This morning I had the realisation of the need to live a life of rejoicing, praying and giving thanks to the Lord as indicated in 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18. Paul exhorted the Thessalonians to "Always rejoice...unceasingly pray, ...in everything give thanks...". The keywords here were "always", "unceasingly" and "everything". In other words this should be a matter of our daily, moment-by-moment living! We should ALWAYS rejoice (in the Lord; Phil.4:4), and pray WITHOUT ceasing (as in footnote one to 1 Thess.5:17: "...to have ininterrupted fellowship with God in our spirit") and thank the Lord for EVERYTHING (Phil.4:5; Rom.8:28-9). So, the Christian life is not a once-week religious duty but a matter of our daily living!

I've been enjoying the experience of Abram (Abraham) recently as related in Genesis 12. This is someone whom I used to consider one of the spiritual giants as cited in Hebrews 11 but his experiences of life are not dissimilar to ours. Having initially lived a life of the "tent and altar"--a life of living by faith--"calling on the name of Jehovah" (Gen.12:8), Abram's departure to Egypt in response to a famine sees him tested by God (v.9-10). Fearing that the Egyptians would kill him to take his "beautiful" wife, Abram encourages her to pose as his sister to save his life. The plan works but his conduct brings plagues upon the Egyptians which in turn causes Pharaoh to send Abram and Sarai out of the land.

In actuality, the famine was a test from God to see whether or not Abram would depend on God for his daily necessities (see, v.10, RcV, footnote 1). Unfortunately, he failed this test, deciding to go to Egypt to escape the famine rather than to look to Jehovah to provide for him in it.

Nevertheless, while in Egypt he was kept by God's grace: "By this experience in Egypt Abraham learned that God who called him also took care of him and that everything was in His sovereign hand" (v.20, footnote 1, Rcv). Furthermore, in His sovereign care for Abram God also brought him back to the life of the tent and altar and recovered the matter of calling on Jehovah (Gen.13:3).