There is only one man in the Bible who is described as the friend of God. He is mentioned over 300 times in the Bible, but the first sixty times he is mentioned, he is called by a name that does not represent the place God intended for him to occupy. His first name, Abram, means “a high father” or “an exalted father.” God did not see him that way so He gave him a new name, Abraham, which means “a father of the multitude” or “a father of many nations.”
The Jewish nation failed to see the significance of the name and made him the “exalted father” of the Jewish nation. They felt that they were above all people simply because of the fact they were his descendants. Such is the classic example of those who see themselves as a super race, one far above all others. The fact that they were chosen by God to accomplish His purpose was not evidence that they were “saved” any more than when He used Pharaoh or Nebuchadnezzar to accomplish His purpose. The Jews were not truly children of God because of their birth.
This becomes abundantly obvious when one reads the New Testament. Those approved by God were not those who possessed the blood of Abraham but those who possessed the faith of Abraham. Paul spoke of the promise of God which was made to “those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all” (Rom. 4:16). There it is. Abraham is not the “exalted father” of a particular race, but he is the father of those whose hearts are filled with the faith in the heart of this patriarch. Thus the next verse emphasizes this by saying, “As it is written, I have made you the father of many nations.”
So the one thing which truly matters is that we have the faith of Abraham. When God called “those things which do not exist as though they did,” Abraham embraced these non-existent things. God promised him that he would have a child and then waited for 25 years to fulfill that promise to Abraham. Paul said, “He staggered not at the promises of God” (Rom. 4:20, KJV). The later translations say, “He did not waver . . . but his faith was strengthened.” Instead of faith weakening and doubting, the opposite happened. Time only served to increase his faith.
Fellow Christian, how is your faith? Is it growing? Do you have more confidence in His promises now than years ago? May God help us to realize that since faith comes from hearing His word, we must feed our faith. May God help us to have the faith of the man who is the friend of God. Could anything be more important than this?