January 6 - Genesis 18:1-21:7

Good morning everyone,

So, you’re sitting out on the front deck of your house and you see the Lord walking up the driveway to have a chat with you. What now?! Would you ask him to pull up a chair to take a load off while you get busy readying some food to offer him? That’s pretty much what Abraham did. We’re told Abraham ran, not waited at the house until they arrived, not walked, but ran to meet the Lord and then bowing low invited Him to stop for some shade and refreshment. When the food was ready, Abraham served the Lord allowing some friendly conversation.

They said to him, “Where is Sarah your wife?” Abraham said, “Oh you know, in the tent.” The Lord then said, “Next time this year I will be back and Sarah will have a son.” This is the second time in just a few months they had heard this promise and yet in their advanced years, they had a hard time believing it. In fact, Sarah when hearing this, chuckled to herself and then went about her business.

Curious why God repeated the promise again, so close to the time when He said it previously. After all, it seems God was silent about the promise for more than 13 years. Now He came personally to repeat it twice in three months. May I suggest that we sometimes need to hear God’s promises over and over again. It is a way God uses to encourage and develop our faith. Right? Romans 10:17 says, “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” For some of us over and over and over again.

Too often as we go along in our daily routine we can take it for granted that we are “good” with the Lord. We are Christians, we know how to act like Christians, we read the Word daily, we can quote Scripture for any circumstance, we know what Christ like living looks like, that is all some of us are surrounded by. But then …. but then we find ourselves outside of our “familiar territory” and get taken off guard, feel threatened and to coin a phrase I recently heard, “Up jumps the devil.” This slime bag of an enemy is happy as all get out to capitalize on our unguarded moment. He will slap a chain around our neck and yank you back down to the dirty, ugly place of your youth quicker than we can blink an eye. The time when revenge and retaliation reigned our life, when dog eat dog was the only way we knew to survive.  After all, for some it is as familiar as walking, it was lived for years. So, what next?! 

Well, you can spend time beating yourself up about it, the enemy would love that. Or you can ask God to forgive you and move forward. We’re told in Psalm 103 “For as the heavens are high above the earth. So great is His mercy toward those who fear Him; As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.”  I choose Jesus. I guess all this was to say, we absolutely do need to hear all of God’s promises over and over again, each time remembering they are more than just empty words. The Words in the Bible are what we need to cling to when life goes sideways for even just a moment.  Make sense?

Lord Jesus, Father God, I pray that you would forgive me for my sins and for the times when my behavior isn’t so pretty. I pray that you would help me, Lord to not allow myself to feel beat up, cornered or threatened when I am faced with less familiar circumstances. I want my every action to be that I would run to meet you, Lord Jesus and then fall at your feet and let You, in your infinite wisdom and strength, handle everything in my life,  good, bad and all else in between. You alone Abba are worthy. Create in me a clean heart, oh Lord, purify me through and through. I praise you and cry Holy, Holy, Holy. Amen

Have a great day and to God be the glory.

God bless you all …..