Romans 4:13-24

¹³Remember that story about Abraham, that old man that lived a long time ago. God promised him that his family – the people that will come after him – God promised that they will own the whole world one day. And Abraham believed this word that God promised him. Abraham didn’t think about the law at that time. He just believed God and from there God said that Abraham was good and God promised to look after his family.

¹⁴Don’t think that God only promises good things to people that follow the law of Moses. If he is like that, nobody will get anything, whether they trust him or not. But really, God is not like that. He promises good things to people that trust him.

¹⁵People try to follow that law but they can’t do it, and whenever they break that law God gets angry with them and punishes them. So all the law does is give us trouble. (The only way people will not break the law is if there is no law to break.)

¹⁶So it is important that we trust God, just like Abraham trusted God. It doesn’t matter whether we Jewish or not Jewish. If we believe God like Abraham did, we belong to his family, like he is our grand-father from a long time ago.

¹⁷That story in God’s book is all about this. God told Abraham, “I will make you the grand-father of lots of tribes of people to come.” Abraham believed that God can do anything. He can make dead people alive again, and he can make a new thing out of nothing.

¹⁸Everyone reckoned that Abraham was too old to have any kids, but he remembered the word God that told him. God said that he will have kids and his family to come will grow to be a really big mob. Abraham kept on believing God and waited for God to do this, just like he promised. Abraham didn’t think about his old body. It was so old it was nearly dead. He was about 100 years old. And Sarah, his wife, she was also too old to have a baby. But Abraham kept on believing anyway.

²⁰He didn’t start thinking, “Maybe God will not keep his promise after all.” No, he kept on believing, and this made him strong, so that he could tell everyone that God is good.

²¹He just thought, “I know that God will do whatever he promised.”

²²So God said, “Abraham is a really good man.”

²³They wrote that in God’s book. They didn’t write it just for Abraham,

²⁴but they wrote it for us too, so we can be sure about this. If we really trust God he will also tell us, “You are really good.” God is the one that made our leader, Jesus, alive again after he died.