Inheritance

…and [God] said to him, ‘Go out from your land and from your kindred and go into the land that I will show you.’ Then he went out from the land of the Chaldeans and lived in Haran. And after his father died, God removed him from there into this land in which you are now living. Yet he gave him no inheritance in it, not even a foot’s length, but promised to give it to him as a possession and to his offspring after him, though he had no child. Acts 7:3-5

God called Abraham out of his homeland and sent him to live the life of a sojourner. God sent him to the Promised Land, yet Abraham lived his life in tents, going from place to place. God promised to give Abraham descendants and land. He made a covenant with Abraham, and Abraham believed Him.

We often read the account of Abraham and know that he had to wait a while to receive the promise, but what we sometimes forget is that he didn’t really receive any of what God fully promised. Twenty-five years after God initially made the promise to Abraham, he had a son, Isaac. When Abraham died, his descendants had not yet become nations, and he had no land to call his own. As Stephen preached, he reminded the Israelites of this. Abraham had no true land of his own, not even a foot’s length. Abraham lived his whole life as a sojourner. The amazing thing is that while Abraham did not possess any land or even before having a son, he believed God and trusted that these promises would come true. 

As I meditated on Abraham’s example, I was freshly reminded of how he serves as an amazing example for us. Abraham did not even have a foot’s length of land to call his own. He did not possess the Promised Land. However, he lived his life on earth as if it were a reality. Those who have faith in Christ have been given an even greater promise, an eternal home in heaven. While we do not physically possess this home now, it is ours through faith. Just as Abraham was a sojourner in the land that would one day become Israel, so we are sojourners and exiles in this world. This earth is not our true home. Abraham lived his life on earth as if the promise had already been fulfilled; he operated on the fact that the promise was true. He didn’t do this because the promise had come to pass; he did this because he had complete faith in the God that had made the promise. Therefore, even though he had not yet received it, he lived as if he had. This was a challenge to me. I have been promised an eternal home in heaven. How often do I live with the truth of this promise before me? This world is not my home; I have a greater home promised to me. We should not wait to receive the promise before we live as if the promise is true. By God’s grace, may we live our lives here as if we have already received the promise.

These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. Hebrews 11:13