Abraham and Calling on the Name of God - All The LORD is near Daily Devotionals for 2025

[Abraham] built an altar to the Lord and called on the name of the Lord.
Genesis 12:8 NKJV

Abraham and Calling on the Name of God
After the Lord appeared to Abraham, we immediately read, “he built an altar.” This surely speaks of worship. In the Epistle to the Hebrews, those who go forth to Christ outside the camp, not only take up their pilgrim character, as having no continuing city, but they become worshipers who “continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God” (13:13–15).

Abraham not only realized something of the glory of the land in the far future, but he caught a glimpse of the glory of the One that had appeared to him. The gift of the land might well call forth his thanksgiving, but the blessedness of the Giver made him a worshiper. It is ever thus, for worship is the outflow of a heart that is filled with the glory of the Person we adore.

Abraham “called on the name of the Lord.” This speaks of dependence upon the Lord. Whatever his needs, whatever the privations of his pilgrim journey, whatever opposition he may have to meet, whatever temptations might cross his path, he had an unfailing resource: he could call upon the name of the Lord.

In every day of difficulty, the godly find their resource in the Lord. In the day of ruin before the flood, there were those who, like Cain, “went out from the presence of the Lord” (Gen. 4:16); but there were also the godly, who “began to call on the name of the Lord” (v. 26). So in the dark days of Malachi, the godly found their resource in the Lord, for we read, they thought upon His name (Mal. 3:16). In the early days of the Church, believers were known as those who “called on this name” (Acts 9:21). In the midst of their persecutions, it was to the Lord that they turned. And in the midst of the ruin of these last days, we are assured that there will be still those “who call on the Lord out of a pure heart” (2 Tim. 2:22).

-- Hamilton Smith