Tag Archives: Bible

genesis 15: covenant

Let’s listen to just the conversation between God and Abram –

God: Don’t worry, I will shield you, and your reward will be great.

Abram: What reward will You give me, since You have not given me an heir? In fact, a servant is going to inherit everything I have.

God: No he won’t. You will father a child. In fact, come outside. Look up. Can you count the stars? No? Neither will you be able to count your offspring, there will be so many of them.

And Abram believed that the Creator of all things, the Holy One of Heaven, had just made him a promise that He would keep.

And then He made the promise even bigger.

“See this land? I’m giving it to you and to yours for always.”

“How can I be sure that I’m really going to possess this land?”

“Go get the animals.”

In the Old Testament, when two people wanted to enter into an agreement or contract, they “cut covenant”. They would cut the sacrificial animals into two halves, and then they would both walk between the pieces together, as a way of “signing a contract”.

Abram would have known what was coming next. He and God were about to “cut covenant” and it was not unfamiliar. But he didn’t know that God cuts covenant like no other.

As Abram slept, God walked alone through the pieces.

And as we were dead in our sins, Jesus hung alone on a cross.

Cutting covenant with us.

What kind of God is this who walks alone through the sacrifice to be in covenant with me?

What do I do with such goodness? How do I hold this kind of mercy? What, dear Lord, is the response that heaven is looking for from earth?

And Abram believed that the Creator of all things, the Holy One of Heaven, had just made him a promise that He would keep.

“…and He counted it to him as righteousness.”

genesis 13: strife

“Let there be no strife between you and me, and between your herdsmen and my herdsmen, for we are kinsmen.”

Strife: Contention. Struggle. Fight. Discord.

Abraham was unwilling to allow there to be strife, because they were family. But then he goes further. Aaagh. So much we could learn from Abraham.

He was so peace-minded that he allowed Lot to choose what lands he would take first. He wasn’t after the best and biggest piece of the pie. Not interested in whether he would get his fair share. He was after peace.

Side Note: I’m looking for God in this chapter and I found Him when Lot chose his land.

It was God’s plan all along to give the promised land to Abraham and his descendants, and in the moment of Lot’s choice of land, I smiled. Because even when Abraham gives the choice to another, God still made sure that Lot chose in accordance with God’s plan! I just love the Word of God!

We can roll the dice to see where they land, but oh beloved be sure of this: the dice will obey God!

Interestingly, many, many years after he sought peace with Lot, Abraham’s descendant David would write these words:

Family is one of the most contentious arenas on the planet. So much brokenness in families, so much offense and bitterness being held in hearts that should be knit together. Arguing, demanding, refusing to give up their right to have, or their right to be right.

Turning from our bitterness and anger to do good is hard. But I wonder if it could be easier if we became seekers and pursuers of peace. People who cannot abide the presence of strife. People who would rather step back and allow someone else to choose what they would prefer, and be content to take what is left.

That last one is hard for a lot of us. Unless, like Abraham, we trust God, and we value peace in the family above getting what’s ours.

Questions:

  • Have I allowed strife to remain in any of my relationships with family?
  • Am I causing, or adding to the strife by demanding what’s mine, trying to prove I’m right, or launching accusations against others?
  • What would it look like to seek and pursue peace?

genesis 10: origins

“These are the generations of the sons of Noah…”

Just nine words. Words that no doubt most of us just skim past. But you and I are in those words. Generations. Sons of Noah.

Japheth: Often referred to as the Father of Europeans. His descendants were French, German, Celtic, Russian, and Spanish, among others. Some of his sons’ descendants inhabited Iran and Iraq, India and Armenia.

Ham: His descendants inhabited Africa and the Far East. They founded both Babylon and Ethiopia. They lived in Libya, Egypt, and Israel. It is also widely believed that the Asian peoples descended from sons of Ham.

Shem was an ancestor of Persians, Assyrians and the Syrians, and various Arabic peoples.

You and I fall somewhere in there, as descendants of the sons of Noah, a descendant of Adam and Eve.

It’s good to know and remember where you came from.

I was the first person in my immediate family (parents, siblings) to become a Christian. I met a guy in a bar and eventually married him. He came from a Christian family and told me about Jesus. Not a lot, but the basics. Years later I would surrender my life to that Jesus and never look back. But I learned that there were members of my dad’s family (grandmother, grandfather (eventually) uncles, aunts) who were Christians. I can’t help but wonder where it began. I would love to discover who was my point of origin for the gospel in my family.

After I got saved, most of my family members became Christians, one at a time. I’m still believing for those who have not yet surrendered to the Lordship of Christ.

The covenants God made with both Abraham and Noah included their descendants. God’s purposes and His heart are for families, for lineage and legacy. He doesn’t bless one man, He blesses a man and his descendants. He doesn’t just save one man, He saves a man and his entire household.

And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.”

That doesn’t mean that when one person is saved, his whole household is automatically saved. It means that one person getting saved then opens the door for the gospel to his whole family.

In a very roundabout way, I am coming to my point, which is this:

God is about family. Descendants. Legacy. Households. Keep going. Keep praying. Keep believing. Keep walking with Jesus. You are opening doors. You are walking in the blessings of God that are being passed down from one generation to the next.

You could very well be someone’s point of origin for the gospel.

Come Home

“Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations.” Psalm 90:1

“The God of old is your dwelling place, and underneath are the everlasting arms.” Deuteronomy 33:27

From pages so old, Moses is whispering to us that God is our home.

I know. Home wasn’t always a good place for me either. It wasn’t always safe and mostly I couldn’t wait to leave. It was where escape became my first and strongest addiction. And then I found other so-called homes. Relationships that hurt. Marriages that hurt. Places that made me long to be free, to be anywhere but there.

I always had a roof over my head but I was always homeless.

Because true home is a safe place – physically and emotionally. A refuge. A place we don’t want to leave and when we do we can’t wait to return. It is where we feel most welcomed, most ourselves, most free. Home is where we live, not where we simply survive.

And finally, after running from every other place that called itself home for me, I ran to God. I didn’t feel safe with Him at first, because I didn’t feel safe with anyone. Trust issues don’t just disappear when you say a prayer, know what I mean? Words like “God will punish you for that” don’t just stop sounding true. I didn’t know that He is actually kind, or safe. I didn’t know that I had finally run home.

Belief doesn’t just show up in us. We choose it, because we have been given free will to do so. Everything we believe was a choice we made to believe it. For years I chose to believe that if I just hung in there, tried a little harder, my life would get better and I would end up happy. But eventually, it became clear to me that nothing was going to change and that made me sad and panicked and tired. Out of hope. And just as one king has to die for another king to take his place, one belief system has to end so that another can begin.

So one day in a hospital cafeteria I chose to believe that Jesus was the Son of God, that He died to pay the price for my sins, and I could now be forgiven and have eternal life. But honestly? The thing I most needed at that moment, the choice that was like jumping off a cliff for me, was to believe that God could change my life. If that wasn’t true, then I was a goner. So I jumped.

Some people feel most “with” God when they are in worship. For others, it’s being in nature, or maybe it’s when they are gathered with other Christians in prayer. I know a few Christians who only feel close to God when they are in church. Others have a particular spot in their home where they meet with Him. For me, there’s only ever been one place.

From that hospital cafeteria, I went back to my life, to a husband and kids and emotional wounds that wouldn’t quit. And a bible. That’s it. No church. No bible study groups or women’s ministries. Just a bible that I didn’t understand, and a need to know God. I needed to find out who He was and why He loved me. That was 30 years ago and today, the Word of God and the presence of God are the same thing to me. I am most at home when I am with Him in the scriptures. I feel safe there. Loved and free. It’s where I talk to my Father and He talks to me. It is always where I most want to be.

For Christians, life is a journey home, and doesn’t that make you think heaven? But Moses has whispered something and I can’t shake it.

God is our home. Heaven is where we finally see what home looks like.

 

{Dear believer – while the scriptures may not feel like home for you, they are where the truth is found. They are where you will come to know Him, the One you have chosen to believe. To try to follow Christ with nothing more than a sporadic or occasional glance at the Word of God will make following Him a confusing, cumbersome endeavor. Or worse, an option.}

#readyourbible

carpe diem, church

This past Tuesday at Lifegroup we did a little digging in that first chapter of Acts.

“While He was together with them, He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for the Father’s promise…
So when they had come together, they asked Him, “Lord, are You restoring the kingdom to Israel at this time?”” – Acts 1:4-6

World changers. Miracle workers. Birthers of the Church. But they didn’t have a full understanding of what this whole thing was all about. After three years of life on life with Jesus, they still didn’t get the big picture. They thought one thing, while He was planning something else. Story of my life. Anyone else?

God isn’t intimidated by what we don’t know, or by the smallness of the picture we can see. He still sends us out.

“He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or periods that the Father has set by His own authority.” – Acts 1:7

But inquiring minds have always wanted to know so they built an information highway and now we have literally trillions of bits of things we can know. But we still don’t know what tomorrow will bring. I believe our not knowing and therefore not controlling is at the root of our rampant anxiety. I also believe that our freedom begins with the truth – 

There are things that are not for us to know. As Christ followers, our need to know what’s coming and when it’s coming must take a knee.

Only God has the authority to set the times of our lives.  Not luck or fate or the universe or the government or our employer or that internet prophet guy and certainly not the devil. Take heart Church, our times are in God’s hands.

“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come on you, and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” – Acts 1:8

I can tell people my testimony without the power of the Holy Spirit. So can you. That isn’t the “witness” that Jesus was talking about in this statement. 

The Greek word for “witness” = martys. It’s where martyr comes from. But it has other meanings. In this verse it means “ those whose lives and actions testified to the worth and effect of faith…”

You can tell people you’re a Christian and what God has done for you all day long but if your life doesn’t speak of the value of faith, then you are not His witness. Speaking words doesn’t take the power of the Holy Spirit, but turning those words into the way you live your life does. Jesus gave us the power of His Spirit to enable us to live a life of witness, not just speak words that testify. 

If we say we are a man or woman of faith, but we live in fear of tomorrow, we are not His witnesses. If every bump or wave that hits us sends us into anxiety or “fix-it” mode, we are not His witnesses.

If we say we are a man or woman of faith while we tend to our collection of idols of money, fame, attention, approval, escape, and comfort and fill-in-your-blank,  we are not His witnesses.

And we should not wonder why there is no power in our lives.

We cannot live by both fear and faith. We cannot build both our own kingdoms and the Kingdom of God. We cannot live sacrificially while indulging our flesh. We cannot lay down our lives and love them too. 

The Church cannot live a double life, and have the power of the Holy Spirit to be His witnesses.

Those 4 verses were the last words Jesus spoke to them on this earth. Of everything He could have said to them, He chose to promise them the Holy Spirit so that they could be His witnesses. He chose to tell them He would give them the power to have lives that match their words. Lives that testify to the value of faith in Christ. 

Honestly? The Church should be waiting in the upper room today, waiting for our turn to be filled with the power to be His witnesses. And by the Church, I mean me. And I mean you. Not them. Us. Because we are the Church, you and I. We are the ones who need to have those last words of Jesus ringing in our ears. 

We are the ones today. Yesterday was theirs, and tomorrow will be for others. But this is our time to be filled with the Spirit of God and be His witnesses in all the earth. Today is our day. 

Carpe Diem, Church.

 

 

i remember – my soul longs for You

See, there is this yearning on its way. It comes in answer to prayer. A yearning for the more, the deeper, the overwhelmed by God. To long for Him. The wake me up in the middle of the night to speak with me kind of thing. The get out of my way I’m going to meet with Jesus thing that I can’t explain any better than that. That’s my yearning and it’s here, like waves hitting the shores — strong one minute and then it recedes, only to return bigger and stronger.

I asked for this yearning and I feel the urgency to grab it and live in it. Put it on like a robe and allow myself to simply long for more of Jesus everywhere I am.

In the morning, I want to have to extricate myself from His presence so I can go to work. I want to feel the pull and I want it to be strong. I want it to be hard to leave the Word of God, to leave our conversation, you know? 

At work, I want this longing to be the background in every conversation, every task. I’m sick to death of longing for lunchtime, or 5:00, or Friday or some thing. Silly longings that have no meaning except to a flesh soothed by silly things. 

I want to choose Him over my television, over social media, over myself, every single time. I want to wake in the night and seek His voice and have whispered talks with Him until I fall back to sleep.

I want to prefer time with Jesus more than anything else, and right now – I do not. Right now I enjoy being with Him, but my soul has not been yearning for Him. Longing to be with Him. But it’s coming. The waves are hitting the shore of my soul like I knew they would. Because I asked. I asked Him to call me back again to the longing place. 

I have been in His Word in preparation for leading others – in bible studies, in Lifegroup (small group), or in public speaking. But it’s been too long since I’ve come to His Word just to be with Him. Too much to do, for underlining and scribbling notes in the margins. No time for lingering, for the slow turn of pages waiting for Him to speak. Because He takes His time you know. He’s in no hurry. He’s not like me.

But this morning I came, in no rush. Nowhere else to be. I came and I opened a battered, torn, book where I have always found Him waiting for me. In familiar pages I breathed in and caught His breath and I remembered.

I remembered that I love Him and I miss Him and that He feels the same way about me.

I remembered that there is nothing on earth that comes close to soothing my soul like time spent with Him here, in slow turning pages worn from seasons of longing. 

I remembered that I learned the sound of His voice here in this book. I learned who He is here and who I am and that I haven’t learned it all.

I remembered that this is where I sit at the feet of Jesus. It’s where I learned to pray and where I learned to worship. I remembered that this is where I found truth and learned my worth.

I remembered that the nearness of His presence found in these worn pages has no rival. 

And I remembered that being with Him makes me long to be with Him.

I pray you remember that your soul longs for Him.

declarations

Hard week. A member of our lifegroup lost her 23-year-old son on Saturday. We are all a bit in shock, I think, but at the same time, our church community has gathered like an army around this family. It’s a beautiful picture to watch. If you think about it, lift up the Thomas family in prayer. They are living every parents’ worst fear.

At lifegroup last night I felt led to have us do some declaring. So after worship, we got down to it. With 3 pages of declarations in hand, we went around the table taking turns reading them. It got a little loud at times, lemme tell ya. These women de.clared some things! Vehemently. Passionately. Beautifully.

It left us wanting more.

I don’t know the mechanics of it. Can’t answer why. But I do know this – there is power in the room when truth is being declared. There is a fierce kind of faith that rises up when the scriptures are spoken over those in the room. When we declare the truth over ourselves and over our lives, lies begin to break.

{Because a lie from the enemy cannot withstand the sword of the Spirit.}

We will have ‘declaration nights’ more often. And hopefully, that will turn into declaration mornings for us individually. And declaration days. Until declaring truth is how we live life.