The Greatest Gift
Reading Selections for December 5^th
“Living by Faith”

Genesis 12:7 (NLT) – “Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, ‘I will give this land to your descendants.’  And Abram built an altar there and dedicated it to the Lord, who had appeared to him.”

Have you ever wondered why God chose to appear to Abram?  For that matter, have you ever wondered what was so great that the Creator of the universe chose to speak to, appear to, or even work through ANY of the people recorded in Scripture.  Let’s face it, there’s only one Perfect man who ever walked the earth and it wasn’t Adam, or Noah, or Abram.

All we really know about Abram before God appeared to him is that he must have been a descendant of Noah and he’s from an area of the world that over time has developed a reputation for being opposed to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  That’s it.  Nothing distinctive.  Nothing special.  Nothing particularly godly.  He was just a man.

So why did God choose to appear to him?  Why did God promise to bless him and all the nations of the earth through him?  Why did God transcend the heavenlies and insert Himself into time and space to appear to just an ordinary man?

Because that’s the nature of unconditional Love, it truly has no conditions.  Which means it is wholly dependent on the person who loves, not the recipient of that love.  Abram did absolutely nothing to earn Love coming down in person, extending Himself to him and then choosing to bless him.

And we don’t either.  Christ comes to us in the middle of all of our humanity and if we will allow Him, joins with us and takes up residence in us.  And this was His plan from the beginning.

I love these Old Testament pictures of God extending Himself to man long before He literally did it through the Babe in a manger. The entire Bible is Advent – God coming for us.  What occurred to me as I was reading this passage in Genesis was that the Bible records history from a certain perspective.  It doesn’t record every single thing that’s ever happened since the beginning of time.  What about all the other ordinary people God came to, spoke to and blessed?  What about you and me?