Galatians 3:6-9

Galatians 3:6-9New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

Just as Abraham “believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness,” so, you see, those who believe are the descendants of Abraham. And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, declared the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “All the Gentiles shall be blessed in you.” For this reason, those who believe are blessed with Abraham who believed.

We can see through Abraham how to believe, as Paul uses it, means to trust or follow, rather than intellectual exercise.

There was nothing intellectual about what Abraham - from smack dab in the middle of modern day Iraq - did in following God's promise to the place God told him that would be the promised land.  God said go, and Abraham went.

OK, things didn't go always go smoothly, that's true.  There were bumps along the way.  Times that trust wavered. Time the path he followed got a bit zig-zaggy. 

And yet, ultimately, through faith, he trusted God...and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. Through trust, his relationship with God declared whole by God.

And for Paul, this means that trust in God trumps genealogy. Trust in God makes us a decendent of that desert wanderer.

Not where we come from. Not which church we go to. Not our denomination or even religious heritage.

Trust in God.

Trust is hard. And trust wavers. 

Yet through it all, God has claimed us and called out to us: Follow me.

Where is God calling you to follow?

God of Abraham, God in Christ, help me to see the path you have set before me and trust that you've got me. Amen.