Surrendering All

"Who Am I?" Devotion Series

“I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans…” (Genesis 15:7).

I used to think Abram didn’t have much to leave behind. I pictured him living in a tent in the middle of a desert when God called him. He could easily pick up and go. There wasn’t much happening in Ur anyway.

Boy, was I wrong.

Ur was an ancient city near the Euphrates River in southern Mesopotamia, in modern day Iraq. This area produced one of the first developed civilizations of the Near East. As a city-state, Ur had its own kings and temples dedicated to gods. One of its famous kings erected a ziggurat, a high stepped tower near the city center, for worshiping Enlil, a Sumerian high god. At one point, the Amorites came to power and dominated most of Mesopotamia. The most famed Amorite king was Hammurabi, whose law code is now in the Louvre Museum in Paris.

Mesopotamian culture was rich in heritage and tradition. It was also rich in idolatry, which is the worship of anything apart from the true and living God. That’s what God called Abram out of.

That’s what He calls us all out of.

Ethnic culture. Pop culture. American culture. The worldly culture of doing business. Even the culture within some of our families. Why does God call us out? Because every culture of the world is under the influence of the evil one (1 John 5:19). He’s the god of this world (2 Corinthians 4:4). And as we saw last week, he’s a deceiver. His mission is to keep us from a close walk with God and a divine identity. He’s built up every kind of culture and subculture to do it. It’s not enough to live in Mesopotamia. He wants us to find our identity in Mesopotamia, bond solely with other Mesopotamians, adopt Mesopotamian ways, and worship Mesopotamian gods.

That’s where Abram was…but God called him out. He told Abram, “Depart from your country and your relatives, and come into the land that I will show you” (Acts 7:2-3). Abram departed with his wife, father, and nephew Lot, in order to enter the land of Canaan, but settled in Haran, a town in northern Mesopotamia (Genesis 11:31). When his father died, God called Abram again, saying, “Go forth from your country, and from your relatives and from your father’s house, to the land which I shall show you; and I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great; and so you shall be a blessing…” (Genesis 12:1-2).

Twice God told Abram to leave his country and his relatives. He needed to leave behind all that he was and all that he’d known so he could step into the new identity and existence God had for him. And that’s just what Abram did. The Bible says that “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness” (Romans 4:3). Abraham (renamed by God) was seventy-five when God called him, but he didn’t cling to his Mesopotamian identity. The Most High God had called him into a relationship and he didn’t look back. He knew it was a higher calling and a higher identity. Through Abraham, God would establish a people who were meant to show the world what an identity in Him looks like.

Abraham is an awesome example for all believers. When God calls us, do we surrender all and follow? We don’t have to pack up and move from our country and our families as Abraham did.

We move in our minds.

We recognize that in Christ we are new creatures, that the former things have passed away and behold, all things are new (2 Corinthians 5:17). We understand that God has saved us, raised us, and seated us in heavenly places (Ephesians 2:4-6), far above all the cultures of this world. We are now in the kingdom, where we find our true identity—the one reserved for us from the foundation of the world. We bond with our kingdom family, adopt kingdom ways, and direct all of our worship and adoration to our King of kings.

While we walk this earth, we will still appreciate and enjoy aspects of the cultures of the earth, but they can never define us…not after we’ve experienced the divine. In fact, when we’re surrendered to Him, God will use us to reach people in those cultures to show them the truth and the glory of the higher life.

Heavenly Father, thank You for calling me out of all that I had known and raising me to a new life in You. I pray that You will renew my mind and teach me more about the heavenly kingdom. Show me the treasures and blessings of living the higher life. And help me to tell others about it. In Jesus’ name, Amen.