Category Archives: Genesis

genesis 23: cost

The negotiations between Ephron and Abraham, and Abraham’s insistence on paying for the burial site reminded me of something King David said in 2 Samuel 24:24:

“No, I insist on buying it from you for a price, for I will not offer to the Lord my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing.”

It was a different time and place, a different culture than the one we live in, but I’m not sure that’s what makes the difference. I think it’s a different heart that does not seek to get something for nothing. A different heart that believed a burial place for his wife was worth paying the cost, a different heart that believed a sacrifice made to God should cost us something.

The culture of the world has trained us to barter for the lowest possible price to pay for anything, with “free” being the ultimate win.

The culture of heaven tells us that what is worth having is worth paying the price. 

How often do I seek to get something for nothing? Has that become my mentality – to try to pay as little as possible for something?

Have I been offering God something that cost me nothing? By cost, I’m not just talking about money. I’m talking about comfort, time, pride, plans I’ve made, dreams I’ve had. How about my rights? The right to be angry, the right to an apology, the right to be right, the right to be treated fairly.

The gospel of heaven tells us that following Jesus will cost us. The gospel according to the world says we can get it for nothing.

Which gospel am I living?

I live in a culture that values something for nothing. But I don’t want the heart of this culture, I want the heart of Abraham and David. The heart of heaven.

I want to make extravagant offers of love and worship and compassion that cost me as much as I have to give. I want to say that following Jesus has come at a price and that price has been more than worth paying.

I will not offer the Lord my God something that cost me nothing.

genesis 22: tested (and Eva Love)

“After these things God tested Abraham and said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.”

The proving grounds of faith are no comfort zone. They are not the green pasture and still water places. The testing pushes and pulls at our soul, demands we hand over what we call ours, what we’ve fought for and waited for.

Even what was promised to us.

It isn’t hard to make our offering to God when there is no pain in the offering. But often these proving grounds are also killing fields and the things that we must offer up there are painfully costly. There is only one way things get handed over in that place.

“By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac…” (Hebrews 11:17)

Our obedience to the testing of our faith will reveal the boundaries of our faith. And maybe that’s the point of the testing.

“Jesus said to him, “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”When the young man heard this he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.” Matthew 19:21-22

He wanted eternal life, and he followed the ten commandments, so Jesus told him to get rid of his money. That was the boundary line. He had faith enough to follow the rules, but it did not extend to giving up what meant the most to him. Instead, he walked away.

  • We will not willingly surrender what we believe is ours, not God’s.
  • We will not give what means the most to us if we do not trust the character of God.

There is a family that is deep in the proving grounds of faith. Their daughter is Eva Love and here is a quote from her dad, Dugan Sherbondy:

” In addition to surrendering my daughter, I’m also now surrendering my expectations or desire to control what happens. It’s amazing how much effort it’s requiring to intentionally wait like this. It’s like I have to take a thousand purposeful Sabbaths each day to ensure I’m quieting my spirit and casting my cares upon Jesus.”

This family is publicly living their pain. They have invited all of us to journey with them, to watch them walk through the most painful place they’ve ever been, and see what a faith that surrenders what is most precious looks like. Please join believers around the world as we continue to wait and pray and believe God for Eva’s complete healing!

Visit Dugan Sherbondy’s FB Page

genesis 21: Cast It Out

From promise given to promise fulfilled: 25 years.

Had they stopped waiting? Were they satisfied with their version of the promise they named Ishmael?

Didn’t they know that a God-promise is not fueled by human power?

So the son of promise is here, being birthed in the place where the son of flesh (Ishmael) is already living. These two sons will be at odds until the end of time. For us, they represent Law and Grace. Freedom and slavery. Paul speaks to all of that in Galatians, chapter 4. 

But I am staring at what Sarah said to Abraham in vs. 10 of Genesis 21»»

And it sounds like this to my ears:

Cast our what was of the flesh, for nothing of the flesh will share in the inheritance of the promise.

Every ounce of what I’m doing in an attempt to be right with God on my own, everything I’m doing to try to bring about the promise or plans of God on my own. All of it. Cast. it. Out. 

The promise of God is that I am saved by grace, through faith. So grace and law are always fighting for dominance in my belief system. One makes me free, the other makes me a captive.

My flesh will always be at odds with grace. It will always try to bend toward the law and self. Grace will always bend toward God. Flesh puts my eyes on me and what I can do. Grace always pulls my gaze to God and what He can do. 

While I know these things, the challenge is always in the follow through. To choose to believe God more than I believe in my own ability to make something happen, and then to wait on God.

To cast out my Ishmael, because Isaac is here.

genesis 20: fear

Big picture:  God called Abraham to become the father of many nations, to be a prophet and a patriarch, and to father the line that would bring forth the Messiah. 

Within the scenes that make up that big picture, we see Abraham’s humanity, particularly his fear of man. 

Abraham’s trust and faith in God to fulfill His promise to him did not necessarily extend to every situation. When he came up against pagan kings who could kill him to take his wife, he leaned on his own wits to save himself. Himself, not Sarah. Lest we think Abraham was perfect. 

But we need to find ourselves in this story, lest we think ourselves more holy than Abraham.

Being alone. Being without. Being judged. Being seen as less than. Failure. These are our fears, if we are brave enough to admit it. They are the taskmasters in our lives, and most of them stem from one fear that holds a large whip. Fear of man. Raw honesty compels us to confess that, often, the fear of man in our lives is bigger and louder than the fear of God.

How does that change what Abraham did? It doesn’t. But if we ask ourselves a simple question, and answer it with brutal honesty, we will discover a comrade in Abraham and move from judging him to understanding him, and us:

What have I done in response to my fear?

Who has been allowed in my life, not because they were right for me, but because I didn’t want to be alone? What, or who, have I sacrificed so that I could have more money, more things, more prestige, more of what someone else has? How have I sacrificed authenticity to avoid being judged? How hard have I worked to maintain an image that isn’t true because I fear what others would think if they knew the truth?

How much of the bondage I’m in is a response to fear?

Abraham feared being killed, so he put himself before his wife. If we could stand to be honest with ourselves we would find we are the children of Abraham in more ways than one.

But God.

He is committed to His plans and to His promise. He continues to rescue us, intervene for us and increase us.

genesis 19: fire

the men of the city

the men of sodom

both young and old

all the people

to the last man

surrounded the house

Not just some. Not just a little bit of sin. No isolated incidents. Sodom was full to the brim with wickedness. Overflowing. Young and old. All the people. Sexual sin.

Not a lack of hospitality. Sexual sin. As a writer, as a lover of God’s Word, as a Christian, I cannot talk about Genesis 19 and gloss over the sin of Sodom. It was sexual sin in the form of homosexuality. 

But I don’t want that to be the whole point. I don’t want to just stare at the sin of chapter 19. That’s not why I’m here.


I want to stand on a hill and watch what is actually happening for just a moment.

“Then the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the Lord out of heaven. And he overthrew those cities, and all the valley, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground.”

I’m a little in awe of the God that holds that kind of power. This God is real, and He has the power to rain down fire on a wicked city, anytime He feels like it.

He also has the love to come down from heaven and die on a cross so that our wickedness will not keep us separated from Him.

He is kind and He is fiery. There is no end to His love, but there will be a stopping point to His grace. He is all powerful and we should look upon Him with fear and awe. He is all loving and we should look upon Him with deep, overflowing gratitude for the price He paid for our sins. 

He is not one or the other. He is not fierce without love. He is not love without a fierce hatred for sin.

He is not just full of grace, He is full of power.

Mountains melt like wax before Him. All of creation obeys His will, except one. Only mankind stands in defiance to this great, powerful, fire raining God who loves us. We are the only ones who shake our fists, refuse to acknowledge Him and have no awe of His power. We are the only ones who look upon Him who was crucified, and refuse to let go of our sin.

We remember that He is love and forget that He is fire.

That’s what I saw when I stood on a hill and watched Chapter Nineteen.

genesis 18: impossible

{Side note: Sarah laughed to herself. And yet, her laugh was heard. We should bear in mind that God hears what we keep others from hearing. He hears our unbelief even when we don’t speak it out loud.}

To Sarah, God’s promise had been delayed so long, it was no longer possible. However, where no time frame has been given, there can be no delay. It isn’t until now that God has put timing to His promise.

God does not wait for something to become possible. Possible is what we can do. God moves in the realm of what is impossible for us.

Sarah had no idea that a 99-year-old woman could get pregnant and give birth. To think she could would have been crazy thinking. Ludicrous. No less crazy than if we believed it could happen today.

God’s ok with that. He doesn’t care if we think something is impossible for us.

As long as we believe that it’s not impossible for Him.

There is a little girl named Eva Love. She has a traumatic brain injury and right now thousands of people from all over the world are praying for what doctors think is impossible. They also didn’t believe that she would keep breathing when they removed the breathing tube, but there she is, breathing strong on her own!

God is doing something with Eva Love, and the Church is watching and waiting and believing Him. You should join us.

Dugan Sherbondy Page

https://www.caringbridge.org/visit/evalove

From Genesis 1:1 to Revelation 22:21, God demonstrates that nothing is impossible for Him.

We live in a world that has clear boundaries around what is possible, and much of the world lives within those boundaries. But we are not the world. We are children of the God who lives outside the boundaries. We are children of the God who brings forth life from wombs that cannot birth life, and who heals what cannot be healed.

May the children of God believe their Father for impossible things today.

genesis 17: promise

When Abram was 75 years old, God promised him children. Twenty-four years passed since that conversation, and then God appeared.

“I am God Almighty…” And what would a man do but fall on his face?

God wants Abram to know that He hasn’t forgotten His promise and, in fact, is now going to require him to bear the sign of that promise. And from then on, every time a Hebrew boy is circumcised, it is a reminder of a covenant God made with a man too old to father children.

“For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but faith working through love.” – Galatians 5:6

God’s covenant with Abraham served its purpose, but it was temporary. We now have the New Covenant, an eternal covenant of salvation through the finished work of Christ on the cross.

What is the sign of this new covenant God made with a people unable to save themselves?

“And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us; for after saying, “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, declares the Lord…” (Hebrews 10:15)

Circumcision bore witness to the covenant God made with Abraham. So today, the Holy Spirit bears witness in us.

God promised Abraham many descendants when Abraham & Sarah were unable to bear children, and that same God promised us salvation when we were unable to save ourselves. I believe the Holy Spirit dwelling in us is a continual sign of that promise.

“He anointed us, set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.” – 2Corinthians 1:21-22

The Holy Spirit is our continual reminder that we cannot, but God can. We were barren but will birth nations. We were lost but will inherit eternity.

Because God keeps His promise.