Almost every day, I walk to the UCLA campus with a crowd of students. Outwardly I walk in the steps of hundreds of people of every kind, but at the same time I have an inward walk. There is something directing the way that I take. Whose steps do you walk in? Whom do you follow? Romans 4:12 contains the phrase “walk in the steps of that faith of our father Abraham.” To see how we can walk in the steps of Abraham’s faith, we need to look further into his experience recorded in Genesis.
Tag Archives: promise
The Promise and the Purpose
What does “righteousness” mean to us? At first it may be an irritation, an easily-dismissed concept that seems impossible to attain. Who, the world tells us, is to say what is right? In the light of God’s Word, however, we find that Jesus calls His followers to righteousness, even perfection. We also find forgiveness of our sins through His death on the cross. We find, in Romans 3, justification! For a long time, my understanding of justification and righteousness went this far. I was secure in the accomplished fact of Christ’s redemption and rejoiced in God’s grace, but I located justification as something that had taken place, and I had already experienced in my life. There is, however, a wonderful view of justification in Romans 4 that I had never seen! It’s a view illustrated by the example of an impossible promise and an unsearchable purpose at work in the life of Abraham.
Laying Hold 