For I have chosen him, that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice.

Genesis 18:19

In Genesis chapters 12-18, the very first portions of our scriptures, you see how God is laying sovereign foundations for the rest of the Bible. The calling of Abraham is the epitome of beginnings as Abraham is the first of what it means to be of the “people of God”.

All Christians derive their heritage from the call of God on Abraham. He is the first patriarch, and was called by God out of his land to go to the land that God had prepared for him. The rest of Genesis is retells how through him the humble beginnings of how the nation of Israel came to be. Delivered by God in Exodus, set apart by his laws in the Moses episodes, established as a kingdom through the election of kings and prophets, rejected by God as an adulterous whore as recorded in the prophets, and ushered a new beginning of the kingdom of God with the coming of Jesus, the family of God now extends to Christians today who call not only on God, but the God of Abraham, the father of our faith.

And if we are descendants of Abraham, then the intention of God for the family and offspring of Abraham applies to us here. Look at what he says:

“For I have chosen him that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice.” 

It is in our heritage, it is in our DNA, it is in our family culture, because we are the people of God, to do righteousness and to do justice. This calling runs in our bloodline.

I was reflecting on that this morning and was challenged by that short phrase: “to do justice”. I was challenged because to do justice is action you towards other people. Everything about my stage in life, about living as an American screams out, “Live for YOURSELF”.

I am sitting in my new apartment now, about to get married, collecting really great and nice things for the beginning of my marriage, and there is me a desire to live like a really great American and “settle down”. Yet as a Christian, who is from the family of Abraham, there is another pull in me–to be like God and to do justice.

To do justice.

God help me from being a passive, selfish, entitled American. Help me to be more like the way you envisioned your people to be–selfless, sacrificial, and involved in the works of justice in our neighborhoods, in our workplaces, in our state, in our nation, in the nations around us. God open my eyes to the selfishness of my ways, and let them be aligned to how selfless you are Jesus. Remove from me the wicked parts of the American dream and let me burn and die for loving others and seeing the kingdom of God come. Amen.