(050410) Abraham
Abraham M5 Covenant
The Da Vinci Code is a very popular, compelling novel. The novel suggests that Jesus Christ had a secret relationship with Mary Magdalene and they created a line of physical children that are alive today.
Some people read this book and think it’s a kind of historical document and forget it’s a novel. As one professor at the University of London has pointed out a lot of the Da Vinci code is based on ideas like the Holy Grail which first emerged in a Medieval novel by Chretien de Troyes at the end of the 12th Century. This University of London professor has said believing in the reality of the Holy Grail, on which the novel the Da Vince code is based, would be like a 1000 years from now, someone believing that around the 20th and 21st centuries there was an actual place called Middle Earth because there of a book called the Lord of the Rings.
Sometime novels and books can shake a person’s faith.
Ted Turner the media mogul who founded CNN is very hostile to Christianity. He left his wife Jane Fonda when she began to place her faith in Christ. When Ted was a young person he wanted to become a Christian missionary, but his younger sister died a tragic death and Ted became angry at God and turned from God.
The circumstances of our life that can cause us to doubt God.
And even Abraham “the great man of faith” goes seems wrestle through a time of doubt with God. We’re going to explore this part of his journey this morning.
If you have your Bibles please turn to Genesis 15.
To give you the context, Abraham’s nephew Lot, a resident of Sodom, has been captured in and prisoner in a war. So Abraham deploys his men to attack the people holding him. In the middle of the night, Abraham’s men attack Lot’s captor’s and spring and Lot and his prisoners from Sodom free.
It seems like after this attack, Abraham is afraid of a counter-attack from his enemies…
Listen to the assurance God gives him in Genesis 15:1
God comes to him in a vision and says:
1 After this, the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision:
"Do not be afraid, Abram.
I am your shield,
your very great reward."
2 But Abram said, "O Sovereign LORD , what can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?" 3 And Abram said, "You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir."
4 Then the word of the LORD came to him: "This man will not be your heir, but a son coming from your own body will be your heir." 5 He took him outside and said, "Look up at the heavens and count the stars-if indeed you can count them." Then he said to him, "So shall your offspring be."
6 Abram believed the LORD , and he credited it to him as righteousness.
When Abraham is apparently afraid of a counter attack from the people he has attacked to rescue his nephew Lot, God comes to him and says, “don’t be afraid, I am your shield.”
There are times in our lives when we are threatened by something. For us it probably won’t be literal enemies of war, but it may be people who want to do us harm in some way. Or perhaps it’s the threat of losing a job or losing money, or losing our health. Or of the threat possibility losing relationship or losing someone in our lives. In these times of threat, like Abraham, we too may be tempted to doubt God.
But God comes to Abraham while he’s afraid and says, “Don’t be afraid. I am your shield and your very great reward.”
When we truly believe that God is our shield and protector, we need not fear.
The Bible says 366 times, “Do not fear or Do not be afraid.” We have a “Do not fear” for every day of the year and one for leap year!
Then God says to Abraham I am your (very great) reward.
This text can also be translated, “Your reward shall be very great.” It’s interesting that in chapter 14 Abraham refuses to receive some of the war booty from the King of Sodom after Abraham has rescued Lot and a number of the King Sodom’s subjects. The King wants to reward Abraham for his help, but Abraham says to the King of Sodom, “Keep the war booty, I don’t want you to be able to say, you made me rich.” Then the Lord come to Abraham and says your reward is very great and then God re-iterates his promise that he will bless him with offspring and with land. Part of Abraham’s reward is offspring and land. And the book of Hebrews tells us that God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him.
But the greatest reward that Abraham receives is not land or even offspring, but God himself. The text can read as the NIV puts it, God says, “I am your very great reward.”
When we understand that God is our shield And our reward, we can live without fear.
If something else is our primary reward or treasure, we will have reason to fear. If our beauty is our “reward” or our intelligence in our “reward” our career success or our financial success is our “reward” or what we own is our “reward” we’ll have reason to fear because we will eventually lost all these things.
If our beauty is our reward and treasure, we’ll definitely lose it (botox and plastic surgery can only do so much!), if our mind is our reward eventually we’ll it (I have a fairly good memory for conversations, but eventually I’ll lose this), if our career success is our reward we’ll eventually lose our “effectiveness” curve, if money is our treasure one way or another, we’ll eventually lose it. You’ve the heard about the wealthy person who died and someone asked how much did the person leave behind? The answer, this person left ALL of it.
But if we know that God is our reward we have no reason to fear. God cannot be taken from us!
God approaches Abraham in his time of apparent fear and doubt and says, “Don’t be afraid, I am your shield AND your very great reward.”
But how does Abraham this a great man of faith respond? Does Abraham say amen, I trust you…
No he ahum, by the way, uh, while we’re on the subject of rewards…
A long time ago, you talked my having a child, but I'm childless and it looks like Eliezer of Damascus is going to inherit everything. You've given me no children, and now a house servant is going to get it all.
In this culture a person not having a child would be considered a real disaster. A person in Abraham’s shoes would be thinking: Who will carry my name? Who will take care of me when I am old? Who will inherit my estate?
Abraham remembers that God told him years ago that he would have a child, but it hasn’t happened.
When Abram was 75 God promised him a child. Now he may be about 85 and still he has no child…
When you wait this long, you tend to doubt whether the thing you’re waiting will actually come…
Beloved commentator Matthew Henry has said, “While promised mercies are delayed our impatience is apt to conclude them denied.”
We know Abraham has concluded it’s highly unlikely that God is going to give him and Sarah the child he has promised. Abraham is contemplating adopting his servant Eliezer of Damascus to be son and heir.
According to ancient Nuzi documents, in culture a childless man could adopt a servant as his child to be inheritor and protector of his estate.
But, in vs. 4 God says to Abraham the heir will come from your own body.
But this promise takes a long time to be fulfilled….
He received initial promise that he would have a child when he was 75 years old. He’s now maybe 85. He waits another 15 years for the promise that he would have a child with Sarah is fulfilled.
He ends up waiting a total of 25 years for this promise to be fulfilled!
When we’re a waiting this long, even if our name is Abraham, it’s easy for doubt to set in….
Part of our journey with God involves waiting for a promise to be fulfilled or a dream to come to pass. Everyone one of us has unfulfilled dreams. Everyone has something we’re longing for… a door to open to a school, or job, a relationship, a child, a loved one experience some kind “turn around.”
You and I (either have) and likely are waiting for something significant in our lives.
Being in a place of WAITING… WAITING…. WAITING can be frustrating.
The book of Proverbs tells us candidly that hope deferred can make the heart sick.
WAITING for someone… or something is hard.
I don’t claim to know why God allows us to wait nor do I claim to understand his timing.
I do know through waiting God can mysteriously grow our souls in a way that having things immediately fulfilled cannot.
Someone has said God puts us in WAIIIIITTT training program.
John Ortberg… says what God does in us while we’re waiting for is just as important as what we’re waiting for… 2x
God can do things in us while we’re waiting, but waiting can cause us to doubt God…
Even after God says to Abraham, I am your shield and reward, Abraham seems to say to God, yeah, yeah, that’s great and all that, but what good is since I am childless? Will my servant Eliezer be my heir and the inheritor of my estate?
Then GOD says "Don't worry, he won't be your heir; a son from your body will be your heir." Then God took him outside and said, "Look at the sky. Count the stars. Can you do it? Count your descendants!
From that part of Near East more than 8000 stars are clearly visible. God’s point was not your offspring will be about 8000, but your offspring--will be more than you can count. You're going to have a big family, Abram!"
You're going to have a big family, Abram!"
And then for some reason, Abraham after doubting simply believes God takes God at his word.
Abraham had doubts about whether God could protect him from his enemies or whether God would be able to give him the child as promised, as a senior citizen.
There’s a time for doubt on our journey… If we’re never willing to be open to the possibility of doubt in something we’re living denial,: if we’re never willing to doubt an image we have of yourself of our family of our company of our faith… we’re living a kind of non-reality.
On the other hand if you’re never willing to doubt your doubts… we’re also in a non-reality too.
Part of what faith is being willing to doubt your doubts.
It takes a certain level of faith to believe in God. The existence of God cannot be proven with airtight argument; but then again no scientific worldview can be proven with absolute certainty either (if you doubt that just read Thomas Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions). But it also takes a certain level of faith not believe… Ian Brown, a reporter for the Globe and Mail, is real skeptic when it comes to faith and God and Christianity. But in a recent article Brown points out that there are an increasing number of scholars who are not Christians who are pointing out that the universe seems far to complex to have come into being by chance. He cites a man who he’s met named Paul Brownback (who is a Christian and one of the best read people the journalist has ever met) and Brownback says the statistical likelihood of the 200-odd bones of the human body ending up in their position that enables one that allows us to walk upright due to random selection alone is one in 10 to the power of 357. The population of the earth is about 6 plus 9 zeros. We’re talking about a figure with 357 zeros.
It takes faith to believe that God made us; it also takes faith to believe that we are result of random chance.
Part of what growing in faith means that we doubt our doubts.
Abraham believes what God says in and his faith is credited to him as righteousness.
Righteousness doesn’t so much mean somehow attain of absolute moral perfect, Righteousness means we are in a right relationship. A right relationship with God and out of that a right relationship with God a right relationship with people.
And trust is at heart of a good relationship. It’s as we truly trust God that we enter into a right relationship with God because what God requires is a right relationship with him and a right relationship is one in which we TRUST.
God gives Abraham a renewed promise regarding his offspring. Then in vs. 7 he reiterates his promises to Abraham about the land. And Abraham with maybe just a bit of residual doubt, ok vs. 8 HOW will I know that all this will be mine?
GOD said, "Bring me a heifer, a goat, and a ram, each three years old, and a dove and a young pigeon."
Abraham brings all these animals to him, God has him split them down the middle, and laid the halves opposite each other. As the sun went goes a deep sleep overcomes Abram and then a sense of dread, dark and heavy.
When the sun was down and it was dark, a smoking firepot and a flaming torch, which symbolized the presence of God, moved between the split carcasses. That's when GOD made a covenant with Abram: saying I am giving you this land…
Abraham lived in a culture of covenants. We have something similar, we have contracts. If we are going to renovate our kitchen, we will hire a contractor and contractor says it will cost X amount of dollars to renovate your kitchen and let’s say the person renovates your kitchen but gives you an invoice that is 33% higher than the quote he originally gave you. You’ll contest it, but unless you have a written contract it’s going to difficult to make your case.
In Abraham’s culture the way they made a contract was not on paper but through a kind of drama that they acted out.
They would cut up the animals and walk between them and say if one of us breaks our side of the covenant let us be cut up and cursed like these animals. Apparently, it was a very effective way for people to keep their covenants. (Most couples don’t choose to use this ancient covenant making ritual when they get married, but back then it was effective).
After Abraham cuts up the animals into pieces, God in the night, symbolized by the blazing torch, passes through pieces of the cut animals. And what God is saying is this: if I fail to fulfill my part of the covenant, let me cut up and cursed like these animals.
God is saying to Abraham, I willing to die to demonstrate my commitment to you.
Typically both sides parties would walk through the cut animals and would invoke a curse on themselves if they failed to keep the terms of the agreement. But it’s interesting that Abraham is not required to walk through the pieces of the cut animals, only God does. It’s as though God is Abraham even if you fail, I will not fail you.
Centuries later, there was another day when darkness and dread fell upon the earth... In fact the dread was so heavy that day became night at noon.
God in Christ hung on a Roman Cross.
What God is saying to us from the cross is this: even though you have broken your covenant with me, I will bear the penalty for your failing to keep your covenant for me, by allowing myself to be cut and crush and cursed so that you can be forgiven and set.
What the cross is that our sins are far more serious than we ever dared imagine, but God’s love for us is far greater than we ever dared hope.
There are times in our journey when we will likely doubt God. It may be during a time of anxiety or loss or may during a time of waiting for something…
During these times when it seems that a dark mist covers the face of God… We have this assurance of God’s commitment to willingness to be cut cursed in order to keep his covenant with us… And in the cross we have the ultimate sign of his love for us.
Let’s say your partner is supposed to be with you at a certain agreed upon hour and they’re half an hour late. If you’ve always known this person to be faithful to you, you’ll likely not conclude this person is having an affair or at this moment gambling away their money playing poker, if the person has always been trustworthy, you’ll say, I don’t what he or she is doing right now… but I will trust something has come up. It could be that he or she is caught in traffic and their cell phone battery has run out. If this person has always been faithful you can trust them even when you don’t know what they’re doing.
So, it is with God there are times when we don’t know what God is doing, why he’s making us wait… but if look to his friendship Abraham which a model of our friendship with God and if look to the cross and remember that God died for us in Christ…
We can with the Paul in Romans 8:32: 32He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all–how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?
And we can with Abraham yes, God is my shield and my very great reward.
The Da Vinci Code is a very popular, compelling novel. The novel suggests that Jesus Christ had a secret relationship with Mary Magdalene and they created a line of physical children that are alive today.
Some people read this book and think it’s a kind of historical document and forget it’s a novel. As one professor at the University of London has pointed out a lot of the Da Vinci code is based on ideas like the Holy Grail which first emerged in a Medieval novel by Chretien de Troyes at the end of the 12th Century. This University of London professor has said believing in the reality of the Holy Grail, on which the novel the Da Vince code is based, would be like a 1000 years from now, someone believing that around the 20th and 21st centuries there was an actual place called Middle Earth because there of a book called the Lord of the Rings.
Sometime novels and books can shake a person’s faith.
Ted Turner the media mogul who founded CNN is very hostile to Christianity. He left his wife Jane Fonda when she began to place her faith in Christ. When Ted was a young person he wanted to become a Christian missionary, but his younger sister died a tragic death and Ted became angry at God and turned from God.
The circumstances of our life that can cause us to doubt God.
And even Abraham “the great man of faith” goes seems wrestle through a time of doubt with God. We’re going to explore this part of his journey this morning.
If you have your Bibles please turn to Genesis 15.
To give you the context, Abraham’s nephew Lot, a resident of Sodom, has been captured in and prisoner in a war. So Abraham deploys his men to attack the people holding him. In the middle of the night, Abraham’s men attack Lot’s captor’s and spring and Lot and his prisoners from Sodom free.
It seems like after this attack, Abraham is afraid of a counter-attack from his enemies…
Listen to the assurance God gives him in Genesis 15:1
God comes to him in a vision and says:
1 After this, the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision:
"Do not be afraid, Abram.
I am your shield,
your very great reward."
2 But Abram said, "O Sovereign LORD , what can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?" 3 And Abram said, "You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir."
4 Then the word of the LORD came to him: "This man will not be your heir, but a son coming from your own body will be your heir." 5 He took him outside and said, "Look up at the heavens and count the stars-if indeed you can count them." Then he said to him, "So shall your offspring be."
6 Abram believed the LORD , and he credited it to him as righteousness.
When Abraham is apparently afraid of a counter attack from the people he has attacked to rescue his nephew Lot, God comes to him and says, “don’t be afraid, I am your shield.”
There are times in our lives when we are threatened by something. For us it probably won’t be literal enemies of war, but it may be people who want to do us harm in some way. Or perhaps it’s the threat of losing a job or losing money, or losing our health. Or of the threat possibility losing relationship or losing someone in our lives. In these times of threat, like Abraham, we too may be tempted to doubt God.
But God comes to Abraham while he’s afraid and says, “Don’t be afraid. I am your shield and your very great reward.”
When we truly believe that God is our shield and protector, we need not fear.
The Bible says 366 times, “Do not fear or Do not be afraid.” We have a “Do not fear” for every day of the year and one for leap year!
Then God says to Abraham I am your (very great) reward.
This text can also be translated, “Your reward shall be very great.” It’s interesting that in chapter 14 Abraham refuses to receive some of the war booty from the King of Sodom after Abraham has rescued Lot and a number of the King Sodom’s subjects. The King wants to reward Abraham for his help, but Abraham says to the King of Sodom, “Keep the war booty, I don’t want you to be able to say, you made me rich.” Then the Lord come to Abraham and says your reward is very great and then God re-iterates his promise that he will bless him with offspring and with land. Part of Abraham’s reward is offspring and land. And the book of Hebrews tells us that God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him.
But the greatest reward that Abraham receives is not land or even offspring, but God himself. The text can read as the NIV puts it, God says, “I am your very great reward.”
When we understand that God is our shield And our reward, we can live without fear.
If something else is our primary reward or treasure, we will have reason to fear. If our beauty is our “reward” or our intelligence in our “reward” our career success or our financial success is our “reward” or what we own is our “reward” we’ll have reason to fear because we will eventually lost all these things.
If our beauty is our reward and treasure, we’ll definitely lose it (botox and plastic surgery can only do so much!), if our mind is our reward eventually we’ll it (I have a fairly good memory for conversations, but eventually I’ll lose this), if our career success is our reward we’ll eventually lose our “effectiveness” curve, if money is our treasure one way or another, we’ll eventually lose it. You’ve the heard about the wealthy person who died and someone asked how much did the person leave behind? The answer, this person left ALL of it.
But if we know that God is our reward we have no reason to fear. God cannot be taken from us!
God approaches Abraham in his time of apparent fear and doubt and says, “Don’t be afraid, I am your shield AND your very great reward.”
But how does Abraham this a great man of faith respond? Does Abraham say amen, I trust you…
No he ahum, by the way, uh, while we’re on the subject of rewards…
A long time ago, you talked my having a child, but I'm childless and it looks like Eliezer of Damascus is going to inherit everything. You've given me no children, and now a house servant is going to get it all.
In this culture a person not having a child would be considered a real disaster. A person in Abraham’s shoes would be thinking: Who will carry my name? Who will take care of me when I am old? Who will inherit my estate?
Abraham remembers that God told him years ago that he would have a child, but it hasn’t happened.
When Abram was 75 God promised him a child. Now he may be about 85 and still he has no child…
When you wait this long, you tend to doubt whether the thing you’re waiting will actually come…
Beloved commentator Matthew Henry has said, “While promised mercies are delayed our impatience is apt to conclude them denied.”
We know Abraham has concluded it’s highly unlikely that God is going to give him and Sarah the child he has promised. Abraham is contemplating adopting his servant Eliezer of Damascus to be son and heir.
According to ancient Nuzi documents, in culture a childless man could adopt a servant as his child to be inheritor and protector of his estate.
But, in vs. 4 God says to Abraham the heir will come from your own body.
But this promise takes a long time to be fulfilled….
He received initial promise that he would have a child when he was 75 years old. He’s now maybe 85. He waits another 15 years for the promise that he would have a child with Sarah is fulfilled.
He ends up waiting a total of 25 years for this promise to be fulfilled!
When we’re a waiting this long, even if our name is Abraham, it’s easy for doubt to set in….
Part of our journey with God involves waiting for a promise to be fulfilled or a dream to come to pass. Everyone one of us has unfulfilled dreams. Everyone has something we’re longing for… a door to open to a school, or job, a relationship, a child, a loved one experience some kind “turn around.”
You and I (either have) and likely are waiting for something significant in our lives.
Being in a place of WAITING… WAITING…. WAITING can be frustrating.
The book of Proverbs tells us candidly that hope deferred can make the heart sick.
WAITING for someone… or something is hard.
I don’t claim to know why God allows us to wait nor do I claim to understand his timing.
I do know through waiting God can mysteriously grow our souls in a way that having things immediately fulfilled cannot.
Someone has said God puts us in WAIIIIITTT training program.
John Ortberg… says what God does in us while we’re waiting for is just as important as what we’re waiting for… 2x
God can do things in us while we’re waiting, but waiting can cause us to doubt God…
Even after God says to Abraham, I am your shield and reward, Abraham seems to say to God, yeah, yeah, that’s great and all that, but what good is since I am childless? Will my servant Eliezer be my heir and the inheritor of my estate?
Then GOD says "Don't worry, he won't be your heir; a son from your body will be your heir." Then God took him outside and said, "Look at the sky. Count the stars. Can you do it? Count your descendants!
From that part of Near East more than 8000 stars are clearly visible. God’s point was not your offspring will be about 8000, but your offspring--will be more than you can count. You're going to have a big family, Abram!"
You're going to have a big family, Abram!"
And then for some reason, Abraham after doubting simply believes God takes God at his word.
Abraham had doubts about whether God could protect him from his enemies or whether God would be able to give him the child as promised, as a senior citizen.
There’s a time for doubt on our journey… If we’re never willing to be open to the possibility of doubt in something we’re living denial,: if we’re never willing to doubt an image we have of yourself of our family of our company of our faith… we’re living a kind of non-reality.
On the other hand if you’re never willing to doubt your doubts… we’re also in a non-reality too.
Part of what faith is being willing to doubt your doubts.
It takes a certain level of faith to believe in God. The existence of God cannot be proven with airtight argument; but then again no scientific worldview can be proven with absolute certainty either (if you doubt that just read Thomas Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions). But it also takes a certain level of faith not believe… Ian Brown, a reporter for the Globe and Mail, is real skeptic when it comes to faith and God and Christianity. But in a recent article Brown points out that there are an increasing number of scholars who are not Christians who are pointing out that the universe seems far to complex to have come into being by chance. He cites a man who he’s met named Paul Brownback (who is a Christian and one of the best read people the journalist has ever met) and Brownback says the statistical likelihood of the 200-odd bones of the human body ending up in their position that enables one that allows us to walk upright due to random selection alone is one in 10 to the power of 357. The population of the earth is about 6 plus 9 zeros. We’re talking about a figure with 357 zeros.
It takes faith to believe that God made us; it also takes faith to believe that we are result of random chance.
Part of what growing in faith means that we doubt our doubts.
Abraham believes what God says in and his faith is credited to him as righteousness.
Righteousness doesn’t so much mean somehow attain of absolute moral perfect, Righteousness means we are in a right relationship. A right relationship with God and out of that a right relationship with God a right relationship with people.
And trust is at heart of a good relationship. It’s as we truly trust God that we enter into a right relationship with God because what God requires is a right relationship with him and a right relationship is one in which we TRUST.
God gives Abraham a renewed promise regarding his offspring. Then in vs. 7 he reiterates his promises to Abraham about the land. And Abraham with maybe just a bit of residual doubt, ok vs. 8 HOW will I know that all this will be mine?
GOD said, "Bring me a heifer, a goat, and a ram, each three years old, and a dove and a young pigeon."
Abraham brings all these animals to him, God has him split them down the middle, and laid the halves opposite each other. As the sun went goes a deep sleep overcomes Abram and then a sense of dread, dark and heavy.
When the sun was down and it was dark, a smoking firepot and a flaming torch, which symbolized the presence of God, moved between the split carcasses. That's when GOD made a covenant with Abram: saying I am giving you this land…
Abraham lived in a culture of covenants. We have something similar, we have contracts. If we are going to renovate our kitchen, we will hire a contractor and contractor says it will cost X amount of dollars to renovate your kitchen and let’s say the person renovates your kitchen but gives you an invoice that is 33% higher than the quote he originally gave you. You’ll contest it, but unless you have a written contract it’s going to difficult to make your case.
In Abraham’s culture the way they made a contract was not on paper but through a kind of drama that they acted out.
They would cut up the animals and walk between them and say if one of us breaks our side of the covenant let us be cut up and cursed like these animals. Apparently, it was a very effective way for people to keep their covenants. (Most couples don’t choose to use this ancient covenant making ritual when they get married, but back then it was effective).
After Abraham cuts up the animals into pieces, God in the night, symbolized by the blazing torch, passes through pieces of the cut animals. And what God is saying is this: if I fail to fulfill my part of the covenant, let me cut up and cursed like these animals.
God is saying to Abraham, I willing to die to demonstrate my commitment to you.
Typically both sides parties would walk through the cut animals and would invoke a curse on themselves if they failed to keep the terms of the agreement. But it’s interesting that Abraham is not required to walk through the pieces of the cut animals, only God does. It’s as though God is Abraham even if you fail, I will not fail you.
Centuries later, there was another day when darkness and dread fell upon the earth... In fact the dread was so heavy that day became night at noon.
God in Christ hung on a Roman Cross.
What God is saying to us from the cross is this: even though you have broken your covenant with me, I will bear the penalty for your failing to keep your covenant for me, by allowing myself to be cut and crush and cursed so that you can be forgiven and set.
What the cross is that our sins are far more serious than we ever dared imagine, but God’s love for us is far greater than we ever dared hope.
There are times in our journey when we will likely doubt God. It may be during a time of anxiety or loss or may during a time of waiting for something…
During these times when it seems that a dark mist covers the face of God… We have this assurance of God’s commitment to willingness to be cut cursed in order to keep his covenant with us… And in the cross we have the ultimate sign of his love for us.
Let’s say your partner is supposed to be with you at a certain agreed upon hour and they’re half an hour late. If you’ve always known this person to be faithful to you, you’ll likely not conclude this person is having an affair or at this moment gambling away their money playing poker, if the person has always been trustworthy, you’ll say, I don’t what he or she is doing right now… but I will trust something has come up. It could be that he or she is caught in traffic and their cell phone battery has run out. If this person has always been faithful you can trust them even when you don’t know what they’re doing.
So, it is with God there are times when we don’t know what God is doing, why he’s making us wait… but if look to his friendship Abraham which a model of our friendship with God and if look to the cross and remember that God died for us in Christ…
We can with the Paul in Romans 8:32: 32He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all–how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?
And we can with Abraham yes, God is my shield and my very great reward.
posted by Shigematsu at 8:07 PM
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