Look at the stars in the sky........

The Vineyard

Dear Friends,

“Against all hope, Abraham believed, and so became the father of many nations..”

What a great example!  Abraham is promised a family, but he is old in age and has a hard time grasping that it could be possible!  He asked God, “How?”  And God took him outside the tent and told him to look at the stars. “Your offspring will be like the stars in the sky!”  What an incredible visible illustration of God’s ability to do the improbable and inconceivable!  No one would imagine that a man in his 90s would soon be the father of the greatest nation on earth—-one from which God’s own Son would be born!

Why did God use Abraham? Because he believed God—-because he believed! And that’s the rub and that is what separated Abraham from almost all other men in the Bible—-he truly trusted God and therefore always obeyed God—-even when it was against hope, reason, and his own interests.

How does God respond to such a man? He builds a nation around a man like that.  Do I believe what God has told me? I know  that He loves me! He has told me that He wants me to be “a man who loves Him and draws other to Him by the intensity of that love”.  He has reassured me, time and time again, that He will not forget me, forsake me or let go of me or allow me to fall.  And yet I doubt at times!  To my shame, there are days that I do doubt that He will rescue me, provide for me and give me my daily bread. This is not based on His past neglect, but my lose of sight.I stop seeing Him and start glaring at “reality”.

Abraham was not a realist—he had an unswayable belief in God that set him apart from the limits of human “reality”.  And that is what I want! That is the witness I chose to have. This is the legacy I hope to one day leave behind!  I hope to instill in others something that Abraham instills within me—the rock solid certainty that God cannot lie, break His promise or fail to a righteous God.  It is impossible.

And if I can work, pray, minister, administer, teach, train and lead with that determination, all things are possible.

Warmly,

Dean Barley

The Vineyard

Dean@VineyardCamp.com

336 351 2070

919 360 8493 (Mobile)