Tag: abraham

Recall the Faithfulness of God (Psalm 105:1-11, 37-45)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
The Delivery of Israel out of Egypt, by Francis Danby, 1825

O give thanks to the Lord; call on his name;
    make known his deeds among the peoples.
Sing to him, sing praises to him;
    tell of all his wonderful works.
Glory in his holy name;
    let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice.
Seek the Lord and his strength;
    seek his presence continually.
Remember the wonderful works he has done,
    his miracles and the judgments he has uttered,
O offspring of his servant Abraham,
    children of Jacob, his chosen ones.

He is the Lord our God;
    his judgments are in all the earth.
He is mindful of his covenant forever,
    of the word that he commanded for a thousand generations,
the covenant that he made with Abraham,
    his sworn promise to Isaac,
which he confirmed to Jacob as a statute,
    to Israel as an everlasting covenant,
saying, “To you I will give the land of Canaan
    as your portion for an inheritance….

Then he brought Israel out with silver and gold,
    and there was no one among their tribes who stumbled.
Egypt was glad when they departed,
    for dread of them had fallen upon it.
He spread a cloud for a covering
    and fire to give light by night.
They asked, and he brought quails
    and gave them food from heaven in abundance.
He opened the rock, and water gushed out;
    it flowed through the desert like a river.
For he remembered his holy promise
    and Abraham, his servant.

So he brought his people out with joy,
    his chosen ones with singing.
He gave them the lands of the nations,
    and they took possession of the wealth of the peoples,
that they might keep his statutes
    and observe his laws.
Praise the Lord! (New Revised Standard Version)

Some stories are worth repeating over and over again. For example, on the birthday of each of my children (and now grandchildren) I recount and remember their birth story; on Christmas, I read the first chapter of Luke’s Gospel to the family in order to recall and remember the birth of Jesus.

Psalm 105 is a remembering and retelling of the ancient Israelites’ exodus event, their deliverance from Egyptian slavery. That event permeates much of the Old Testament, and rightly so. God’s faithfulness, grace, and steadfast love dominates the psalm, namely because the Lord’s majesty, power, and sovereignty was overwhelmingly evident through the deliverance from Egypt.

And so, it is appropriate for the psalmist to express gratitude and praise to God in remembering that deliverance. It only makes sense, in such a retelling, that we are encouraged to continually seek the Lord. Seeking the Lord is a common biblical admonition, and is linked to memories of what God has done in the past.

Glory in his holy name;
    let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice.
Seek the Lord and his strength;
    seek his presence continually.
Remember the wonderful works he has done,
    his miracles and the judgments he uttered. (1 Chronicles 16:10-12, NRSV)

God graciously works in history by choosing a people and making a covenant with them. The Lord is faithful to that arrangement by giving them everything they need to maintain obedience on their end of the covenant. For God doesn’t merely call persons who are already equipped and ready for high level spiritual service. Rather, the Lord equips those who are called.

Abraham was called by God, not because he had some sort of superior spirituality or inclination toward the divine, but only because God chose him, period. And once he was called, Abraham doggedly and faithfully sought the Lord.

God brought the Israelites out of Egypt because of the covenant made to Abraham. The Lord promised him and his descendants a people and a land. It may have seemed that becoming enslaved in Egypt would negate the promise. But not so. The exodus happened.

Being freed from slavery, the people could seek the Lord and pursue knowing God without any hindrance or obstacle. From that point on, the people were expected to utilize their memory of God’s saving actions to seek God with all their heart, soul, and mind.

The entire aim of recounting God’s covenant and the exodus event is to remind the people to observe God’s commands. Since a powerfully good God has acted in history, then we are to keep the faith by embracing the powerfully good words of God and following them with the utmost commitment.

Remembering that we belong to God, enables us to keep on seeking the Lord throughout all of life, for the rest of our lives. The consistent retelling of deliverance stories can strengthen our faith and equip us for what is ahead.

When times are tough, it is good and helpful to recall the divine deliverance that has already happened. Our memory can then serve us well, by renewing our minds and energizing us to persevere in the spiritual life.

O Lord our God, we pray that your Spirit would guide and inspire our life and worship, our contemplation and our action. Open our mouths to sing and speak your praise, our ears to hear your Word, our eyes to see to you at work among us, and our hearts to receive your divine love. Help us to remember your goodness, seek your face continually, and serve you always. Amen.

Impatient (Genesis 16:1-6)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
Sarai and Hagar, by Cody F. Miller

Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian slave named Hagar; so she said to Abram, “The Lord has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my slave; perhaps I can build a family through her.”

Abram agreed to what Sarai said. So after Abram had been living in Canaan ten years, Sarai his wife took her Egyptian slave Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife. He slept with Hagar, and she conceived.

When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress. Then Sarai said to Abram, “You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. I put my slave in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the Lord judge between you and me.”

“Your slave is in your hands,” Abram said. “Do with her whatever you think best.” Then Sarai mistreated Hagar; so she fled from her. (New International Version)

In a convoluted series of decisions, mostly outside of her control, Hagar became pregnant with Abraham’s son. Although it may seem strange to us today, the practice of building a family line through a surrogate – in this case the slave of the household’s mistress Sarai – was not an unusual way of handling infertility in the ancient world.

Yet, things went awry with that approach. God had promised that a son of Abram’s own flesh and blood would inherit the divine covenant. But it wasn’t happening quickly enough for his wife Sarai. And this impatience led to the worldly approach of trying to gain an heir.

Impatience

Throughout Holy Scripture, patience is a virtue, as well as a spiritual practice to be cultivated. Impatience is the ants-in-your-pants response of wanting something now, without all the fuss and effort of planting and cultivating. The inability to wait is the desire for an instant harvest of righteousness.

The spiritual life of patience, however, like every other virtue, requires progressive growth over a long period of time. That is the only way of attaining any sort of spiritual maturity in this life. To go with shortcuts, or ingenious plans for quickness and efficiency, will not end well.

And it only short circuits the spiritual growth and formation of the believer. Like a farm-factory-raised animal who has been given growth hormones to speed things along, the fallout is the mistreatment of creatures – both animal and human – in shortened lifespans and poor quality of life.

Perhaps the original ancestor of Sarai, Eve, also had a bit of impatience in wanting to gain wisdom, now, from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And maybe the original ancestor of Abram, Adam, was okay with letting Eve follow through with an impatient plan.

It could be that both Adam and Abram just wanted to keep their spouses happy; and so, they let them do whatever the heck they wanted in order to keep the peace. It certainly wouldn’t be the only time this ever happened in history.

A commitment to submitting to the process of developing patience is a must – otherwise, the believer will give up and retreat into half-baked ideas for getting what they want, without all the hard work. We also need to realize that patience itself is a great reward, and worth all the energy it takes to possess it.

Be patient, then, brothers and sisters, until the Lord’s coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop, patiently waiting for the autumn and spring rains. You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord’s coming is near.

James 5:7-8, NIV

What’s more, the effects of impatience are murmuring and complaining to God and others, leading to depression and anxiety. That’s what happened to the ancient Israelites in the desert when it was taking too long to get to the Promised Land:

They traveled from Mount Hor along the route to the Red Sea, to go around Edom. But the people grew impatient on the way; they spoke against God and against Moses, and said, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!” (Numbers 21:4-5, NIV)

Worldliness

If we give the attainment of patience it’s due attention, then a lot of ungodly worldliness can be avoided. In Holy Scripture, “the world” is many times used not as a reference to the people of the earth, but as an inordinate interest in, concern with, or devotion to the systems, organizations, and institutions of this world that operate by unjust means.

Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever. (1 John 2:15-17, NIV)

Worldliness, then, is an obstacle to that which is good, right, and just; it is in opposition to and independence from God. In short, worldliness isn’t some sort of sophisticated intelligence, but is a way to get what we want apart from virtue and godliness. But God’s grace can be our teacher to a better way of life:

For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope—the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Titus 2:11-13, NIV

Conclusion

Patience is one of the hardest lessons in life to learn. Yet, a devotion to becoming skilled in the art of patience, and of forsaking the practice of impatience, can reap both existential and eternal rewards. And it will keep us from going down the path of worldly temptation; and delivered from the machinations of the evil one.

Perhaps with patience, Sarai could have avoided mistreating her servant; and maybe Abram could have stood up and held her accountable. Together, they would eventually embrace faith in it’s fullness and enjoy the blessing of a son from Sarai’s own womb. Yet, today’s Old Testament lesson would always serve as part of their history to learn from. And, thankfully, we can learn from it, as well.

Almighty God, support your people and grant us patience in all our circumstances and miseries.
Lord, when in the midst of trials and temptations, suffering and injustice, give us patience.
When wracked with pain, illness, and lack of sleep, give us patience.
When burdened with afflictions, wonderings, and loneliness, give us patience.
When overcome by fear, and all our spiritual energy is dried up, give us patience.
When distractions grab our attention, bring us back, and grant us patience, O Lord. Amen.

The All-Sufficient One (Genesis 17:1-13)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment

When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to him and said, “I am God Almighty; walk before me faithfully and be blameless. Then I will make my covenant between me and you and will greatly increase your numbers.”

Abram fell facedown, and God said to him, “As for me, this is my covenant with you: You will be the father of many nations. No longer will you be called Abram; your name will be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations. I will make you very fruitful; I will make nations of you, and kings will come from you. I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you. The whole land of Canaan, where you now reside as a foreigner, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you; and I will be their God.”

Then God said to Abraham, “As for you, you must keep my covenant, you and your descendants after you for the generations to come. This is my covenant with you and your descendants after you, the covenant you are to keep: Every male among you shall be circumcised. You are to undergo circumcision, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and you. For the generations to come every male among you who is eight days old must be circumcised, including those born in your household or bought with money from a foreigner—those who are not your offspring. Whether born in your household or bought with your money, they must be circumcised. My covenant in your flesh is to be an everlasting covenant. (New International Version)

There were 13 years between the events of chapters 16 and 17 of Genesis. God’s servant, Abram, did not hear from God in those years. Then, all of a sudden, the Lord showed up, with a new self-reference as “God Almighty.”

“God Almighty” (“El Shaddai,” the all-sufficient God) appeared to Abram. The Lord brought a self-revelation to Abram as the all-competent God, the adequate God, the God who has the big picture and knows what to do with it.

Within those 13 years before El Shaddai showed up, Abram tried his own plan for acquiring an heir to God’s covenant promises. It didn’t go quite as designed. Along with Abram, people in every age need to discover or recover the presence of God Almighty, El Shaddai, the Lord who is completely sufficient for anything and everything in life.

Our role, much like Abram’s, is to bring a wholehearted devotion to our walk with God – not looking for some extra supplement to the Lord, as if divine resources and help is inadequate or untrustworthy. We are to have a sincere and obedient stance toward God Almighty.

Too many people seek to serve two masters, as if this will help cover all the bases of what we need. But Jesus was savvy to this, understanding that it only complicates things:

“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other.”

Jesus (Matthew 6:24; Luke 16:13, NIV)

God Almighty wanted Abram to know and believe that El Shaddai doesn’t allow any dual allegiances – mainly because all of us can only really serve one master.

This realization and determination to serve God Almighty alone elicits El Shaddai giving Abram a new name: Abraham. Knowing God in a new or different way always changes us, as if we are new people with new names. For Abram, now Abraham, the change is one of moving from the “exalted father” who had his own ideas, to the “father of many nations” who will bless all those with the same discovery and determination to let God be God, without all the puny human interference.

And You Shall Circumcise the Flesh of Your Foreskin, by Gerard Hoet (1648-1733)

With any seminal change of life, a very real and tangible sign is important, in order to never forget who God is, and who we as people are. For Abraham and those born to him, circumcision was that sign.

And what a sign it was! God actually told Abraham that all the males in his household were to have their foreskin removed. If anything, this was a sign given which could never get lost! It was enduring, always there, and unforgettable. It is a constant reminder that the people of Abraham, the Hebrews, are to be different and singularly devoted to El Shaddai.

In Christianity, we are to have a circumcision of the heart, and not necessarily the flesh. It is the heart, which is to be completely devoted to God Almighty, that is, the entirety of a person’s life. The whole person is to be oriented to one master who rules both body and soul.

A person is not a Jew who is one only outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. No, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a person’s praise is not from other people, but from God. (Romans 2:28-29, NIV)

The one devoted to God Almighty in Jesus Christ is to use body, mind, emotions, and spirit for good divine purposes. Christians are meant to rely solely and completely upon Christ. They are to take every action, every thought, every feeling, every imagination and make it captive to Christ.

To be circumcised is to be set apart for good and noble purposes, to have a heart fully devoted to God Almighty as the ever-living, ever-loving, all-sufficient Sovereign of the universe.

God Almighty, open our eyes that we may see; incline our hearts that we may desire; and order our steps that we may follow the way of your commandments, now and forever, through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit are one God, for all time. Amen.

The Connection of Faith, Obedience, and Blessing (Genesis 22:15-18)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment

The angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven and said, “By myself I have sworn, says the Lord: Because you have done this, and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will indeed bless you, and I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of their enemies, and by your offspring shall all the nations of the earth gain blessing for themselves, because you have obeyed my voice.” (New Revised Standard Version)

Faith

The biblical character of Abraham is synonymous with faith. And for good reason.

God had told Abraham that he would have a son with his wife Sarah. This was especially unusual because the couple were well advanced in age, and Sarah was incapable of having children. Infertility is not just a modern problem; it has always existed. 

Yet, despite all the contrary evidence of age and ability, Abraham believed God. Years later, and with a mix of patience and impatience from the would-be parents, the promise from God was realized.  Abraham and Sarah had a son, Isaac.

“The child of the promise.” This was Isaac’s moniker – which made the command from God so perplexing: “Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.” (Genesis 22:2) Huh?

I can easily imagine Abraham saying to himself, perhaps not out loud, “What the [insert favorite expletive]!”  But it only seems strange and super-weird to us. We get no reaction from Abraham, no questioning, no talk back. He just goes about the business of saddling up the donkey, chopping some wood for the sacrifice, and takes his only son with him on the journey to the mountain.

While you and I might try and figure out if we really heard God or not, Abraham had a history of talking with God. He knew God’s voice as well as he knew his own.

Abraham was well down the road of relationship with the God he served. We get an insight from the author of Hebrews into Abraham’s thought process, a line of thinking that is consistent with a person who has a regular habit of talking with God:

Abraham had been promised that Isaac, his only son, would continue his family. But when Abraham was tested, he had faith and was willing to sacrifice Isaac, because he was sure that God could raise people to life. This was just like getting Isaac back from death. (Hebrews 11:17-18, CEV)

Obedience

Abraham did not try and figure out God’s mind. He picked no fights and chose not to debate with God about the contradiction of ethics he was being asked to do.

Abraham simply obeyed. He reasoned that it did not matter if Isaac were killed, because God could raise him from death.

This, of course, is not what happened. It was all a test of faith. Abraham knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that God is the Lord who provides. After God stepped in and provided a ram for the sacrifice instead of Isaac, Abraham named that place “The Lord Will Provide.” (Genesis 22:14)

You and I most certainly do not always know why we are facing the circumstances we must endure. We are rarely privy to know what in the world God is thinking. Yet, like Abraham, if we have a spiritual history of walking with God and hearing God’s voice, there is no hesitation; we respond with obedience. We are convinced that God will provide. Obedience for the follower of Christ is not a burden; it is a privilege, even when we are being tested beyond our seeming emotional ability to do it.

Blessing

Blessings come through obedience. They are not willy-nilly thrown into a crowd like some cheap stadium trinket between innings of a baseball game. When the Israelites were about to enter the Promised Land, the connection between obedience and blessing was re-emphasized:

If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations on earth. All these blessings will come on you and accompany you if you obey the Lord your God…. The Lord will establish you as his holy people, as he promised you on oath, if you keep the commands of the Lord your God and walk in obedience to him. (Deuteronomy 28:1-2, 9, NIV)

Here’s a simple observation about the blessing of Abraham: It took nearly five-hundred years before that blessing was realized. Furthermore, in the Christian tradition, it then took another fifteen-hundred years before the blessing was fulfilled in the person of Jesus.

And, I might add, all the promises of God to the people will be fully consummated at the end of the age when Christ returns. For a contemporary society which prides itself on timeliness, speed, and efficiency, taking the much broader scope of all history might seem unacceptable.

So, we come back around again to trust. Just as Abraham trusted God, even when it seemed like nonsense fraught with major moral implications, so we are to exhibit patient and persevering faith.

Although the scope of history is massively large, the only moment we have is the now. It is now, today, in which we put one foot in front of the other and toddle forward into the next moment – by faith.

We simply obey. Then, we obey again… and, again. It is in these continual small steps of faith and obedience that we discover the blessings of God in the middle of our path.

Sovereign Lord, your ways are sometimes strange. Yet, I know that everything you do is always right, just, and good. It is to your gracious and merciful character that I know you will guide and provide. My allegiance is to you as I anticipate divine blessings in my life through the Name of Jesus Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.