Against hope Abraham believed in hope with the result that he became the father of many nations according to the pronouncement, “so will your descendants be.” Without being weak in faith, he considered his own body as dead (because he was about one hundred years old) and the deadness of Sarah’s womb. He did not waver in unbelief about the promise of God but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God. He was fully convinced that what God promised he was also able to do. So indeed it was credited to Abraham as righteousness. But the statement it was credited to him was not written only for Abraham’s sake, but also for our sake, to whom it will be credited, those who believe in the one who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. He was given over because of our transgressions and was raised for the sake of our justification. (Romans 4:18-25 — NET)
True Christians are children of Abraham because his faith was credited by God as righteousness. His faith made him righteous in God’s sight. God had promised him and his wife a son—he was 75 years old and she was 65 when they were given this promise—and yet they believed God. Though there we a few times that they doubted—like us—they continued to believe for 25 years. Finally Isaac was born when Abraham was 100 and Sarah was 90, and scripture says they had not doubted or wavered in faith because they knew God had power to do what He had promised. This is faith… remember, they weren’t perfect, except for a few times of doubt they persisted in their faith in spite of astronomical odds against them. Not only did Abraham and Sarah not give up for many, many years, they believed in something totally unthinkable—and because of this they honored God by treating Him as faithful and almighty.
Today our faith will also be seen by God as righteousness when we believe in Him in spite of the circumstances. This means that even though we are not perfectly righteous or good, God will count us righteous when we are fully convinced that He will do what He has promised… period!
In the modern world we live in we have learned to be skeptical of authority figures, to doubt people’s promises, to roll our eyes at people who “naively” believe that the impossible can come true, and become impatient when something doesn’t happen in the time frame we think is appropriate. We think we are modern and educated, and can’t imagine living in a time where there were no cars, no supermarkets, no cellphones, or proper plumbing. It’s so easy to think that we have it all together in this modern age… but Abraham and Sarah’s faith was light years ahead of most of us, and the power that they experienced was something that few people today can even conceive of.
The most important thing in life is having a faith that God credits as righteousness, a faith that refuses to give up even when things seem to be getting worse, because we’re convinced that the One who made the promise is faithful. May we all value this more than the trappings of modern life.
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