a child of god
this is the way, run in it
I've been loving reading in Genesis these last few weeks. So many gems from that book, but tonight what I'd like to write about is blood - blood lines and family, to be exact. Abraham was promised by God, in a covenant no less, that he, Abraham, would be the father of a huge nation. A nation as large as the stars in the sky or the sand on the beach by the ocean - uncountable. "I am God Almighty; walk before Me, ad be blameless. And I will establish My covenant between Me and you, and I will multiply you exceedingly...you shall be the father of a multitude of nations" (Genesis 17:1-4).
The only problem with this scenario is that Abraham and Sarah, his wife, were childless. They couldn't have a child. So they tried to make the promise happen in their own way - Sarah talked Abraham into taking her maid, Hagar, as his wife as well and having a child with her. Which he did. And Ishmael is born. What a mess! 13 years later, God reiterates His promise to Abraham, that Abraham and Sarah will bear the child of the promise, and Abraham is like - but what about Ishmael?! And God says, that wasn't My plan. My plan was and still is for the child of promise to be born through you and Sarah. God promised an Isaac. Abraham and Sarah, via Hagar, produced an Ishmael. Sometimes the waiting is hard. When we have a promise from God, we have to wait and pray until He brings it to pass. We need to wait for the Isaac and not create an Ishmael. After Isaac is born, Ishmael gets run off, with his mother, as Sarah couldn't stomach having them around. There was tension. But God promises to look after and bless Ishmael for Abraham's sake. Nevertheless, Ishmael is sent away. Now this is what got me when I read it afresh this week. When Abraham dies, Isaac and Ishmael bury their father. Genesis chapter 25 says this, "And Abraham breathed his last and died in a ripe, old age, an old man and satisfied with life; and he was gathered to his people. Then his sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave ...and there Abraham was buried with Sarah his wife" (vv. 8-11). The two brothers, half-brothers if you will, together, bury their father. Ishmael gets to come back for this. Isaac and Ishmael do this thing together. When it comes to family, and when it comes to burying the dead, blood will tell out. Family matters. And it matters to God. He keeps track of everyone's genealogy. But I love that. And today, I got to speak on the phone with one of my two brothers, and I miss him. I miss them both. When I think of my brothers, my heart wells up. They are mine, and I belong to them in a blood way that nothing can change. We have history together. We are family. God understands that. We are His family. And look what He did to get us back again! He, God the Son, Jesus, came down to earth as a human, as a baby, to live and die here, to rise again after 3 days, defeating death and sin, so that we could be forgiven of our sins and restored to family status with God the Father. How amazing is that? It is the one thing that really matters.
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I've been profoundly moved today by Genesis, Chapter 15. It is prefaced by Abram and Lot going separate ways, and Abram gives Lot the first choice of which way to go. Lot took it. He didn't defer to his elder, his uncle. He looked and he said, "I'll have that," the way and land that looked good on the outside, lush, green, prosperous, but was actually full of sin and wickedness - yes, Lot set out for Sodom and Gomorrah - taking first the way that looked better.
Abram says ok, and he goes the other direction. Now I love this. God says to Abram, "Now lift up your eyes, and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward; for all the land which you see, I will give it to you and to your descendants forever" (Ch 13:14-15). Anytime God says to us "now lift up your eyes" we know He has something important to show us. And how amazing is that when the LORD God of the universe wants to show us something, and here He makes a promise to Abram, a big promise, before Abram even had one child. And Abram knows that he chose the right direction to go, even though it might not have looked like it on the surface. Genesis Chapter 14 is about Abram having to rescue Lot and the people of Sodom when they are defeated and taken captive by neighboring kings, which Abram does and then withdraws again, not accepting any reward from the King of Sodom, but saying that he relies on God alone. And then we get to Chapter 15. For the first time in the Bible, we read the words "and the word of the LORD came to...". God speaks to Abram in a special way - His word comes to Abram. So this is a bit different from God just speaking to Abram. The word of the LORD came to Abram, and God said, "Do not fear, Abram, I am a shield to you; your reward shall be very great." God gives Abram a word, a promise, to hold onto. So Abram asks God what to do about not having any children himself, to inherit this promise from God. And God gives Abram another word - He says, "This man (a person in his household but not his son) will not be your heir; but one who shall come forth from your own body, he shall be your heir." Then God surprises us again. He continues to reveal His thoughts and ways to Abram. God took Abram outside his tent and said, "Now look toward the heavens and count the stars, if you are able to count them" (v.5). And God tells Abram, "so shall your descendants be." And we get to a pivotal verse - pivotal for Abram and the people of Israel, and I think pivotal for all of us who choose to believe in God. Verse 6 says, that after God saying this about the number of Abrams descendants being like the number of the stars, it says, "Then Abram believed in the LORD; and God reckoned it to him as righteousness." Faith in God! Faith in what God says to him, to us! And God sees that faith and He says - that's my child! After that God makes a covenant with Abram, has Abram gather up the animals for sacrifice and prepare for the offering to be consumed by God. And then Abram waits. He waits for God to show up. He waits for God to come and receive this sacrificial offering. He even has to scare birds away from the prepared sacrifice as he waits. Waiting is important in the kingdom of God. God often has us wait, testing our faith, testing our belief in Him. He also has us wait because sometimes there are important times and places for events to happen. And so Abram waits, and the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram and terror and great darkness fell upon him. And God shows up. Then God surprises us again - He reveals to Abram, He foretells - prophesies - what is to come. God tells Abram about the 400 years of slavery in Egypt that Abram's descendants will go through, until the time, the particular time occurs, when judgement will ensue on Egypt and God will set His people free to go into the land He has promised Abram. And God passes between the sacrificial offerings, in the form of a smoking oven and a flaming torch, and He makes a covenant with Abram. He says, "To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt as far as the great river, the river Euphrates..." (vv. 18-21). I love it when God shows me stuff. I love it when God gives me a word to hold onto. And sometimes, as we live with a word from God, we have to hold on tight to it, through difficult times, times that make us question if we are on the right track. But when we believe in God, believe He will do what He said, and wait for it, work for it, talk to Him about it, walk out that faith in Him, when we do that He delights to call us His children. This is what a life of faith is. Believing in God and following Him no matter what. And it is always worth it. He is always worth it. Abram, who became Abraham, one of the fathers of the people of Israel, a man of faith, a brother to you and me who believe in the LORD God, he had to wait, walk in faith, and know that he would not be alive to see the total fulfillment of that promise. But he did it anyway, because he believed God, and God was faithful to him, to bring the promised son, to be a shield for Abraham, and God is always faithful to His people, to you and to me. Genesis, chapter 3. We have just read in chapters 1 & 2 about the beauty of God creating everything - the universe, the sun, moon and stars, the earth, and all that lives on it and in it, including us - human beings - made in God's image.
We could stop right there and ponder that for a while, profitably. Made in God's image, His love and care for us demonstrated in how He created us, male and female, in His image. Made for God and for each other. Adam and Eve, the first man and woman, given the Garden of Eden to live and work in, God to walk and talk with, life. And then sin rears its ugly head. The devil, through the serpent - one of the animals God created - comes and speaks with Eve. The first thing he does is to raise doubt in her mind. "Did God really say that?" (Ch 3, v.1). Eve replies, yes, He did. And then repeats what God said about the one tree being forbidden for Adam and Eve to eat from. The devil then lies, but he mixes his lie with truth, which was tricky of him. He says, "You shall surely not die!" Lie. Then he says, "For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God knowing good and evil." Truth. And Eve was tempted. She was tempted to give that tree another look, falling under the sin of the lust of the flesh "seeing that the tree was good for food" and she wanted some. She was tempted by the lust of the eyes, "she saw that it was a delight to the eyes" and she wanted to reach out and touch it, and she was tempted by the pride of life "and that the tree was desirable to make one wise." And so Eve gave in to temptation, reached out, took the fruit, ate of it and gave it to Adam and he ate also. And the first two people ever created by God disobeyed Him and sinned. Then the blame game ensues. Adam blames Eve, Eve blames the serpent, and all three have to face the consequences - as do we - as sin has entered the world. Now the good bit in this situation is that God made a way for Adam and Eve, for all human beings, to be made clean from sin and able to have fellowship with Him again. God always makes a way for us - but He requires us to choose Him, to choose to accept the forgiveness and mercy He extends to us. We can't have our apple and eat it too. It's either God or no God and an eternity separated from Him. But it is our choice. When Cain sins and kills his brother Able, the first murder, in Chapter 4, what makes me really sad is that when he cries out to God and complains about his punishment, he didn't say "I'm sorry" to God, he didn't say "I don't care what you do to punish me, just don't make me leave you." No, Cain was only interested in saving his own hide. He was worried someone else would kill him. I find that really sad. God doesn't get chosen by Cain, by Adam and Eve in the garden, although the bible seems to indicate that Adam and Eve have a restored relationship with God outside the Garden of Eden. And what makes me sad is when I don't choose God over things I want, or things I want to do, or. . . God is worth anything and everything. Until we realize how dark life is without Him, we sometimes don't understand the necessity of choosing Him. Maybe that is what the sin in the Garden of Eden revealed to Adam and Eve. God was better than that apple. God was better than hiding in the bushes ashamed and knowing they had sinned and were going to be punished. Until we realize that the lie mixed in with the bit of truth that we believed is a lie - we can't do something about it. In a world where there is sin, where there are lies mixed in with truth, we need to be able to discern the difference between lies and truth, and God wants us to choose to follow the Truth - Jesus Christ, His Son, our Savior. And He's given us His Word and His Spirit to help us discern what is right and what is wrong, and choose Him every time. Praise Him. Job's life, his story, how does it all end? Having just finished the book of Job, I've seen again an inescapable conclusion - we are not blessed if we do not forgive.
Job is validated by God in the end. The LORD God calls him "My servant, Job" and says to the men gathered to console and counsel Job, called his friends, "My wrath" says the LORD, "is kindled against you (Eliphaz the Temanite) and your two friends, because you have not spoken of Me what is right, like My servant Job has" (Chapter 42: v.7). Wow. Talk about a telling off - and from God, at that. But look at what God instructs. He makes a way for the three men to be restored to fellowship with Himself, and with Job their friend - He says they can bring an offering, "seven bulls and seven rams" to offer up to the Lord, but, Job - "My servant, Job" - is the one they have to ask to make the offering on their behalf and they have to ask him to pray for them. That is the path of humility, and you can't do that kind of thing while harboring any resentment or bitterness or anger in your heart towards the other person. The work of forgiveness is difficult, it requires a laying down, a surrendering, of our negative human emotions that rise up and separate us from God and from each other. The work of forgiveness is also easy, as easy as just that - laying it all down at Jesus' feet. Leaving our hurt feelings, our need to be vindicated, our feeling that we are right and they are wrong, and acknowledging before God that He alone is right all the time. When we belong to Him, and He calls us His servant, then that is what we are called to do. Now, check this out! It's not all about the baddie friends getting told off. Notice God makes a way for them to be restored, so they belong to Him as well, even though they got it really wrong. But! God also wants to see Job do something. The three friends, "Eliphaz the Termanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naanathite went and did as the LORD told them" (v.9), so they obeyed. They submitted to the Lord, they repented and they brought their offerings of sacrifice and request for forgiveness to Job as the LORD had directed them to. Obedience is always the best choice when it comes to life with God! And what does the bible say then, it says "...and they did as the LORD told them; and the LORD accepted Job." Why does it say that Job gets accepted when the friends do as God told them to? Look at the next verse, v.10, "And the LORD restored the fortunes of Job when he had prayed for his friends...". Job had to forgive as well. He had to be in a place where he could pray to God for his friends and ask God to forgive them. Forgiveness is a two way thing between people. We have to forgive each other. Have you ever humbled yourself and gone to your friend and said you were sorry for something, and then waited, fully expecting that they, too, would say sorry? And then they don't? I'm sure we have all experienced that. What happens though to us when one person forgives and another doesn't? The one who can't forgive lives with broken relationships - with others and with God. God requires us to forgive others, even when they are our enemies, even when they have really hurt us because they are our close friends. That isn't easy. But it is so necessary. Blessing flows from God when we forgive. Our hearts remain tender - to God and to one another - when we can let go of the negative things. The book of Job ends with this surprising twist. That both Job and his friends have to submit to God. One side asking forgiveness and the other side giving forgiveness, after a 42 chapter long book of suffering, pain and misunderstanding. Release, a forgiving heart, not only that but a heart that can pray for blessing is required by God of His people, and in this book in particular of His servant Job. I think He requires that of us today, as well. In fact, I know it. So I say, yes Lord. Please help me to honor you and love others enough to be able to do both - ask forgiveness and give forgiveness when I need to. Let your blessing and release and freedom and real life flow! |
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January 2019
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