Is not the whole land before you? Let’s part company. If you go to the left, I’ll go to the right; if you go to the right, I’ll go to the left.” GENESIS 13:9

 

Friends,

We read in this account a very peculiar event often overlooked by those who discuss "Walking with God." Abram, then called Abraham by God, had left his boyhood home, his family, his life and everything included in it to pursue a vision given him by God. He had received a promise that if he did as instructed and removed himself from all things familiar, God would reward him with a great and vast family, wealth and an everlasting covenant. It was a promise that Abaraham, moving by faith, was determined to see fulfilled. Despite his slips and human faults, despite his fears and doubts, Abraham was a man of faith. He was a great example of moving by faith in the natural and SUPERnatural realms. God knew it and he rewarded this man with a great posterity. Moreover, he gave to Abraham a rich and flowing kingdom, worldly wealth and status among his national neighbors.

But through it all Abraham demonstrated a trait that is becoming more and more uncommon, sad to say. That trait moved him out of the land of his forebears and into an entirely new and unknown place and an entirely new and unknown future. This trait moved Abraham to go past the need and desire for worldly goods; past the petty grasping for security, and revealed itself in the first decision he made when he had arrived in the "new world". With him traveled many men and women and much cattle and goods. But it was this first decision that revealed Abraham's true heart and what I call "eternal vision."

When things were getting rough between Abraham and his nephew Lot he told him to choose. Yes, to choose FIRST where he, LOT and his kin would settle in the new land. Despite the promise of God that this land was his to own and populate, despite the riches that would come faster by choosing the rich and fertile valley before him, Abraham demonstrated the trait that would mark him for all time: FAITH. His vision was not settled on the physicality of God's promise, but the spirituality of it. His vision was not on cattle, gold, family, cities, castles, or anything that this world would produce (even as part and parcel of God's promise). No, friends, his vision was on a greater city; whose builder and maker was God. He was fixated on the eternal city of glory inhabited by God himself that would someday resolve conflicts permanently, and would remove turmoil and torments. He knew deep in his heart that God was real and that his existence meant something beyond anything he (Abraham) could attain here.

Today that faith is needed again. We have got to attain ETERNAL VISION, my friends. If not, we are doomed. People with temporal vision, LOT's KIN let's say - are short sighted. They are the ones' who falter and fail in hard times. They are the ones who find sickness overwhelms the promise given and bewail when God does not heal as they expect. They are the ones who see things as bleak and destructive and, even when claiming to be FULL of the Holy Ghost, they are the ones who curse God when things don't turn out "right". Abraham was a man who faltered, to be sure. Thousands of years of combat has resulted from his failure to wait on Sarah and see God's promise through. Yet still, when faced with the physical promise of furtile grounds he let Lot choose first!

Can you do that? When faced with challenge, yet seeing God's promises coming into view could you seemingly surrender them for someone else's peace? Could you sacrifice what you think should be yours to keep someone else happy? If you can you are working your eternal vision. If you can you are demonstrating the strength that will carry you when your flesh and family fail. It is this eternal vision that takes you past the physical and into the spiritual nature of God's promise and shows you that despite how things may appear, God's promises are not SLACK concerning his children. Abraham knew this. He knew that giving Lot first choice did nothing to abate God's plan. He knew that selfish and fleshly Lot could not hinder what God had prepared for him personally and that the fulfillment of God's promise did not lay in a valley of grass! It was cleaner, clearer and more enduring. God's promises are YAY and AMEN. They are the reason we live everyday in the moments of decision, and falter not. He does not turn and we must not turn either! Let the going get rough. The tough get going.

We urge you today to lift your eyes from what you think you are owed to what is coming in the clouds with our savior. Get past the bad doctor report, past the bill collectors, and past the hurts. Look up - for your redemption draweth nigh! With eternal vision nothing of this earth can hinder you! With eternal vision you will look past this life into the next, and walk as Abraham did; giving Lot first choice because that is all he is going to get, in this life or the next.

In Love - Elder Mark Neddeau