“By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed and set out for a place that he was going to receive as an inheritance. He went out, even though he did not know where he was going. By faith he stayed as a foreigner in the land of promise, living in tents as did Isaac and Jacob, coheirs of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.” ‭‭Hebrews‬ ‭11:8-10‬ ‭CSB‬‬

Stop for a moment and re-read the last sentence of the Bible scripture for today. Abraham moved in faith seeing a city that is yet to be built! If you have read the whole Bible you will understand that Abraham went seeing the future Zion that God is going to bring down to Earth. We can not say that God has designed and built Jerusalem as the history, from the Bible, shows it was conquered by David and then he built it up. Jerusalem has yet to be fully designed and built by God, it has mostly been made by people who do not yet know God! Is this fact not mind-blowing? Not only did Abraham see the future city, that those who know Jesus, will get to live in but he moved to that area in faith waiting for that day.

If Abraham was waiting for the future Zion that he knew God was going to bring down, that means he also knew the means to getting there. Through the salvation available through Jesus. I always say that God is eternal and he therefore, can not change, that is what it means to be eternal. So the statement that God in the Old Testament is different to the God of the New Testament is erroneous. God can not change, for if He changes, He must have had a beginning and an end and therefore is not eternal. Do you understand now? Abraham sinned, yet he still went in faith to go to where the new Jerusalem will be. He had not seen Jesus in the physical but he had faith in the spiritual. Abraham acted in faith on something he had not physically seen or heard, but he knew God.

The same faith is relevant for our walks. We did not physically Jesus die and be resurrected. But we have faith in the knowledge of salvation, not because somebody told us or because the pastor/priest says so. No, because like Abraham, we now know God and because we know God we can act in faith and step into promises which are unavailable to those who do not know him; salvation.