Genesis 12:10-20

Have you ever noticed that often those things that are your strengths can be your greatest weaknesses? I know that God has gifted me as a speaker, and I truly enjoy speaking to groups – whether to other teachers, parents, or ten-year olds! However, my “gift of gab” is also my Achilles’ heel! My mouth gets me into more trouble! I thought that I would somehow mature out of this weakness, but I now see that it is the very thing that keeps me dependent upon God alone. Before I get out of bed every morning, before my feet ever hit the ground, the first prayer of my heart that I speak is, “May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer.” (Psalm 19:14)

That’s why I love that God’s word is so honest when looking at the failures of our Bible heroes! I can relate!!! In today’s passage we see that our strong father of faith actually falters in faith. Not long after arriving in the Promised Land, Abram ad Sarai come up against a trial – a famine. Now, you can imagine how much Sarai must have questioned Abram’s leadership at this point. She has left her comfy city of Ur and ends up in a desert land! Have you ever noticed that often after a specific call of God, you find yourself in a spiritual desert where you are tested?

What is Abram’s reaction? Does he wait on God? Nope! He heads on down to Egypt. Jon Courson, in his commentary, observes the following: Throughout Scripture, whenever people go to Egypt, they always go “down to Egypt” because Egypt is a type, or symbol of the world. Abram was doing well, but now he falls again because he didn’t remain in the land God showed him. A famine made him think he had to take matters into his own hands – always a dangerous place to be. Oh my, can’t we identify???

To make matters worse, he lies about Sarai when he gets there. Worried that the Egyptians would kill him to get Sarai, he tells her, “I know what a beautiful woman you are. When the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ Then they will kill me but will let you live. Say you are my sister, so that I will be treated well for your sake and my life will be spared because of you.” (vs. 11-13)

Sarai was ten years younger than Abram, so she was probably a little over 65 years old here. Imagine that Abram considers her so beautiful! Well, apparently the Egyptians thought so, too. (verse 14). I’m thinking that in those days 65 must have been the “new 30!” ☺ When Abram says she is his sister, he was telling a half-truth (see Gen. 20:12). But a half-truth is a half-lie! Do you suppose Sarai wanted to kill him when she was taken into Pharoah’s harem? Where is our father of faith??? And look at the exchange he gets out of Pharaoh: He [Pharaoh] treated Abram well for her sake, and Abram acquired sheep and cattle, male and female donkeys, male and female servants, and camels. Ye gads!

As always, others pay the consequences for our sin. Here, not only has Sarai been traded for some livestock and servants, but then Pharoah’s entire household suffers because of Abram’s lie, when the LORD inflicts them all with “serious diseases.” Now, we might want to question the fairness of God in afflicting the “innocent” Pharoah here, but don’t the innocent suffer for our sins? Not only do we affect our children and spouses, but the most innocent of all, Jesus, paid the ultimate price for our sin. However, here God graciously used the disease in Pharoah’s household to actually save Sarai from being sullied by Pharoah.

You might think Abram got off scot free since Pharaoh sent him away without any consequences and let him keep the goods. However, I cannot begin to imagine what went on between Sarai and Abram as they went on their way!! Not to mention the terrible witness Abram left with Pharoah!  And, of course, Abram learned his lesson for good, right?? We know he didn’t, for he repeats the very same mistake in Genesis 20. Before we judge him, let’s remember that strength we each have that is our own weakness. Be careful! Satan is just waiting to trip you up in that “strength.” Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. (1 Peter 5:8) Our challenge today is to give over our weaknesses to God: For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Cor 12:10). LORD, guard my mouth today!!!

And what have we learned about God? He is longsuffering and gracious and compassionate! Look through Hebrews 11 and you will see that God doesn’t dredge up Abram’s failures – he remembers his victories of faith! Because of Jesus, He does the same for us! Have a great day!

 

Genesis 12:4-9

Good morning, all!

We have already talked about how Abram left Ur when God called him to leave, but he tarried in Haran until his father, Terah, died. Yesterday we talked about the blessings God promised Abram. Now it’s time for him to actually get up and GO into the land of Canaan.

So Abram left just as God said, and Lot left with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he left Haran. Abram took his wife Sarai and his nephew Lot with him, along with all the possessions and people they had gotten in Haran, and set out for the land of Canaan and arrived safe and sound. Abram passed through the country as far as Shechem and the Oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites occupied the land. (verses 4-6)

I sometimes forget that Abram and Sarai weren’t the only ones affected when God called him. Notice that he had gathered “possessions and people” during his years in Haran. They were all traveling with him, including his nephew Lot. When God calls us out of our “Urs, ” we bring others with us. It may change many things in our families – the dynamics between husband and wife, or the patterns of parenting our children. It’s a scary thing to step out with God! One of the things that caused me the greatest struggle 34 years ago when I was deciding on whether or not to follow Christ, was the worry about how it would affect my marriage. Then my sister reminded me that God loved Don much more than I did, and I could be certain that God would take care of him. He did!


The LORD appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built an altar there to the LORD, who had appeared to him. From there he went on toward the hills east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. There he built an altar to the LORD and called on the name of the LORD. Then Abram set out and continued toward the Negev. (vs 7-9)

Here God makes that great promise to give Abram’s children the land of Canaan. Abram’s response? Worship! He immediately builds an altar to God – a memorial to remind himself and those who would see it that God had blessed him. And then he builds another one after he pitches his tent! This is a great lesson for us. We, too, should build “altars” to God when He has done something amazing in our lives. How would we do that? Certainly by worshiping Him, and then by telling others about it –  maybe by journaling about it to leave a legacy of our faith walk for our children and grandchildren to see.

I love that Abram was a tent-dweller! Abram lived in a very temporary home (the last verse tells us he “set out and continued” as God directed him), because, as Hebrews 11:10 tells us, he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. We know that our life on this earth is SHORT! We, too, are “tent-dwellers.” With Abram, we look forward to our eternal home whose foundation is Jesus Christ.

Abram was dragging around his possessions with him. Imagine what that was like for Sarai! Those of us who have made moves know the horrendous amount of work it is to pack and carry our “things” with us! I would guess that they had it all trimmed down to the essentials, but, nonetheless, our things can certainly get in the way of our following God, can’t they?

I’m already loving this man and I’m anxious to learn more about Sarai, the remarkable woman who followed her man as he followed God! More about that tomorrow…

 

Genesis 12:2-3

“I will make you into a great nation, 
and I will bless you; 
I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; 
and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”

The first promise, I will make you into a great nation, must have stunned, and possibly confused Abram, since he was already seventy-five and had no children at this point. I’m certain that Abram, even though he believed God, could have had no idea what this promise would mean. He could have never dreamed that this promise would reach so far – even into 2011!! This was the nation from which the Messiah would come – and within which all of us would eventually be counted. Amazing!

The second promise: I will make your name great… Do you see the irony of this when we look back to Genesis 11, in which the builders of the Tower of Babel were out to make a name for themselves? We learned then that our goal is to make God’s name great, not ours! But, here, God promises to make Abraham’s name great, because of Abraham’s faith!

The third promise? … all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.

Apparently God likes to bless! In just these two verses, the word, “bless,” or a form of the word is used five times! Beth Moore says, in her study, The Patriarchs, “God’s purpose in blessing one is to bless many.” ALL the peoples on the earth were to be blessed through Abraham, because salvation was to come through his line.

The promise of salvation was not just to the Jews, but to the entire world! For God so loved the world we’re told in John 3:16. I find it interesting that the Jews never seem to have caught the evangelical fervor that this promise implies. Have you? We are blessed in order to be a blessing. Even as Abram was to be about the work of spiritual reproduction, so are we! And even as Abram could never have foreseen what God truly had planned, we cannot fathom what God longs to do through us and what He will do through us when we believe Him and go where He has called us to go – into all the world - the world of our families, our neighborhoods, our workplaces -  all beyond anything we could imagine.

One of my life verses is Ephesians 3:20 - Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us… My prayer this morning is that, as heirs to of the promises made to Abram, we will trust God to use us in ways that bless others way beyond the scope of our imagining!

 

Genesis 12:1 Part 2

Good morning, all!

Yesterday we finished by talking about Abram believing God as he followed God’s lead out of the comfort of Ur and into the unknown. As much as I want to move ahead in Genesis, I feel a need to step out for today and talk about Abraham and his faith as seen in the New Testament. He is known as the father of the faithful (Romans 4:16), although we will see many instances where he seems more like the father of the faltering. But what about him earned him so many verses in the roll call of faith in Hebrews 11?

Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see… By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. ( Hebrews 11:1,8)

In our walk with God, it’s not “seeing is believing”, rather believing is seeing – being absolutely convinced that even though we can’t see Him with our eyes, and even though we aren’t given a blueprint of our future, yet we believe that God is and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. (Heb. 11:6) It was this faith of Abraham, not any works that he did, that earned him the adjective of “righteous.”

In the letter to the Galatians, Paul admonishes the Galatians for falling back into the pattern of trying to earn God’s favor by keeping the law. Paul points to Abraham as the example of how works do not justify us before God:

So again I ask, does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you by the works of the law, or by your believing what you heard? So also Abraham “believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.” Understand, then, that those who have faith are children of Abraham. Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: “All nations will be blessed through you.” So those who rely on faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. (Galatians 3:5-9)

And in Romans 3: 21-24,27-28, and continuing into chapter 4:1-3, Paul makes it clear that it is NOT our goodness or works that saves us, for we are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone:

But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus… Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. Because of what law? The law that requires works? No, because of the law that requires faith. For we maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.


What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh, discovered in this matter? If, in fact, Abraham was justified by works, he had something to boast about—but not before God. What does Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”

Paul is reminding us that all of the good things that Abraham did were NOT what justified him to God – however it IS our good works that justifies us to men. According to Jesus in Matthew 5:16, when men see our good works, they glorify out father in heaven. Our works demonstrate our faith to the world – but it is our faith in the completed work of Christ on the cross that saves us.

WHEW! Sorry this was so long this morning. Just felt that God wanted someone to know that she/he can quit striving – quit trying to earn God’s love. Relax in the love and grace that He freely offers in Christ. When Jesus died on the cross he said, “It is finished!” There is nothing we can add to what He did on our behalf. Just believe it and receive it!!! He loves you just as you ARE TODAY! But He also loves you too much to leave you this way! ☺ If you are having trouble believing this, just ask God to help you believe – He even does that!

We’ll be back in Genesis again Monday. Blessings to you all!

Genesis 12:1

Good morning, dear friends!

I am so excited to be in this chapter, at last! Here we meet our spiritual ancestor, our adopted spiritual father, Abraham! And he's not some unreal hero with whom we can't relate. He's as real and flawed as we are. He was by no means perfect, but he was called by God to do two things:

The Lord had said to Abram, “Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land that I will show you.

Do you see the two verbs in that sentence? God called Abraham to leave and to go. Leave what and go where?? We saw from the last chapter that Abram was living with his family in Ur, an ancient city in the southern part of Mesopotamia. Apparently it was quite the wealthy city of at least 200,000 - one which was a center of worship for many gods, but particularly devoted to the patron god of the moon. In Joshua 24:2, we read,

Joshua said to the people, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: Long ago your ancestors, including Terah, the father of Abraham and Nahor, lived beyond the Euphrates River, and they worshiped other gods."

So Abram was raised in the heart of polytheistic idol worship. He was a city boy (according to Jon Courson, he was actually about 50 when first called), who was very comfortable in his neighborhood. Beth Moore, in her study, The Patriarchs, says, "Like many of us, he knew too little of the more to be dissatisfied with the less." (emphasis mine) But it was this environment that God calls him to leave. I'm hoping you are beginning to grasp the significance of Abram's choice to leave everything and everyone he knew to follow the one true God. You have to wonder what kind of supernatural encounter Abram had with God that made him want to obey the call. The Bible is not specific as to what Abram saw and heard. We know about the encounters that Moses and Isaiah and Paul had, but we're not given details about this one. In Acts 7:2-3, we catch a glimpse from Stephen's testimony:

Our glorious God appeared to our ancestor Abraham in Mesopotamia before he settled in Haran. God told him, ‘Leave your native land and your relatives, and come into the land that I will show you.’ So Abraham left the land of the Chaldeans and lived in Haran until his father died.

He apparently saw our God in all of His glory! WOW! Beth Moore reminds us that "out of this holy confrontation monotheism was reborn in a heinously idolatrous world culture. This encounter was thus one of the most pivotal moments in human history." I love that!

Now, God also called Abram to go. Go where? "... to the land I will show you." He was being asked to step out, without a map or GPS, and to just follow God's lead! We know from the last verse in chapter 11 that they were being led to Canaan. And we also know that when they came to the very door of Canaan, they instead settled in Haran, and tarried there until Abram's father, Terah, died. So even from the get go, Abram delays going the full distance in obedience. However, God does not give up on Abram. He surely saw something in Abram that made Him choose Abram to become the father of nations. What was it? Was it because Abram was deeply spiritual in nature and had been seeking the true God daily since childhood? I like Beth Moore's take on this: "We have no biblical reason to believe Abram and Sarai were looking for another god, but God was undoubtedly looking for them." This is the key. We don't choose God, He chooses us!!! He is ALWAYS the initiator in this relationship we have with Him. However, our part is to BELIEVE God. And this is what Abram did. When God called him to leave, he did!

What is God calling us to leave? Old habits? A bad temper? A problem with alcohol? A bad relationship? A comfortable job? And where is He calling us to go??? Maybe you have done the leaving part, but your having trouble with the going ... Like Abram, we are being asked to trust Him and to step out of our comfort zones into something new - something more! This blog seems to be something like that for me!!! Let's not be afraid to follow! Ye gads! We only looked at one verse!!! This is such a great story - can't wait to continue!

Love to you all