Genesis 20-21 Just How Faithful?

There’s something comforting about Abraham even though it wasn’t good:  He was just like us in that he, too, was susceptible to falling back into patterns of sin.  Once again, as he traveled into unknown territories, he feared for his own safety, thinking that others might kill him to take his wife.  That seems to me to show a lack of faith in God’s promise to protect and prosper him!

Abraham eventually had to face the consequences for one of his “lack of faith” moments.  His earlier attempt to “help God out” by agreeing with his wife to try to conceive the child of promise through her Egyptian handmaiden was now causing problems.  Ishmael was beginning to taunt Isaac, the son of the promise, and Sarah demanded that Abraham send Hagar and Ishmael away.  It’s hard to believe her attitude, since she was the one who suggested the solution in the first place!

The New Testament tells us that God credited Abraham’s faith to him as righteousness.  The part I stumble over is Abraham’s stumbling faith!  Yes, he had faith enough to go to the Promised Land.  But he was so human in seemingly forgetting that faith at times.  But God was more faithful and continued to watch over him and bless him and maintain the promised covenant.

That gives me hope!  I, too, have believed God and clung to what He’s told me, and I have found Him to be absolutely faithful.  I trust God and know He has His best planned for my life if I will simply believe and obey.  Yet I, too, find myself slipping into patterns of sin.  I get so put out with myself for my choices, willfully rebelling against the God who has done so much for me!  God does forgive me and He dusts me off and graciously allows me to start over.

Did Abraham feel that way?  I don’t believe it ever says.  But look how God still loved him and blessed him despite himself!  I suppose that’s where my hope comes from.

Father, thank You for showing the absolute truth about people in the Bible, so that they won’t appear better than they really were.  Help me to fully grasp that Your love for me is just as strong as Your love for them all those millennia ago.  You’re still in the business of making things new again!

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford

Genesis 18&19 -- Yeah, He's A REAL Bargainer

Much is made of Abraham’s bargaining with God – getting God to agree not to destroy the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah if 50 righteous people were living there, then working God down to a bid of only 10 righteous people.  The point is:  God is absolutely sovereign and all-knowing.  He knew before He began to talk to Abraham that only 4 people in the city would be found righteous enough to merit saving, and He moved them out before carrying out the sentence He’d already pronounced.  Since He knew that already, it sure seems that He wasn’t really giving anything up as He negotiated with Abraham.  Abraham wasn’t the sharp trader that he thought he was.  And since the cities were destroyed, Abraham couldn’t go around bragging that he’d accomplished his task of getting God to relent.

Lot, one of the four God had elected to save, had placed himself in danger by his continued choices, as he continued to move away from God’s chosen patriarch, Abraham, and toward the sin and temptation of the area around Sodom and Gomorrah.  In fact, he was living right in the middle of it, and it was only by the skin of his teeth and by God’s love and grace that he survived his foolhardiness, but it cost him his wife.

Father, there are powerful lessons to remember here.  Anything You allow in my life has nothing to do with my bargaining with You.  Your sovereignty will always trump my supposed intellect.  I also know that I have to be on guard and keep myself away from areas of temptation to sin, for Your warnings are for good cause.  You know me better than I know myself and You use Your knowledge of me to save me not only from Satan’s arrows, but from myself as well.

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford

Genesis 17 -- Children Of The Promise

Abram is now a 99-year old man, and God once again comes to him (Abram appears to be used to this happening) and says, “I am God Almighty.  Obey me and do what is right.”  I don’t know whether this indicates that God is just reinforcing what He’d always told him, knowing what He’s about to tell Abram, or whether Abram might have slipped a little in his obedience.  Perhaps God is subtly reminding him about how Abram tried to do things on his own to “help God out” by having a child with Hagar.  Or perhaps Abram has been minimally obedient as we talked about at youth last night.

God changed his name to “Abraham” to show him that He was about to start a new work in his life.  “New NATIONS will be born from YOU, and kings will come from you.  And I will make an agreement between Me and you and all your descendants from now on:  I will be Your God and the God of all your descendants … I will give you and your descendants all this land forever.  And I will be the God of your descendants.”  God also promised Abraham that He would bless Ishmael and his descendants even though Isaac, soon to be born, would be the son of the promise.

All of Abraham’s descendants includes both the Jews (through Isaac) and the Arabs (through Ishmael).  True to this prophecy and promise, the land has always been inhabited by all of Abraham’s descendants and always will be.  However, somewhere along the way, Ishmael’s descendants stopped worshiping God and bought into the teachings of a man.  God offers to be our God, but He will not force Himself on us.  In a similar way, Abraham’s descendants through the promised son, Isaac, failed to see God’s promised Messiah, Jesus Christ, when He appeared.  Both sets of descendants have therefore missed out on the greatest blessing of all time.

Father, over the past several weeks You’ve really shown me a lot about my relationship with You through David Platt’s book Radical:  Taking Back Your Faith From The American Dream.  I pray that You will guide me through what You’ve taught me in it to see You as clearly as Abraham did, but also guide me to have more faith than he had.  Help me to be always in Your will and to never doubt Your great wisdom and love for me.

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford

Genesis 16 -- The Unintended Consequences Of Sin

“The restlessness of sin is seen here,” my commentary said.  “Instead of waiting on God, Sari persuaded Abram to obtain a child by her maid, Hagar..”

I’ll bet that when Abram left Ur years before at God’s command to go to the Promised Land, he never dreamed that he would by this point have compromised God’s plan by lying to the Egyptians about his relationship with Sarai and that a slave girl most likely obtained there would cause strife in his marriage.

What Sarai basically says in verse 2 is:  “The Lord has not allowed me to have children, so sin!”  She somehow believes that Hagar can be just a surrogate mother and still everything will be fine with the household.  Exactly the opposite happened, and we can expect that when we try to rush ahead of God’s timing.

When animosity arose between Sarai and the now-expectant Hagar, Sarai blamed Abram:  “This is your fault … Let the Lord decide who is right – you or me.”  They were both wrong and neither knew or admitted it.

Sarai finally ran Hagar out of the house, but as she headed back to Egypt, the angel of the Lord stopped her and told her to return and submit to her mistress.  He promised her countless descendants as He had Abram.

The unintended consequences of Abram’s trip to Egypt are amazing to see even today, for Hagar’s son would go on to father the Arab race, and true to what the angel said in this chapter, “He will be against everyone, and everyone will be against him.  He will attack all his brothers.”  At the time, he was an only child, and this probably meant little to Hagar, but now???  Not just his Arab brothers, with the fighting and killing done between the Sunni and Shia branches of Islam, but also his half-brother’s family as well – the Israelites.

It’s so easy to convince ourselves that a sin we desire to commit will not impact anyone – that it is harmless – but sin never is, and Satan loves to hide the price tags until we’ve already bought into it, hook, line, and sinker.  Abram would never have believed that a few minutes of pleasure would lead to the events of 9-11 and wars and riots in virtually every Arab country today.  We need to learn to see sin from God’s viewpoint and know that the real cost might remain hidden for decades or even centuries. 

Father, wake us up to sin’s true cost – Your Son’s death on the cross being the largest expense.  Let us ask to see the price tag before we commit the sin, and help us to believe that the cost will be that terrible.  Rebellion against You is never cheap, Father.

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford

Genesis 14 & 15 That One Star!

God had blessed and protected Abram, despite Abram’s sins, yet Abram expressed nagging doubt about one thing – he wanted a son.  He doubted that he would ever be a father, and there would be no one to pass his legacy on to.  Without a son, Abram felt that everything else God had given him was worthless in the eyes of eternity.  God said, “You will have a son of your own.  He led him outside to the stars and said that his descendants would eventually be as impossible to count as the stars!  One of those stars had even been lit for me and one for each of my sons!

Verse 6 says:  “Abram believed the Lord.  And the Lord accepted Abram’s faith, and that faith made him right with God.”

God has also promised him that he’d own the Promised Land.  Although it seems Abram had firmly established his trust in God about his future son, for some reason he still doubted the promise about the land, it seems.  Out of a terrible darkness came fire and smoke, and it passed through the sacrificed halves of animals as a covenant between God and Abram, promising that one day (still future!) Abram and his descendants would own the land between the Nile and the Euphrates.  God is a Promisekeeper and I want to see this promise fulfilled just as Abram did.  As to the promise of a son, God’s promise has been fulfilled for both Abram and myself.  Just as I was feeling all was lost – that I would have no one to pass my heritage of faith down to, God picked me up and pointed me to Russia.  There He showed me a sign pointing to Kyiv, Ukraine.  He probably smiled as I missed the reference entirely that day, knowing I would look back on the photo I’d taken of that sign pointing me the “right” way.  God is faithful, and my two sons prove it.

Help me to never doubt Your promises, Father.  I can always take them to the bank!  Continue to watch over and bless us and keep us faithful to You.

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford

Genesis 13 -- What God Does When We're In The Middle Of His Will

Wow, this short chapter has so much to say about staying in God’s will!  After Abram, Sarai, and Lot returned to the Promised Land from Egypt, they decided that splitting up was the only option, because their herds and flocks were so large.  Abram was so gracious, giving Lot the choice of where he would locate.  As the elder patriarch, Abram could have simply picked where he wanted to be.  Instead, he said, “If you go to the left, I will go the right.  If you go to the right, I will go to the left.”  Abram was that firm in his belief that God would bless him no matter where he was!

Lot could have deliberately chosen the less appealing land, giving honor to his uncle, but he’d been given the choice and went for what looked like the best.  Unfortunately, the best was right next to the most sinful cities in the area.  Lot chose to live near temptation instead of away from it, and it would cost him.

After Lot departed, God said to Abram:  “Look all around you … All this land that you see I will give to you and your descendants forever … Get up!  Walk through all this land because I am now giving it to you.”

God say it, and it happens!

Father, help me to believe, understand, and firmly hold in my heart to that truth that when I am right in the middle of Your will, I am right where You want me to be, and You will bless my obedience.

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford

Genesis 12 -- Abram Trusted, Then Blinked

There were 18 generations between Adam and Abram, according to previous chapters, and Abram was born 1,018 years after Adam died.  According to the most likely location of the Garden of Eden, Abram’s family line hadn’t strayed too far away, located in Ur, just southeast of the Tower of Babel.

We’re not told whether God had kept up personal conversations with members of this bloodline over the 2000 years since Adam was created, but He sure knew all their names.  Was Abram then surprised when God personally told him to move to another country, or was he used to everyday conversations with God?

He showed great faith in the beginning, setting out for parts unknown under God’s guidance.  Even upon entering Canaan with its aggressive tribes, Abram routinely moved where he was directed and set up altars every time he did.  He trusted in God’s promise of protection and blessing.

But then the drought came and food became scarce.  It would seem this was a test of his faith in God, since God seemed to still routinely talk to him and could easily have told him to move to Egypt for food.  Abram apparently came up with this on his own.  The move indicates Abram may have doubted God’s ability or willingness to see him through the toughest times.  He came up with his own plan to protect his life from possible attempts to kill him and take his wife Sarai from him. 

My commentary nailed it:  “This incident reminds us that we should not wage a spiritual warfare with carnal weapons, that the end does not justify the means, and that we can’t sin and get away with it.”

Had he trusted God, Abram could simply have told the truth about Sarai being his wife and God would have taken care of the rest.  Instead, he was “publicly humbled and deported in disgrace.”

One thing about the Bible --  it doesn’t shirk from pointing out sin even in the patriarchs’ lives!  God’s not in the business of propaganda.  He’s the God of truth.  Wars and all, He helps us see how important obedience is, and what happens when we try to have tings our way rather than His way.

Father, remind me daily not to fight spiritual warfare with non-spiritual weapons.  Keep me from discouragement.  Help me to trust solely in You!

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford