God has given us a treasure house of promises, and on each of those promises is a name. What name? Your name and mine, and precisely when the time is right He brings those promises to fruition. Consequently, life is often a celebration for the believer, but once in a while life for the believer can seem more like a shootout at the OK Corral. It happened to Abraham and it can happen to us.
In Genesis 17 and 18, we saw Abraham as a champion of the Lord. He had risen to a spiritual height from which it seemed he would never descend. Yet, in Genesis 20, our high-flying champion comes crashing to the ground. We will see in these 18 verses that the power of evil still lurks within the heart of even the most consecrated men and women of God. We are ever to remain aware of the possibility to fall short of the mark set for us in Jesus Christ. If we follow Abraham to the altitudes of loftiness, be careful to avoid following him to the depths of despair
If I say, God is good, you would likely respond with the words, all the time. And then if the chant is reversed and I say, All the time, you would likely respond with the words, God is good. Here at Countryside we sing uplifting songs like: God is good all the time. He put a song of praise in this heart of mine. God is good all the time. Through the darkest night, His light will shine. God is good; God is good all the time. Most likely, there is not a person reading this blurb who would disagree with those lyrics as penned by Don Moen. Yet, is that the whole story? Lot and his family may have had a different view. Perhaps, you do as well.
Do you believe in catastrophic judgment on cities and/or nations? No, really? Have you ever believed that utter destruction is imminent? My guess is that the society in which we reside does not. Neither did the society in which Lot resided. Check out verse 14 in Genesis 19: Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law . . . and said, “Up, get out of this place, for the LORD is destroying the city.” But he appeared to his sons-in-law to be joking. Would you have quickly lined-up behind Lot, or would you have joined his sons-in-law in a raucous belly-laugh? Here’s the reality: This is no joke!
Could anything be of such importance to a father that he would actually surrender his daughters to men bent on sexual violence? I just can’t get my head wrapped around Lot’s course of action. Can you? How can Lot’s life philosophy be defended? It can’t, can it? And even if could be defended, what can it possibly mean for twenty-first century man? Maybe, we should simply apologize for the inclusion of this text in the Old Testament canon and move on as quickly as possible
There may be times when we simply do not know what to pray, times when words simply will not come. Yet, praying specifically is always a more effective way to pray. General praying receives general responses and makes for less energetic conversations with God. That may be one reason for dull prayer lives. Abraham had the audacity to ask God for the incredible, and he actually believed that his praying would make a difference. What about you? Do you pray for the incredible and believe that your praying actually makes a difference?
There may be times when we simply do not know what to pray, times when words simply will not come. Yet, praying specifically is always a more effective way to pray. General praying receives general responses and makes for less energetic conversations with God. That may be one reason for dull prayer lives. Abraham had the audacity to ask God for the incredible, and he actually believed that his praying would make a difference. What about you? Do you pray for the incredible and believe that your praying actually makes a difference?
What will the future be? Will it be a life of running away from difficulty, even injustice? Or, will it be a life of hearing and seeing God in the midst of the difficulty and/or injustice? Will it be the futility of screaming against the difficulty and the injustices? Or, will it be the overflow of blessing to those around you while trusting the Lord to work out the rest?
In the first six verses of Genesis 16 we see injustice and unrighteousness. In verse 7 we see the beginning of justice and righteousness as God made movement toward the one whose value had been diminished. Do you suppose those in America today who think they have been treated unfairly and unrighteously and contemptibly have any awareness that the Lord is making movement toward them? What about you? In Genesis 16:7 God reveals the first step toward the resolution of injustice and unrighteousness on both a national scale as well as personal.
What happens when we cease trusting God in the shadows of difficulty? When we cease trusting God we then start blaming God for the troubles and hardships we face. But wait – there’s more. When we cease trusting God in the shadows of difficulty, it’s only one step from blaming God to blaming others for the outcome. Is it possible that the problem with Sarai and Abram had nothing to do with their problems? If so, then just maybe our problem has nothing to do with our problems either. What is the solution when the problem is not the problem? Check it out. You’ll be glad you did