The Joy of Glory

Acts 7 (click here)
…The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran, and said to him, “Go out from your land and from your kindred and go into the land that I will show you.” Then he went out from the land of the Chaldeans and lived in Haran. And after his father died, God removed him from there into this land in which you are now living. Yet he gave him no inheritance in it, not even a foot’s length, but promised to give it to him as a possession and to his offspring after him, though he had no child. (Acts 7:2-5)

Reflection
Has God been faithful?

Whenever we ask ourselves that question we naturally begin to look at the story of our lives. We look for evidence of God’s faithfulness within the brief time period that we have walked on his planet… but our story is bigger than that and so is the story of God’s faithfulness!

God has been faithful to his people, of which we are a part… and if we want to see God’s faithfulness to us as then we must look at this greater, grander story! This is one of the reasons we have the whole of Scripture!

The grand storyline of the Bible can help us to see how it is that God is being faithful to us as one of his people, even when our individual circumstances may make it seem lack God’s faithfulness is lacking.

Just think about the promises God gave to Abraham which Stephen describes for us in the beginning of his sermon in Acts 7. Stephen’s whole message is about God’s faithfulness to do what he has promised for his people, and that begins with Abraham to whom the Lord promised a land filled with his own descendants which would be as countless as the stars. Yet, in his own lifetime, Abraham didn’t have one square foot of the promised land that he could call his own. And, as for those countless descendants… he had one son.

But Abraham believed God… he trusted… and we can look back and see God’s overwhelming faithfulness to fulfill his promises!

This goes beyond just Abraham… think about the fact that there were Israelites who were born, lived, and died in the wilderness. They would have been told stories of how God had faithfully rescued them out of slavery to Egypt in the past… and they would be told stories of how God had promised to faithfully give them a land in the future… but many lived and died without ever actually seeing either of those things. They lived and died in the desert!

Many of us may feel like this is our own individual story… that we are living and dying in the desert. When we look at our individual story it may be hard to believe that God is faithful… and this is why we need to see the grand story of God’s faithfulness to his people!

Open Scripture… see that story… and see that you are included in it! That grand story of God’s faithfulness to his people IS the story of his faithfulness to you!

Has God been faithful? YES!

Will he be faithful? YES!

All of Sciprture reveals that he is faithful to his people… and his people includes you!

*All previous devotionals may be found at www.thejoyofglory.com
*The complete SVCC Lenten reading guide is available here.