Today’s Reading: Genesis 20 – 21
Welcome to the second week of Bible Reading. Hopefully we will have the endurance to keep listening to God speaking to us from the Bible and will be able to find pleasure in learning what wonderful Saviour we have.
Certainly it is sad to see how Lot’s daughters treat their father, but sometimes that is the sad result of we, Christians like Lot, not living our faith in a way that makes our faith relevant to others. Even though the daughters’ sons become the worst enemies of God’s people, still Ruth the Moabitess shines so beautifully in character and is in the ancestry of our Saviour!
What a sense of sadness as we watch Abraham again fall into the same deceiving ways as before, saying Sarah is his sister and he is rebuked for it by an unbeliever! (You have done things to me that should not be done!) And while trying to explain to Abimelech, it is apparent that this is not a sudden fall, but this was a long-term plan to do things this way! Not sure if anyone else is aware of similar faulty plans, but it seems to ring a bell for me to be careful, not to have such plans in place that open the door to the temptation not to be the person I should be! Sometimes it seems that non-Christians remember more than I do – the higher level of standeard that Christians should have! But the secret is that we, Christians, have a deadly enemy who is called ‘a liar, a destroyer & a murderer’! and he is constantly working against us. It seems to me this is a last big attempt to spoil God’s plan for Sarah – just a year or less before God triumphs.
It is easy to relate to Sarah’s joy at seeing God’s promise come true (“beyond her wildest dreams”) to be the mother of the promised child.
Lots of strife in this world, but God can work these things out. Proverbs says that when a man’s ways please the Lord, He makes even his enemies to be at peace with him. (when he is living in Abimelech’s territory!)
Even although Ishmael cannot inherit alongside of Isaac, the true heir, never forget that God, our loving Father, watches over His creatures with a minute care for each one. So Hagar and Ishmael will not die of thirst in the desert, because His eye is on all that goes on and amazingly, His great heart is touched by “the crying of the boy.” How much more we in the family of God, are assured that NOTHING can ever, ever separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus.” Paul was convinced of that, am I? (Romans 8:38)