Must Be Important!

Today I read a devotion that was so thought provoking that I decided to meditate on it myself. The devotion spoke of the words describing Abraham, that he believed God and it was accounted unto him for righteousness. As I looked at it I saw that this was not only said once, it was said three times in the New Testament:

For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. Romans 4:3

Even as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.Galatians 3:6

And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God. James 2:23 (KJV)

Paul stated this twice, and James stated it once. It must be important.

There are a lot of things that could be said about Abraham. He was not always on his A-game. He sold out his wife twice to save his own neck. He threw out his son Ishmael, not giving him enough substance to live on. In other words he was a man with faults and failures just like the rest of us. Yet, in these passages of scripture, his sins were not laid out side by side with his good points. Maybe his good points were all God wanted us to remember. Maybe it’s like that for us too. We should stop labeling all the things we’ve done wrong and put them under the blood of Jesus. Maybe we should believe what God said about us:

¹² As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us. Psalm 103:12 (KJV)

Maybe our long standing epithet would read something like this: “Mary was a servant of God who loved God and loved people.” That would be good enough for me, how about you?

Maria