Tag Archives: character

Genesis 12:1-8 Abram and the Call

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Good morning to you all. Today I was taken to the beginning of one of my favorite stories of the Bible: Abram. I absolutely love this story. Please read Genesis 12:1-8 ESV with me:

The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.

2 “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.
3 I will bless those who bless you,
    and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
    will be blessed through you.”

4 So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Harran. 5 He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Harran, and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there.

6 Abram traveled through the land as far as the site of the great tree of Moreh at Shechem. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. 7 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.

8 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.

How I love Abram! I love that this foreign God comes to him and tells him to go, and Abram just goes. I love that he simply believes.

A friend was telling me the other day that in Abram’s day, each country or nation/tribe had their own “god” that they worshiped – religions were not cross-cultural at this point. Therefore, by God calling Abram out of Ur and into Canaan, God was telling Abram that He alone was the sovereign God over the entire world. Boundaries could not contain Him; nationality could not define Him; He alone was God over the world and everything in it and the heavens above and below it. How I love this sentiment ❤ Because, Beloved, God is still sovereign! Nationalities cannot define Him, and borders still cannot contain Him!! Every country that burns the Bibles and outlaws Christianity finds that it simply won’t die; every country that kills and persecutes followers of Christ finds that for every one killed, two spring up. Because He is real; He is all-powerful; He is sovereign. No matter the country, no matter the border. He is God Most High, and His love is worth every sacrifice. Amen!!

I keep wondering, however, were there any men that God called before Abram who turned Him down? I think about this with so many of the faith “heroes” of the Bible. We hear about the success stories, but were there any who didn’t have the faith to leave their family? Did God call Abram because Abram had the faith to say “yes” when asked to leave? How many men did God call to rise up as a hero during the time of the Judges who turned him down out of fear? I wonder about us now. How many of us miss out on our God-given destinies because of fear and faithlessness? Could you be the next person to be hailed a hero of the faith if you simply had the courage and faith to do what God is asking you to do? Will I miss out on my destiny because of my own personal failings? How I pray that we never be the ones to turn God down. How I pray that we grasp at the opportunities He presents us with the spirit of Abram; one full of faith and excitement! One that does not wait, but takes hold the the new adventure with courage. Like Abram, we may get it wrong sometimes. We may stumble or loosen our grasp, but like Abram, we serve a gracious God that will take hold, stand us back up, and set us back on the path so that we are again walking beside Him. My prayer for today is that we would have the courage and faith of Abram to do each things God asks of us today – be it something as small as saying an encouraging word to one in need, or something as big as changing careers or saving a life. God asks something of us each day, will today be the day that you say “yes?”

Thank you, Lord, that you are a God who calls us to big things. Thank you that you provide the courage so that we can say “yes.” I pray that we would be a “yes” people today. In your precious and holy Name, Amen!

Genesis 2 At Last

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I work with the high school group in my church, and let me just say what an incredible adventure it has been hanging with these awesome young people. I learn so much from them and are faced with tough questions that force me to constantly examine my faith and why I believe in the marvelous God that I love so dearly. Today, they have also presented me with a new opportunity; we are going to read the Bible in a year together, using the GroupMe app to encourage and hold each other accountable. I am so excited to begin this new journey through the Bible with these incredible teenagers; it also gives me the added bonus of reading passages of the Bible that I normally would gloss over or ignore. I am going to try to write on one of the assigned passages each day – forcing me out of my comfort zone and teaching me to see lessons and applications in each portion of God’s Word.

Today is the first day of our reading, and so we start at the beginning: Genesis 1-2 (among others like Psalms 1, Matthew 1, and Acts 1). But it is Genesis 2:18-25 (ESV) that captures my imagination today:

Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” 19 Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. 20 The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. 21 So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. 22 And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. 23 Then the man said,

“This at last is bone of my bones
    and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called Woman,
    because she was taken out of Man.”

24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. 25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

How I love that God gave Adam the opportunity to see what he was missing. God created each living creature and had Adam name each and every one before Adam realizes that there is no partner for him. Then God creates woman, and Adam breathes, “at last…”

How I love that God will never force us into anything. He knows long before we do what we need, but He waits until we see that need before He gives. We need to see what we are missing so that when God gives it, we can breathe the words “at last…” and have joy and thankfulness in our hearts. We need to see our own limitations. We need to know that no matter how hard we try, there are simply some things that we cannot do for ourselves. We cannot force another to love us; we cannot force a company to give us a much-needed job; we cannot force our children to walk a righteous path. We have to see our need, our helplessness so that we can see it when God provides. What appreciation would we have for God if we never saw the things He provided?

When we are faced with our own limitations, it humbles us and gives us compassion for those who are in need. When we recognize our helplessness, it drives us to help those in their own moments of helplessness.

How I thank God today that He gives us the opportunity to see our helplessness and uses those moments to grow us as people of compassion and grace, and into a people of thanksgiving. My prayer for today is that we would not be scared of our own limitations, of the things that are completely out of our control; my prayer is that we would welcome these moments as opportunities to see God at work! Ultimately, that is one of the best parts of recognizing those things outside of our control – we get to see God come through again and again and again. Our faith grows exponentially every time we see Him fulfill the needs which we cannot fulfill on our own. Praise Him for these moments, and wait with expectation knowing that soon God will pour the blessing upon you, and you can finally breathe the words “at last…” and praise Him for His continued love and faithfulness. Amen!

Haggai 1:3-9 “Consider your ways…”

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I am struck by this passage out of Haggai tonight. Go read it: 1:3-9.

First a short history lesson: The Hebrew people were exiled under King Nebuchadnezzar in 605 BC (Daniel 1:1); he besieged Jerusalem and took all the Israelites captive, reduced their city and temple to rubble, and returned with them to Babylon. Then Nebuchadnezzar’s son lost his throne to the Medes and the Persians (Daniel 5:31). When King Cyrus of Persia took the throne, he released the Israelites to return back to Jerusalem and rebuild both their cities and their temple (538 BC). When these people returned, they came to a place of rubble – a destitute place without food, homes, or most importantly for this passage, a temple.  According to Ezra, the Jews came out of exile with a drive and excitement to rebuild the temple; however, “the people of the land discouraged the people of Judah and made them afraid to build and bribed counselors against them to frustrate their purpose, all the days of Cyrus king of Persia, even until the reign of Darius king of Persia (Ezra 4:4-5).” Thus, Haggai comes on the scene around 519 BC to tell the people of Israel God’s desire for them to resume building on the temple.

This is where we pick up in Haggai 1. Actually. Read Ezra 4:4-5 again. Did you notice why the Israelites stopped building the temple in the first place? Eventually King Artaxerxes of Persia ordered them to cease work on the temple in 521 BC, but that was 17 years after the Israelites had returned from Babylon (Ezra 4:21)!” The Israelites folded from outside pressure: God asked them to do one thing, but they did not have faith that God would take care of the obstacles they faced in their task. God often calls us to do things that seem to have insurmountable obstacles, but when will we learn that those are the places where we get to see God do incredible things? So many times I have been asked why God doesn’t do miracles or why we don’t see God’s work – but here’s the thing: We will never see God perform miracles on our behalf if we never put ourselves in places where His miracles are needed. If we don’t step out in faith to do a task that we know without a doubt that we cannot do by ourselves, when do we give God the opportunity to show His hand?! Like the Israelites, the opposition seems too fierce and we become discouraged and do not finished our work. Discouragement is Satan’s most prized possession. Do not be fooled; when God has led you into a task, discouraging words, discouraging thoughts are the Devil’s way of obstructing the completion of it. See here’s the thing – the ONLY way the Devil wins against God is through OUR WEAKNESSES. If we are willing to have faith enough to see it through – there is NOTHING that can stop God’s will from being fulfilled. Our fears and lack of faith are the only thing that keeps God from using us to do incredible, miraculous things in His Wonderful and Glorious Name! Can I get an Amen?!

Back to Haggai 1. Again :). The LORD told Haggai to tell the Israelites that He was not happy with their lack of progress.

“Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, while this house lies in ruins? Now, therefore, thus says the LORD of hosts: consider your ways.

You have sown much, and harvested little. you eat, but you never have enough; you drink, but you never have your fill. you clothe yourselves, but no one is warm. And he who earns wages does so to put them into a bag with holes. Thus says the LORD of hosts: Consider your ways. Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house, that I may take pleasure in it and that I may be glorified, says the LORD. You looked for much, and behold, it came to little. And when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why? declares the LORD of hosts. Because of my house that lies in ruins, while each of you busies himself with his own house.” Haggai 1:4-9

These are such hard words. In the Old Testament, people of God did not have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit to guide them like we do now – that’s why they had prophets in the first place. That is also why we see God withholding success and prosperity from His people – it is a message of God’s displeasure. Once Christ died on the cross and rose from the grave, he opened a way for us to dwell with God, to hear God speak, to know God’s pleasure and displeasure for our actions, to feel the conviction of His ways in our life through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. During the Old Testament times, however, they did not have this and so we continuously see passages like Haggai 1 throughout the Scriptures. God used natural elements and neighboring peoples to convey His pleasure or displeasure with His people. In this case, He withheld prosperity until they learned to put Him first. They had forgotten their true love, they had forgotten to be faithful to Him first. In this passage, Haggai is explaining to them why they are not having any success in any endeavor they undertake: they forgot God first.

I just love the Living Bible Translation of Proverbs 3:6:

In EVERYTHING you do, put God first and he will direct you and crown you with success.

Do not get me wrong: I am not preaching a “prosperity” message here. Neither I nor the Bible promises you without a doubt that if you love God you will have all the material possessions you ever desire. No. Not at all. God is not nearly as concerned with your comfort as He is your character and He will use hard situations to mold your character into His likeness. You are promised trials in this lifetime, some of those may be material. What this does promise, however, is that if you put God first then He will provide all your needs according to His good purpose (Rom. 8:28). If you align your will with God’s, commit yourself to “Your will be done, not mine,” then you will be successful in every situation God takes you into. The Israelites left God’s plan for them to rebuild “His house,” and instead focused on their own houses. What they forgot is that without a temple their path to God, their atonement through sacrifice, or His presence with them, was not possible. So they left His path and were totally unsuccessful in every aspect of their lives.

We, too, are called to put God first. If your path is not successful, like the Israelites, if your crops are not flourishing (metaphorically speaking), then maybe you need to ask yourself why. Check your relationship with God. Check the reason for your endeavor: is it God’s path, or is it one you are trying to cut yourself? Like God said through Haggai, “Consider Your Ways.” Follow God’s path for your life, put Him first, laugh at the opposition, praise God for the incredible miracles He will work for your sake, work towards your goal, and watch as He exceeds any expectations you ever imagined! Hallelujah and Amen!