God informs Abram of his plan to bless him and make him a blessing.
*God has also informed us of his desire to bless us*
God begins to lay down the conditions for Abram to become this blessed man of purpose and promise.
1. He must leave his country and kindred = relatives, and his fathers house.
2. He must follow with no knowledge of where he is going.
Abram was surrounded by an ungodly system of idolatry.
God was calling Abram out of that Polytheistic system of many gods.
(they worshiped many different gods).
God will never be satisfied to be among the god’s of your life.
Those who would follow God must follow the example of Abram and renounce and dethrone every rival and crown Christ alone as Lord and God.
Many of Gods people today are trying to serve God as one of many.
You want God but you worship your career, or your boat, your house, your TV.
You’re trying to fit God into a comfortable time slot, where he is in your life but he doesn’t inconvenience you.
People worship all kinds of gods.
There are those who worship the god of convenience, every year millions of unborn babies are slain on the altar of pro choice, offered up to the god of convenience.
People worship the god of materialism, = (money, wealth)
and the god of popular opinion, the god of personal fitness, = (creature worship)
And they worship the god of recreation. (Sunday after Sunday multitudes of people worship the god of recreation, kneeling at the altar of boating, and skiing, and picnicking, and fishing) while The altar of the one true God is left empty and alone.
Like Nebuchadnezzar who designed and set up his own image to be worshipped as god, Multitudes of people in our churches have done the same thing.
(they have designed in their imagination the kind of God that they want, and they worship the God of their own creation, and call it the God of heaven.
Their God puts sports above the work of God, he doesn’t mind if they gamble all night Saturday as long as they’re in church on Sunday and pay their tithes.
Their god never chastises or disciplines them; he never hurts their pride or requires humility or submission.
And best of all, Their god doesn’t interfere with their lives, he just sits up on a shelf waiting for them to have a problem, so they can pull him down and rub his belly like a magic lantern, then when everything is back to normal they just put him back up on a shelf till the next time they have a problem.
God called Abram to come out of a hostile environment, (not necessarily hostile to Abram, but to the call and the operation of God’s spirit in his life.
Some of you are in environments right now that are hostile to the anointing of God that is on your life, Every time you get around certain people they leave you feeling drained, dry and empty.
Every time you get around them, they drag you into some fleshly arena that weakens your anointing.
You need to learn the lesson Abram learned: The wrong people in your life can keep you from your destiny.
Many of Gods people will miss their destiny because they allow the wrong people access to their lives.
*Every preacher shouldn’t have the right to speak into your life.
*Just because some one calls themselves a prophet doesn’t give them the right to speak into your life.
*Every brother don’t want you blessed
Examples: Davids brother who criticized him for coming to the battle front.
And Josephs brothers who betrayed him, threw him into a pit and sold him into slavery.
Some of the greatest enemies to your destiny are sitting close to you in church.
Example: The Israelites allowed 10 of their (fellow brethren) to talk them out of their destiny.
It wasn’t the devil, it wasn’t even their enemies, (It was their friends)
Every body in the church is not ready to press in and cross over the Jordan and take possession of their promise land and those who will not cross over will do their best to keep you out too.
God told Abram: I’m going to bless you and make your name great and make of you a great nation.
And that all the nations of the earth would be blessed in him.
What God didn’t tell Abram was what he was going to have to go through before that promise became experience.
Some of you today are going through things that are absolutely contradictory to your promises.
You have a prophetic word, (prophecies that you know are from God, but every natural evidence says it’s never going to happen)
But I came to tell you: Hold on change is coming.
One of the greatest activities of faith is being able to wait on God.
To trust him when you can’t trace him.
When all hell is breaking loose against you, to stand like Paul the apostle and say: Sirs I believe God that it shall be even as it was told me.
Nu 23: 19 God is not a man that he should lie, neither the son of man that he should repent, hath he said it shall he not do it? Hath he spoken it shall he not make it good?
Now Abram is like many of us: He had some trouble obeying God.
At first glance it seems as though Abram is the perfect obedient servant
*But he was only partially obedient = disobedience
Abram delays his blessing because of partial obedience.
*Many times we have delayed the promises of God coming to pass in or lives because we have only been partially obedient.
Notice vs 7& 8
Abram is building altars to God: Abram is praying, but not obeying
Like many of us: were praying and hoping to get a word to get us out of the word that God has already spoken to us, or we’re praying to try to get God to change his mind.
Willing to pray, but not obey
Abram knows that he is to separate himself from lot, but he’s just like us.
We know when God deals with an area of the self life, we know the conviction of the Holy Spirit.
But it’s hard to get rid of something that is so much a part of us.
If it was sin, we would be quick to obey (we know that sin separates from God and will destroy our souls).
Abram wasn’t trying to cover up sin, he was just holding onto flesh,
He was just trying to save a little bit of what God told him to get rid of.
*That’s what lot represents, a little bit of that which God said to leave.
Lot was Abrams flesh connection to the old country, someone to reminisce with about how great it was.
It’s dangerous to run with people that always want to talk about how it used to be, and how much fun it was, and how crazy you were, and all the crazy things you did before you got saved.
When Abram left his homeland, lot was just a tag along (a small reminder of the old country).
But soon lot had increased in strength and number until, there was strife between them.
In other words, the flesh had grown, the self life had increased until it was almost equal in strength to the spirit man.
The devil doesn’t have to get you to sin to forfeit your destiny, all he has to do is get you to let the flesh have the upper hand in your life ( because he knows that the carnal mind is enmity against God and is not subject to the law of God neither indeed can be, so then they that are after the flesh cannot please God.
Abrams delayed obedience has permitted his (flesh or self life) to reach a place where there is now a (battle, strife, contention).
You can never isolate flesh in one little compartment and expect it to stay there, either the spirit will throw out the flesh, or the flesh will overthrow the spirit.
Finally Abram recognizes: They can no longer dwell together (the land could not bear them) There cannot be two land lords, either the flesh will rule or the spirit.
Abram tells lot it is time for us to separate: I’ve got to get rid of you.
Whichever way you choose to go, I am going the opposite way.
(Here is a recognition that the flesh and the spirit are at war)
You cannot tame the flesh or train the flesh to be holy, the flesh must be crucified.
Immediately after the separation God speaks to Abram:
Ge 13:14 And the LORD said unto Abram, (after that Lot was separated from him,) Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward:
15 For all the land (which thou seest,) to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever.
16 And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth: so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered.
Notice that now he is able to see what God has prepared for him:
1Co 2:9 But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.
Lot Means = Covering, to wrap closely or tightly, enwrap, en-velop
This means that the flesh will keep you from seeing and receiving what God has prepared for you, Only by the spirit can you (see) and receive what belongs to you.
I’m trying to bring this message to a close:
Somebody today is standing on the verge of the greatest breakthrough of your life, You’re getting ready to step into the promise of God for your life, Your getting ready to experience the destiny that’s been prophesied over your life, but there’s one little thing that will keep you from stepping in.
There’s one little thing that stands between you and your breakthrough.
And that one little thing will rob you of your destiny if you let it.
That little thing is called lot.
Lot is that little thing of your flesh that you cut covenant with and permit to stay in your life, even though God has sentenced it to the cross.
It will (blind) you to your inheritance and your destiny, and if you do not deal with it, it will rob you of your destiny.
And that is the big trouble with a little lot.
Just as Abram separated himself from lot, we must separate ourselves from the self life, = the flesh, and the instrument of this separation is called the cross.
Ga 5:24 And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.
Ro 8:13 For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.
Col 3:5 Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry:
