Friend of God
Now Playing: Are we willing to let our faith be tested by God ?
Topic: Guidance
Genesis 18:16-21

Abraham's faith grew and developed through the spiritual exercise of testing. This is also why God permits our faith to be tested.

First Peter 1:7 says the purpose of testing is so "the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ."

In Genesis 18 there are some very significant statements about Abraham. The Lord said, "Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do; seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him?" (vv. 17,18).

The Lord was going to destroy the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, but He told Abraham first. Truly, Abraham was the friend of God.

God said of Abraham, "For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment; that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him" (v. 19).

What a tremendous statement--and to think it was spoken by God Himself! God knew Abraham intimately, and He knows every detail about us.

Are we determined to do His will at any cost? Does He have first place in our lives and thinking? Do we command our children and our household after Him?

"He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye" (Deut. 32:10).

(selected from T. Epp)