Faithful
and Flawed — a Reality Check
Today's
Three-minute Bible Study
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Study and Apply
Title:
Faithful and Flawed — a Reality Check
Keywords:
"Abraham” “faithful” “flawed"
Welcome
to eXXit, the web site designed to help you stand
strong in the face of sexual temptation.
Passages
Genesis
12:6-8; 11-13*
6. And Abram passed
through the land as far as the site of Shechem, to
the oak of Moreh. Now the Canaanite {was} then in
the land.
7. And the LORD appeared to
Abram and said, "To your descendants I will give
this land." So he built an altar there to the LORD
who had appeared to him.
8. Then he proceeded from
there to the mountain on the east of Bethel, and
pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on
the east; and there he built an altar to the LORD
and called upon the name of the LORD.
...
11. And it came about when he
came near to Egypt, that he said to Sarai his wife,
"See now, I know that you are a beautiful
woman;
12. and it will come about
when the Egyptians see you, that they will say,
'This is his wife'; and they will kill me, but they
will let you live.
13. "Please say that you are
my sister so that it may go well with me because of
you, and that I may live on account of
you."
1 John
1:9*
If we confess our sins,
He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins
and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Questions
1. What did Abram
(Abraham) do when he arrived at Shechem (v. 7)?
2. What did he do when he
arrived near Bethel and Ai (v. 8)?
3. What kind of an impression do
you get of Abram from these two scenes? What kind of a
man is he?
4. What kind of an impression do
you get of Abram from verses 11-13?
Practical
help
Abraham was a great man of
faith. No doubt about it. But he wasn't immune from
messing up! He did. Trying to pawn off his wife as his
sister so that things would go well with him in Egypt
doesn’t rank high on the list of imitable acts
from Abraham.
Christians are people of faith.
They are defined as those who have placed their trust
in the Lord Jesus Christ. If
you have not yet become a Christian, click
here. But,
Christians are no more perfect in their lifestyles
than Abraham was. Christians are perfectly forgiven,
but not perfect.
Most Christians will agree that
viewing pornography is wrong, just as Abraham would
have agreed that he shouldn’t have jeopardized
his wife’s purity by trying to say that she was
his sister. Yet he did it. And Christians sometimes
are guilty of logging on to Web sites they know they
shouldn’t visit. What a fallen Abraham should do
(and he committed the same cowardly act again in
Genesis 20!) is exactly what a fallen Christian should
do. Admit to having failed, trust God — and press
on. Failure is not fatal for the child of God. As is
clear from 1 John 1:9, He simply wants us to admit to
Him when we have failed.
If you slip up and decide to
click on to a pornographic Web site, despite knowing
that it is wrong to do so, there is a clear path of
action to follow. Confess to God, and He’ll wipe
the slate clean. You’re are just like Abraham
— faithful, flawed and perfectly
forgiven.
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*"Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD
BIBLE®, © Copyright The Lockman Foundation
1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977,
1995. Used by permission."
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