faith is counted for righteousness.
Abraham lived in a great location; plenty of jobs, lots of amenities, everything a sinner could wish for. There were many people for righteous Abraham to preach to and to reach in Ur, it was a great mission ground (same as Sodom). But God called Abraham out of that place to a land "out the back of Burke", "beyond the black stump". He called him to Hickville to be a missionary among the dodgiest people in the world (who were famous for practicing child sacrifice for instance) the accursed race (Gen 9:25). Oh, and generally speaking there were no mass conversions, Abraham was not particularly successful at winning the Canaanites. Abraham was called out to be the father of a great nation, great nations are here already and God has a different purpose for his people at the end of time. But it makes me wonder; have I been too "rational"?
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