We need to experience the God of Abraham as the Almighty God with His Friendly Care, the God of Changelessness, the God with His Trial, the Triune God of Provision, the Triune God of Blessing, and the God of Friendship on the Human Level.
Who God is to us depends on how much of Him we experience in our daily living. If God is only the God of glory appearing to us, we will be attracted by Him to come out of anything of the old man to Himself in the new creation.
If God is the One who blesses us, we will seek God’s blessing and desire nothing else. If God is the all-sufficient One to us, we will enjoy Him as grace and allow Him to work Himself into us so that Christ may be brought forth for the fulfillment of God’s purpose.
If we experience and know God as our friend, we will have many conversations with Him, lingering in His presence and listening to Him opening His heart to us. We need to know our God and experience Him in the same way that our father Abraham did.
Day by day and little by little we need God’s appearing, His speaking, His calling, and His friendship, unveiling us as His intimate friends what He aspires to do on earth and what He wants us to be for the accomplishment of His heart’s desire, His economy.
May God gain not only Abraham but many sons of Abraham, the descendants of Abraham, those who experience God and have God become their God through their many experiences of Him.
May God gain a corporate man who has many experiences of the God of Abraham in so many aspects so that He would accomplish His eternal economy. Today we want more of the aspects of God that Abraham experienced all the way until the end of his life.
The God of Abraham is the Almighty God with His Friendly Care
In Gen. 20 Abraham went to Gerar and again said that Sarah is his wife. He had a hidden weakness in this matter.
To make the long story short, Abraham had to pray for Abimelech the king and his people to continue to have children (even though he himself, Abraham, could not have a child).
Abraham experienced God as the almighty God with His friendly care in saving his close friend Abraham from the loss of his wife to Abimelech. In the exposing of his hidden weakness Abraham had to do a shameful intercession. But he experienced God with His friendly care.
The God of Abraham is the God of Changelessness
Abraham experienced God as the God of changelessness – He doesn’t change in His promise and covenant, and He recognizes only Isaac, the son of Abraham with Sarah, as his only son (see Gen. 21:1-12).
God promised Abraham a seed, He strengthened the promise, He even made a covenant with Abraham, and then at the time of life Abraham had Isaac through Sarah. Even though Abraham also had Ishmael through Hagar, God recognizes only Isaac as being his son.
Abraham had Isaac through Sarah in Beer-Sheba, and he planted a tamarisk tree and called the name of El-Olam. God doesn’t change in His promise: Christ will be wrought into us to be brought forth through us!
The God of Abraham is the God with His Trial
In Gen. 22:1-10 we see that God wanted to test Abraham by asking him to bring his only son, Isaac, his beloved son, as a burnt offering to God on Mount Moriah. Abraham experienced God as the God with His trial in proving Abraham, His intimate friend.
I would recommend footnote 1 in Gen. 22:1 in Recovery Version Bible where we see how Isaac being offered by Abraham to God was a type of God offering up Christ on the cross in the following aspects:
- Isaac, as Abraham’s only son (Gen. 22:2, 12, 16), typifies Christ as God’s only begotten Son (John 3:16).
- Isaac was Abraham’s beloved son (Gen. 22:2), and Christ was the Father’s beloved Son, in whom He delighted (Matt. 3:17).
- Isaac took his father’s will (Gen. 22:6), and Christ also chose the will of His Father (Matt. 26:39).
- Isaac was obedient unto death (Gen. 22:9-10); likewise, Christ was obedient unto death (Phil. 2:8).
- Isaac carried the wood for the burnt offering and walked to the top of Mount Moriah (Gen. 22:6); in the same way, Christ bore His cross and walked to Golgotha (John 19:17).
- Isaac was “killed” on the altar and was returned to Abraham on the third day, that is, in resurrection (Gen. 22:4, 10-13; Heb. 11:19); similarly, Christ was crucified on the cross and was resurrected on the third day (1 Cor. 15:4).
- Isaac was multiplied in resurrection (Gen. 22:17), and Christ also was multiplied in His resurrection (John 12:24; 1 Pet. 1:3).
- Isaac was the seed of Abraham for the blessing of all the nations (Gen. 22:18); likewise, Christ is the unique seed of Abraham in whom the blessing of Abraham has come to the nations (Gal. 3:8, 14, 16).
The God of Abraham is the Triune God of Provision
In His eleventh speaking to Abraham in Gen. 22:11-14 God was experienced by Abraham as Jehovah-Jireh, the Triune God of provision: He provided a ram to replace Isaac for a burnt offering to Him.
When Abraham was about to slaughter his own son as a burnt offering, the Angel of Jehovah (Christ) appeared to him and didn’t allow him to touch the boy; He provided a ram to replace Isaac for a burnt offering to Him.
On the one hand Abraham experienced God as the Angel of Jehovah and on the other hand he experienced God as the One providing the replacing ram. Christ is the substitute for sinners in the flesh, and God provides Christ as the substituting One, the one who died in our place on the cross.
The God of Abraham is the Triune God of Blessing
In His last speaking to Abraham we see the Triune God of blessing – He promised him that He would bless him and multiply his seed like the stars of the heavens and like the sand upon the seashore and that in his seed all the nations of the earth will be blessed (Gen. 22:15-18).
In Abraham’s seed, Christ, all the nations are blessed, and Abraham’s seed was multiplied to become as numerous as the stars in the heaven (the believers in Christ, the spiritual descendants of Abraham) and as the sand upon the seashore (the Jews, the physical descendants of Abraham).
Abraham lived such a full life and was blessed by God. He didn’t have his name written in the temples or on the tall buildings, neither did he have statues built up to him, but his name was written in the divine history as a man who failed in every stage of his life, starting from zero, and yet went all the way to the top, experiencing God to the uttermost. May we be such ones!
The God of Abraham is the God of Friendship on the Human Level
In Gen. 24 we see that Abraham sent his old servant to find a wife for his son Isaac. Even in seeking a wife for his son, Abraham experience God as the God of friendship on the human level in leading the of servant through all the details.
God indirectly took care of Abraham in his endeavour to get a good wife for his son Isaac; God arranged everything for the son of His friend Abraham to get Rebecca as his wife.
Abraham knew and experienced God, and he also knew God’s ways. He knew God personally, experienced God in his life and living, and he worshipped God for His ways.
We need to know God as the God of Abraham by experiencing Him in our daily life. May Abraham’s God become our God through our experience of Him.
Lord, we want to experience You as the God of Abraham until You become OUR GOD. Save us from superficially know You or merely know about You. May we know You as the God of changelessness in keeping the principle of Your grace. May we know You as the Triune God of provision: You provide Christ as the substitute for us. May we know You as the Triune God of blessing. May we know You as the One who cares for us on a human level, taking an all-inclusive tender care for us both visibly and behind the scenes. We love You, Lord!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my Christian experience, bro. Andrew Yu’s sharing in the message for this week, and portions from, The History of God in His Union with Man (ch. 7), as quoted in, the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Genesis (2), week 8 / msg 8, The God of Abraham seen in His dealings with Abraham.
- Hymns on this topic:
# What great provision God has made / In Jesus’ death on Calvary! / I hung with Him upon the tree, / And in His tomb I too was laid. (Hymns #485)
# Were I possessor of the earth, / And called the stars my own, / Without Thy graces and Thyself, / I were a wretch undone, / I were a wretch undone. / Let others stretch their arms like seas, / And grasp in all the shore; / Grant me the visits of Thy grace, / And I desire no more, / And I desire no more. (Hymns #600)
# Lonely though the pathway, / Cheer it with Thy smile; / Be Thou my companion / Through earth’s little while; / Selfless may I live, Lord, / By Thy grace to be / Just a cleansed channel / For Thy life through me. (M. E. Barber, Hymns #377)
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