God commands that you obey His Word even when you don’t feel like it! Abraham was going to sacrifice his only son out of obedience; even though it cost him something and he didn’t feel like obeying. The Lord even desires that you give of your resources even when it hurts to do so. The Christian walk is a journey of faith and there is a great cost to following after Christ. Jesus said take up your cross and follow Me! Are you allowing your own wants and desires to be crucified so that you can truly follow after the Lord?

Abraham’s life was anything BUY comfortable and calm… his life was very turbulent with many trials and tribulations! The Christian walk is a walk of faith, and the Lord allows trials in your life to test your faith and to refine you as gold is refined in a fire. Nobody likes testing and trials… but overall it’s for your benefit. God is preparing you for eternity, His focus is on the end result… He sees the beginning to the end and knows what’s best to prepare you for Heaven. Regardless of whatever trial you go through, God is with you all the way!

Pastor Ed will be teaching on the importance of looking forward and meditating on the finish line which is being in the presence of God in Heaven. The people in the world are terrified to grow old and to die, because they don’t have the hope of salvation! You should never fear death because it no longer has a sting for you and Hades has no victory over you! Purpose to live as though you are only passing through this world… you are a pilgrim waiting to get to your homeland. Don’t allow yourself to be entangled to the things of this world.

God is always faithful to fulfill His promises… just as He fulfilled His promise to Abraham to give him a son… which seemed impossible… He will always fulfill His promises to you. Embrace His Word and His promises… receive them by faith! The Lord said that all it takes is a mustard seed amount of faith and you can move mountains. God transformed the lives of His disciples radically… and He continues to do the same today in the lives of His children. Search through the Word and meditate on God’s promises, He will never fail you.

God has given you His Word so that you can know His will for your life, and so that you can hear Him speak to you through it. As for Abraham… God spoke His Word audibly to him, and yet he still had moments of doubt and disobeyed the Lord. Yet, God in His faithfulness spoke to Abraham through an unbeliever and redirected his steps. God is faithful, even when you aren’t faithful! God uses any means possibly to help you in your walk with Him. God is always speaking to you, the questions is… are you listening?

Abraham just had a spiritual mountain top experience with the Lord in this text…. God revealed His will for him and told him that he would have a son that would bring forth generations and generations. Pastor Ed will be calling you to vigilance today, especially right after a spiritual high with the Lord. The enemy strikes right after you had a blessed time with the Lord, because that’s when your guards down the most! Those of you who think you are strong… take heed lest you fall.

When was the last time you ponder the thought that you would have to stand before God and give Him an account for your life? Pastor Ed will be challenging you today to consider what that day will be like for you personally. Will the Lord be pleased with how you used His resources… will He be pleased how you used your spiritual gifts and time to further His kingdom? As for Lot, he didn’t care about his family’s salvation, he didn’t care about his witness among the people… he only cared about himself.

As Pastor Ed continues his teaching on the life of Abraham… he will be shifting focus onto his nephew Lot in today’s teaching. It can be said of Lot… that he had a saved soul, but a wasted life. The root cause of Lot’s downfall was his tendency to make all his decisions based on what was only good for himself. The SELF sins are the most hidden and the most dangerous of all the sins…. Self-righteousness… self promotion… self admiration… and even self pity, are the beginning to a spiritual downfall. Don’t be self-centered like Lot, be others-centered like Christ!

Our prayers are literally altering history. The things which we ask God, are heard. Pastor Ed tells us today, that even when things are going badly in the world, that it's because of our prayers, that they aren't going much worse. God is listening to us, and He is interceding on the things which we ask Him to intercede. In understanding the relevance of prayer, we will find that it is something we should constantly strive to take part in. As much as we talk with our loved ones, we should talk with God.

God wants us to communicate with Him regularly. The way in which we can do that, is through prayer. Pastor Ed tells us that Abraham interceded with God on behalf of the cities Sodom and Gomorrah. We see that God listened to Him and lowered the standard of judgement which He would hold over the cities, because of Abrahams request. We also find through this, that God considered Him a friend. From this we learn that God will take our prayers into consideration, and that He thinks of us as friends.