A New Beginning

Day Two of 50 Days to Freedom: Gen 12:1-20, Gen 15:1-21

If you are movie buffs, you need to understand the beginning of Gen 12 to be like:

Star Wars (the original) when Luke chooses to go with Ben Kenobi to save the world.

The Fellowship of the Ring when the Council of Elrond determines that Frodo will take the ring to be destroyed in the fires of Mordor.

Rocky, when Mickey decides to help Rocky prepare to find “that animal” Apollo Creed.”

Mission Impossible, when they hear, “your mission should you choose to accept it…”

This is God taking initiative to save the world.  He is going to choose one man, make him into a great family, which will become a great nation and through that nation, he will bring blessing to the world.  This is the salvation story in seed form.  Just like the story of those movies drive the turn of those scenes, the rest of scripture will watch this seed of the story take root, burst from the ground begin to bear fruit, fight off the threats to its life and eventually be the tree of life for the world.

If you look back at Genesis 10 and 11, people tried to regain their freedom on their own.  They would build a tower so they could oppose God.  They thought that God was the enemy of their freedom.  It was the other way around.  From that tower, God created all of the nations… then made one more, through Abraham that would bring salvation to the rest.

When we think about freedom, living free from sin and bondage, it is so important to remember that God is the one who takes initiative in our lives.  We aren’t standing alone in the world trying to shake off the chains that bind us.  The fact that we are seeking Him for freedom in and of itself is a sign that he has already been at work drawing us to himself, giving us a distaste for bondage and a longing for righteousness.  Gen 15:6 says “that Abraham believed God and God credited that to him righteousness.”  Abraham had not really done anything yet.  The first move for us for freedom is to believe that God is at work already and we are simply responding to his grace.