Too Late for Repentance?

God Blesses and Recreates

A Troubled Birth

Hebrews 12:14-17 The Message

14-17 Work at getting along with each other and with God. Otherwiseyou’ll never get so much as a glimpse of God. Make sure no one gets left out of God’s generosity. Keep a sharp eye out for weeds of bitter discontent. A thistle or two gone to seed can ruin a whole garden in no time. Watch out for the Esau syndrome: trading away God’s lifelong gift in order to satisfy a short-term appetite. You wellknow how Esau later regretted that impulsive act and wanted God’s blessing—but by then it was too late, tears or no tears.

For Reflection

Is it ever too late to repent?

Esau traded his love for his brother for selfish ends. He regretted that impulse as did his brother Jacob. Jacob through prayer got the courage to approach Esau.  Through God, reconciliation is never too late.

Pray
Pray about the relationships that keep you from acting on the love and grace of God.  Pray for the courage to initiate reconciliation.


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Jacob and Esau Reconcile

God Blesses and Recreates

A Troubled Birth

Genesis 33:3-11 The Message

33 1-4 Jacob looked up and saw Esau coming with his four hundred men. He divided the children between Leah and Rachel and the two maidservants. He put the maidservants out in front, Leah and her children next, and Rachel and Joseph last. He led the way and, as he approached his brother, bowed seven times, honoring his brother. But Esau ran up and embraced him, held him tight and kissed him. And they both wept.
5 Then Esau looked around and saw the women and children: “And who are these with you?”
Jacob said, “The children that God saw fit to bless me with.”
6-7 Then the maidservants came up with their children and bowed; then Leah and her children, also bowing; and finally, Joseph and Rachel came up and bowed to Esau.
8 Esau then asked, “And what was the meaning of all those herds that I met?”
“I was hoping that they would pave the way for my master to welcome me.”
9 Esau said, “Oh, brother. I have plenty of everything—keep what is yours for yourself.”
10-11 Jacob said, “Please. If you can find it in your heart to welcome me, accept these gifts. When I saw your face, it was as the face of God smiling on me. Accept the gifts I have brought for you. God has been good to me and I have more than enough.” Jacob urged the gifts on him and Esau accepted

For Reflection

Having the courage derived in prayer, Jacob, his heart fixed, trusting in God, bowed to Esau. Jacob's humble act of submission went a long way in cooling wrath. Esau embraced Jacob.

How long can one hold darkness in one's heart without that darkness destroying him or her?


Pray
Pray so that you like Jacob will have the courage to take the first step to reconcile a troubling relationship.


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A Peaceful Resolution

God Blesses and Recreates

A Troubled Birth

Genesis 26:6-24 The Message 

6 So Isaac stayed put in Gerar.
7 The men of the place questioned him about his wife. He said, “She’s my sister.” He was afraid to say “She’s my wife.” He was thinking, “These men might kill me to get Rebekah, she’s so beautiful.”
8-9 One day, after they had been there quite a long time, Abimelech, king of the Philistines, looked out his window and saw Isaac fondling his wife Rebekah. Abimelech sent for Isaac and said, “So, she’s your wife. Why did you tell us ‘She’s my sister’?”
Isaac said, “Because I thought I might get killed by someone who wanted her.”
10 Abimelech said, “But think of what you might have done to us! Given a little more time, one of the men might have slept with your wife; you would have been responsible for bringing guilt down on us.”
11 Then Abimelech gave orders to his people: “Anyone who so much as lays a hand on this man or his wife dies.”
12-15 Isaac planted crops in that land and took in a huge harvest. God blessed him. The man got richer and richer by the day until he was very wealthy. He accumulated flocks and herds and many, many servants, so much so that the Philistines began to envy him. They got back at him by throwing dirt and debris into all the wells that his father’s servants had dug back in the days of his father Abraham, clogging up all the wells.
16 Finally, Abimelech told Isaac: “Leave. You’ve become far too big for us.”
17-18 So Isaac left. He camped in the valley of Gerar and settled down there. Isaac dug again the wells which were dug in the days of his father Abraham but had been clogged up by the Philistines after Abraham’s death. And he renamed them, using the original names his father had given them.
19-24 One day, as Isaac’s servants were digging in the valley, they came on a well of spring water. The shepherds of Gerar quarreled with Isaac’s shepherds, claiming, “This water is ours.” So Isaac named the well Esek (Quarrel) because they quarreled over it. They dug another well and there was a difference over that one also, so he named it Sitnah (Accusation). He went on from there and dug yet another well. But there was no fighting over this one so he named it Rehoboth (Wide-Open Spaces), saying, “Now God has given us plenty of space to spread out in the land.” From there he went up to Beersheba. That very night God appeared to him and said,
I am the God of Abraham your father;
    don’t fear a thing because I’m with you.
I’ll bless you and make your children flourish
    because of Abraham my servant.

For Reflection

"How, indeed," you might ask, "can anyone say that Isaac was blessed when all he faced was jealousy and disregard?"


Isaac lived under God's covenant of Grace.  He suffered for it. Isaac was shunned by those who were jealous of his blessings.

Because God was with him, Isaac did not become vindictive.  He did not let his circumstances dictate his response. Isaac has shown us the way toward peace. In the end, Isaac finds rest in the land God has prepared for him.

So it is with us who believe in God.  The blessing of God is that we find peace where others find self-destruction.  We suffer so that others may find the strength to look beyond troubling times and see God's hand in reconciliation.

Pray

Pray so that you can thrive during troubling times.  Pray so that you can rest in the knowledge that God will work all things for good. Pray so that you can see the divine intention for your life.


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Rebekah Becomes Isaac's Wife

God Destroys and Recreates

Isaac and Rebekah Continue the Legacy

Genesis 24:45-51 The Message 45-48 “I had barely finished offering this prayer, when Rebekah arrived, her jug on her shoulder. She went to the spring and drew water and I said, ‘Please, can I have a drink?’ She didn’t hesitate. She held out her jug and said, ‘Drink; andwhen you’re finished I’ll also water your camels.’ I drank, and she watered the camels. I asked her, ‘Whose daughter are you?’ She said, ‘The daughter of Bethuel whose parents were Nahor and Milcah.’ I gave her a ring for her nose, bracelets for her arms, and bowed in worship to God. I praised God, the God of my master Abraham who had led me straight to the door of my master’s family to get a wife for his son. 49 “Now, tell me what you are going to do. If you plan to respond with a generous yes, tell me. But if not, tell me plainly so I can figure out what to do next.” 50-51 Laban and Bethuel answered, “This is totally from God. We have no say in the matter, either yes or no. Rebekah is yours: Take her and go; let her be the wife of your master’s son, as God has made plain.”

For Reflection

Does God predestine each small detail our lives? If so what about free choice? Perhaps God has designed a path for us. I'm not sure of how general or detailed God's intention is.  But I know that we are free to choose. Until we believe in God, the spark in our souls will not be ignited by the Holy Spirit. Then, as we are developing a trusting relationship with God, we will begin to understand and follow God's will for our lives.

Pray

Pray so that the Holy Spirit will guide you into the joy and wonder of being human, created in the likeness of God.

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Searching for a Wife for Isaac

God Destroys and Recreates

Isaac and Rebekah Continue the Legacy

Genesis 29:1-15 The Message 

29 1-3 Jacob set out again on his way to the people of the east. He noticed a well out in an open field with three flocks of sheep bedded down around it. This was the common well from which the flocks were watered. The stone over the mouth of the well was huge. When all the flocks were gathered, the shepherds would roll the stone from the well and water the sheep; then they would return the stone, covering the well.
4 Jacob said, “Hello friends. Where are you from?”
They said, “We’re from Haran.”
5 Jacob asked, “Do you know Laban son of Nahor?”
“We do.”
6 “Are things well with him?” Jacob continued.
“Very well,” they said. “And here is his daughter Rachel coming with the flock.”
7 Jacob said, “There’s a lot of daylight still left; it isn’t time to round up the sheep yet, is it? So why not water the flocks and go back to grazing?”
8 “We can’t,” they said. “Not until all the shepherds get here. It takes all of us to roll the stone from the well. Not until then can we water the flocks.”
9-13 While Jacob was in conversation with them, Rachel came up with her father’s sheep. She was the shepherd. The moment Jacob spotted Rachel, daughter of Laban his mother’s brother, saw her arriving with his uncle Laban’s sheep, he went and single-handedly rolled the stone from the mouth of the well and watered the sheep of his uncle Laban. Then he kissed Rachel and broke into tears. He told Rachel that he was related to her father, that he was Rebekah’s son. She ran and told her father. When Laban heard the news—Jacob, his sister’s son!—he ran out to meet him, embraced and kissed him and brought him home. Jacob told Laban the story of everything that had happened.
14-15 Laban said, “You’re family! My flesh and blood!”
When Jacob had been with him for a month, Laban said, “Just because you’re my nephew, you shouldn’t work for me for nothing. Tell me what you want to be paid. What’s a fair wage?”

For Reflection

Blood lineswere very important to the integrity of the social and political relationships.  Now with the understanding of DNAwe realize the biological interrelationship of one being to the other and to the world upon which we live.  We are indeed kin to the universe and thus, to God.

Question? Was it just by fate or chance that Jacob met Rachel? Does God place people in a convergent course?

Pray

Pray so that you will recognize God's guiding hand in your life.
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Jacob Meets Rachel at the Well

God Destroys and Recreates

Isaac and Rebekah Continue the Legacy

Genesis 29:1-15 The Message 

29 1-3 Jacob set out again on his way to the people of the east. He noticed a well out in an open field with three flocks of sheep bedded down around it. This was the common well from which the flocks were watered. The stone over the mouth of the well was huge. When all the flocks were gathered, the shepherds would roll the stone from the well and water the sheep; then they would return the stone, covering the well.
4 Jacob said, “Hello friends. Where are you from?”
They said, “We’re from Haran.”
5 Jacob asked, “Do you know Laban son of Nahor?”
“We do.”
6 “Are things well with him?” Jacob continued.
“Very well,” they said. “And here is his daughter Rachel coming with the flock.”
7 Jacob said, “There’s a lot of daylight still left; it isn’t time to round up the sheep yet, is it? So why not water the flocks and go back to grazing?”
8 “We can’t,” they said. “Not until all the shepherds get here. It takes all of us to roll the stone from the well. Not until then can we water the flocks.”
9-13 While Jacob was in conversation with them, Rachel came up with her father’s sheep. She was the shepherd. The moment Jacob spotted Rachel, daughter of Laban his mother’s brother, saw her arriving with his uncle Laban’s sheep, he went and single-handedly rolled the stone from the mouth of the well and watered the sheep of his uncle Laban. Then he kissed Rachel and broke into tears. He told Rachel that he was related to her father, that he was Rebekah’s son. She ran and told her father. When Laban heard the news—Jacob, his sister’s son!—he ran out to meet him, embraced and kissed him and brought him home. Jacob told Laban the story of everything that had happened.
14-15 Laban said, “You’re family! My flesh and blood!”
When Jacob had been with him for a month, Laban said, “Just because you’re my nephew, you shouldn’t work for me for nothing. Tell me what you want to be paid. What’s a fair wage?”

For Reflection

Blood lines were very important to the integrity of the social and political relationships.  Now with the understanding of DNA we realize the biological interrelationship of one being to the other and to the world upon which we live.  We are indeed kin to the universe and thus, to God.
Question? Was it just by fate or chance that Jacob met Rachel? Does God place people in a convergent course?

Pray

Pray so that you will recognize God's guiding hand in your life.

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Inherit the Blessings of Marriage

God Destroys and Recreates

Isaac and Rebekah Continue the Legacy

1 Peter 3:1-12 The Message 

Cultivate Inner Beauty

3 1-4 The same goes for you wives: Be good wives to your husbands, responsive to their needs. There are husbands who, indifferent as they are to any words about God, will be captivated by your life of holy beauty. What matters is not your outer appearance—the styling of your hair, the jewelry you wear, the cut of your clothes—but your inner disposition.
4-6 Cultivate inner beauty, the gentle, gracious kind that God delights in. The holy women of old were beautiful before God that way, and were good, loyal wives to their husbands. Sarah, for instance, taking care of Abraham, would address him as “my dear husband.” You’ll be true daughters of Sarah if you do the same, unanxious and unintimidated.
7 The same goes for you husbands: Be good husbands to your wives. Honor them, delight in them. As women they lack some of your advantages. But in the new life of God’s grace, you’re equals. Treat your wives, then, as equals so your prayers don’t run aground.

Suffering for Doing Good

8-12 Summing up: Be agreeable, be sympathetic, be loving, be compassionate, be humble. That goes for all of you, no exceptions. No retaliation. No sharp-tongued sarcasm. Instead, bless—that’s your job, to bless. You’ll be a blessing and also get a blessing.
Whoever wants to embrace life
    and see the day fill up with good,
Here’s what you do:
    Say nothing evil or hurtful;
Snub evil and cultivate good;
    run after peace for all you’re worth.
God looks on all this with approval,
    listening and responding well to what he’s asked;
But he turns his back
    on those who do evil things.

For Reflection

Marriage is an adventure in mutual respect. Each partner supporting the other; delighting in their achievements and comforting their sorrows.  Each borrows strength from the other and in troubled times, shows the path to peace and joy.

Pray

Pray together and separately.  Pray so that you and your life partner can travel the same path and rest in the household of God.

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Noah to Abraham, Faith in Action

God Destroys and Recreates

God Is Always Working

Hebrews 11:4-10 The Message

4 By an act of faith, Abel brought a better sacrifice to God than Cain. It was what he believed, not what he brought, that made the difference. That’s what God noticed and approved as righteous. After all these centuries, that belief continues to catch our notice.
5-6 By an act of faith, Enoch skipped death completely. “They looked all over and couldn’t find him because God had taken him.” We know on the basis of reliable testimony that before he was taken “he pleased God.” It’s impossible to please God apart from faith. And why? Because anyone who wants to approach God must believe both that he exists and that he cares enough to respond to those who seek him.
7 By faith, Noah built a ship in the middle of dry land. He was warned about something he couldn’t see, and acted on what he was told. The result? His family was saved. His act of faith drew a sharp line between the evil of the unbelieving world and the rightness of the believing world. As a result, Noah became intimate with God.
8-10 By an act of faith, Abraham said yes to God’s call to travel to an unknown place that would become his home. When he left he had no idea where he was going. By an act of faith he lived in the country promised him, lived as a stranger camping in tents. Isaac and Jacob did the same, living under the same promise. Abraham did it by keeping his eye on an unseen city with real, eternal foundations—the City designed and built by God.

For Reflection

Those that live as an act of faith live a life of connections with their history, their present, their future, with each other, and with their Creator.  Those that do not live a life as an act of faith but rely on their own devices to manage a life course live a life mired in a heap of unrelated fragments without any robust connection.   They cannot rest in their struggles.


Like the pilgrims who trecked to Canaan, we who travel with one single aim, to suffer the will of God, are delivered from the miseries of conflicting desires, and we walk with force and a calm spirit. We rest in the hope of the divine promise.

Pray
Pray so that you can rest in the hope of God's divine promise that all will be made right.


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The Lord Scatters the People

God Destroys and Recreates

God Is Always Working

Genesis 11:1-9 The Message

“God Turned Their Language into ‘Babble’”

11 1-2 At one time, the whole Earth spoke the same language. It so happened that as they moved out of the east, they came upon a plain in the land of Shinar and settled down.
3 They said to one another, “Come, let’s make bricks and fire them well.” They used brick for stone and tar for mortar.
4 Then they said, “Come, let’s build ourselves a city and a tower that reaches Heaven. Let’s make ourselves famous so we won’t be scattered here and there across the Earth.”
5 God came down to look over the city and the tower those people had built.
6-9 God took one look and said, “One people, one language; why, this is only a first step. No telling what they’ll come up with next—they’ll stop at nothing! Come, we’ll go down and garble their speech so they won’t understand each other.” Then God scattered them from there all over the world. And they had to quit building the city. That’s how it came to be called Babel, because there God turned their language into “babble.” From there God scattered them all over the world.

For Reflection

Many of the offspring of Noah forgot their history. Because they had free choice, many reverted to the status before the flood.  They aspired to be God in substance and create a gateway to that end.
God, having promised never to destroy the world with water again increased the difficulty of cooperation by separating the people by distance and different languages.

Pray
Pray so that you never forget that you are a child of God.  Pray so that you remember that the Bible is our story and our name is Christ.

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Abraham, Sarai, and the Lot in Canaan

God Destroys and Recreates

God Is Always Working

Genesis 12:5-9 The Message

4-6 So Abram left just as God said, and Lot left with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he left Haran. Abram took his wife Sarai and his nephew Lot with him, along with all the possessions and people they had gotten in Haran, and set out for the land of Canaan and arrived safe and sound.
Abram passed through the country as far as Shechem and the Oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites occupied the land.
7 God appeared to Abram and said, “I will give this land to your children.” Abram built an altar at the place God had appeared to him.
8 He moved on from there to the hill country east of Bethel and pitched his tent between Bethel to the west and Ai to the east. He built an altar there and prayed to God.
9 Abram kept moving, steadily making his way south, to the Negev.

For Reflection

Abram amassed much land and wealth. He never lost sight of his relationship with the Creator and influenced many conversions to the One God. As he and his household began the 300 mile trip to Canaan, they acquired the name Hebrew (the passer over) after conquering a problematic Euphrates river crossing.

Abram was guided only by the hope derived from his commitment to his Creator. He has no idea of the dangers which had lain before him or of the sufferings of the journey to which he subjected his household.
Pray
Pray so that you do as Abram did: leave Haran and its idols behind. Pray so that you can forsake the temporal and reside in the presence of God


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Descended from Noah

God Destroys and Recreates

God Is Always Working

Genesis 9:18-19,10;1-4,6-8,21-23 The Message

18-19 The sons of Noah who came out of the ship were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Ham was the father of Canaan. These are the three sons of Noah; from these three the whole Earth was populated.

The Family Tree of Noah’s Sons

10 This is the family tree of the sons of Noah: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. After the flood, they themselves had sons.
2 The sons of Japheth: Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, Tiras.
3 The sons of Gomer: Ashkenaz, Riphath, Togarmah.
4-5 The sons of Javan: Elishah, Tarshish, Kittim, Rodanim. The seafaring peoples developed from these, each in its own place by family, each with its own language.
6 The sons of Ham: Cush, Egypt, Put, Canaan.
7 The sons of Cush: Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Raamah, Sabteca.
The sons of Raamah: Sheba, Dedan.
8-12 Cush also had Nimrod.
21 Shem, the older brother of Japheth, also had sons. Shem was the ancestor to all the children of Eber.
22 The sons of Shem: Elam, Asshur, Arphaxad, Lud, and Aram.
23 The sons of Aram: Uz, Hul, Gether, Meshech.

For Reflection

God commanded Noah to repopulate the human race.  His offspring accounts for the creation of many nations. Not all of his progeny were destined to remain faithful to God.  Only Shem led to the birth of Abraham and eventually Christ. God restored God's creation and to humankind the power to choose to whom one held allegiance. 

Pray

Pray that you remember that you are a child of God and that all you have done and all you have been is not entirely of your own doing. Pray so that you can understand the special relationship between you and God can be realized by emulating God' son Jesus.

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God's Covenant with All Living Things

God Destroys and Recreates

God Is Always Working

Genesis 9:8-17 The Message (MSG)

8-11 Then God spoke to Noah and his sons: “I’m setting up my covenant with you including your children who will come after you, along with everything alive around you—birds, farm animals, wild animals—that came out of the ship with you. I’m setting up my covenant with you that never again will everything living be destroyed by floodwaters; no, never again will a flood destroy the Earth.”
12-16 God continued, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and everything living around you and everyone living after you. I’m putting my rainbow in the clouds, a sign of the covenant between me and the Earth. From now on, when I form a cloud over the Earth and the rainbow appears in the cloud, I’ll remember my covenant between me and you and everything living, that never again will floodwaters destroy all life. When the rainbow appears in the cloud, I’ll see it and remember the eternal covenant between God and everything living, every last living creature on Earth.”
17 And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I’ve set up between me and everything living on the Earth.”

For Reflection

It is interesting to note that God made his covenant with all living things; plant, and animal. It is another indication of the organic network of all things in God's creation. It emphasizes the notion that God values all things equally.  Humankind is only as necessary as the lowliest plant, the smallest grain of sand, or microbe and the microbe is as important as the human.

Sometimes we forget that what happens in the material world, the plant world, the animal world, and the human world are inexorably interconnected. The flapping of a butterfly wing in China indeed influences all creation. If for example, we dam a stream we change the erosion pattern of the earth, the types of vegetation in the upstream, the living creatures that inhabit the stream and the impact of the environment on the life of human beings.

Humans, indeed, play an influential role in God's creation.  But, then again the evolutionary nature of God's creation balances all creation's elements. Each of the parts does as God has designed them.

Pray

Pray so that you see yourself as an integral part of God's universe.  Pray so that you can understand and perform according to God's grand design.  Pray so that you can live in harmony with each other and with the universe.

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Abraham Hosts God's Messengers

God Destroys and Recreates

Abraham and Sarah Birth God's People

Genesis 17:15-22 The Message

15-16 God continued speaking to Abraham, “And Sarai your wife: Don’t call her Sarai any longer; call her Sarah. I’ll bless her—yes! I’ll give you a son by her! Oh, how I’ll bless her! Nations will come from her; kings of nations will come from her.”
17 Abraham fell flat on his face. And then he laughed, thinking, “Can a hundred-year-old man father a son? And can Sarah, at ninety years, have a baby?”
18 Recovering, Abraham said to God, “Oh, keep Ishmael alive and well before you!”
19 But God said, “That’s not what I mean. Your wife, Sarah, will have a baby, a son. Name him Isaac (Laughter). I’ll establish my covenant with him and his descendants, a covenant that lasts forever.
20-21 “And Ishmael? Yes, I heard your prayer for him. I’ll also bless him; I’ll make sure he has plenty of children—a huge family. He’ll father twelve princes; I’ll make him a great nation. But I’ll establish my covenant with Isaac whom Sarah will give you about this time next year.”
22 God finished speaking with Abraham and left.

For Reflection

Two nations and two primary spiritual paths from one source.
One blessed with a covenant and the other blessed with a great nation.
Both both blessed under one covenant.

Ishmael was a product of human reproduction.  Isaac was the product of miraculous birth. Ishmael was bestowed material blessings. Isaac was given spiritual blessings. In common sense, Ishmael was the epitome of material success, Isaac began the line of Solomon, David, and eventually Christ. The arrangements reveal one of the major themes of Scripture, contrasting the spiritual and material ways of being.

Pray
Pray so that you will understand the difference represented in the contrast of material and spiritual ways of seeing and acting.  Pray so that you will understand the deeper meaning of a God who loves and blesses all of us. 


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God's Covenant Extended Through Isaac

God Destroys and Recreates

Abraham and Sarah Birth God's People

Genesis 17:15-22 The Message 

15-16 God continued speaking to Abraham, “And Sarai your wife: Don’t call her Sarai any longer; call her Sarah. I’ll bless her—yes! I’ll give you a son by her! Oh, how I’ll bless her! Nations will come from her; kings of nations will come from her.”
17 Abraham fell flat on his face. And then he laughed, thinking, “Can a hundred-year-old man father a son? And can Sarah, at ninety years, have a baby?”
18 Recovering, Abraham said to God, “Oh, keep Ishmael alive and well before you!”
19 But God said, “That’s not what I mean. Your wife, Sarah, will have a baby, a son. Name him Isaac (Laughter). I’ll establish my covenant with him and his descendants, a covenant that lasts forever.
20-21 “And Ishmael? Yes, I heard your prayer for him. I’ll also bless him; I’ll make sure he has plenty of children—a huge family. He’ll father twelve princes; I’ll make him a great nation. But I’ll establish my covenant with Isaac whom Sarah will give you about this time next year.”
22 God finished speaking with Abraham and left.

For Reflection

God's Promise to  Abraham has been extended to us all. While many of us can not claim to be of the lineage of Abraham, we can claim children of God. All that was promised to Abraham is now delivered to all. Praise God for the gift of God's son who makes all things right.

Pray

Pray about all things.  Pray so that you can deepen your relationship with God.  

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Abram Believes God

God Destroys and Recreates

Abraham and Sarah Birth God's People

Genesis 15:1-6 The Message

15 After all these things, this word of God came to Abram in a vision: “Don’t be afraid, Abram. I’m your shield. Your reward will be grand!”
2-3 Abram said, “God, Master, what use are your gifts as long as I’m childless and Eliezer of Damascus is going to inherit everything?” Abram continued, “See, you’ve given me no children, and now a mere house servant is going to get it all.”
4 Then God’s Message came: “Don’t worry, he won’t be your heir; a son from your body will be your heir.”
5 Then he took him outside and said, “Look at the sky. Count the stars. Can you do it? Count your descendants! You’re going to have a big family, Abram!”
6 And he believed! Believed God! God declared him “Set-Right-with-God.”

For Reflection

We are all set right with God. Believe it. Act as though trust in it. Have confidence in God's grace. Be at rest. Throw worry to the wind. Expect that all things will be made right. Celebrate suffering and look for God's good intent.  

Pray

Pray so that you can rest in the knowledge and belief in God's cosmic plan.


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Gentiles Share Abraham's Promise

God Destroys and Recreates

Abraham and Sarah Birth God's People

Galatians 3:6-14 The Message

5-6 Answer this question: Does the God who lavishly provides you with his own presence, his Holy Spirit, working things in your lives you could never do for yourselves, does he do these things because of your strenuous moral striving or because you trust him to do them in you? Don’t these things happen among you just as they happened with Abraham? He believed God, and that act of belief was turned into a life that was right with God.
7-8 Is it not obvious to you that persons who put their trust in Christ (not persons who put their trust in the law!) are like Abraham: children of faith? It was all laid out beforehand in Scripture that God would set things right with non-Jews by faith. Scripture anticipated this in the promise to Abraham: “All nations will be blessed in you.”
9-10 So those now who live by faith are blessed along with Abraham, who lived by faith—this is no new doctrine! And that means that anyone who tries to live by his own effort, independent of God, is doomed to failure. Scripture backs this up: “Utterly cursed is every person who fails to carry out every detail written in the Book of the law.”
11-12 The obvious impossibility of carrying out such a moral program should make it plain that no one can sustain a relationship with God that way. The person who lives in right relationship with God does it by embracing what God arranges for him. Doing things for God is the opposite of entering into what God does for you. Habakkuk had it right: “The person who believes God is set right by God—and that’s the real life.” Rule-keeping does not naturally evolve into living by faith, but only perpetuates itself in more and more rule-keeping, a fact observed in Scripture: “The one who does these things [rule-keeping] continues to live by them.”
13-14 Christ redeemed us from that self-defeating, cursed life by absorbing it completely into himself. Do you remember the Scripture that says, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”? That is what happened when Jesus was nailed to the cross: He became a curse, and at the same time dissolved the curse. And now, because of that, the air is cleared and we can see that Abraham’s blessing is present and available for non-Jews, too. We are all able to receive God’s life, his Spirit, in and with us by believing—just the way Abraham received it.

For Reflection

The answer is yes, God works things in your life in two ways.  First through God's intentional design of the Creation. Have you ever noticed how  a confluence of incidents has shaped your life?  Those are not just coincidental. God has gifted each of us with the capacity to respond to our environment and the freedom to choose our own life paths.  Daily, we confront choices that influence and alter the course of our lives.

Secondly, God guides our lives, but only upon request. God has given us a soul, a point in our hearts that yearns for righteousness.  That point is most active when we are frustrated with the darkness of our own decisions. The light of God illuminates the path toward God's intentions for us. It is that point when one embraces what God has prepared. It occurs when one gives up living life by one's own effort alone and begins to see the value of God's intentions and accepts God's promise that all things can be made right. 

Pray

Pray about all things.  Pray so that you can perceive the world as God has intended it to be.  Pray so that you can understand the limitations of viewing the world solely through the distortions of the human lens. Pray so that you can see clearly the world as God has created it. 

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God Honors Covenants with Abraham

God Destroys and Recreates

Abraham and Sarah Birth God's People

Psalm 105:1-15 The Message

105 1-6 Hallelujah!
Thank God! Pray to him by name!
    Tell everyone you meet what he has done!
Sing him songs, belt out hymns,
    translate his wonders into music!
Honor his holy name with Hallelujahs,
    you who seek God. Live a happy life!
Keep your eyes open for God, watch for his works;
    be alert for signs of his presence.
Remember the world of wonders he has made,
    his miracles, and the verdicts he’s rendered—
        O seed of Abraham, his servant,
        O child of Jacob, his chosen.
7-15 He’s God, our God,
    in charge of the whole earth.
And he remembers, remembers his Covenant—
    for a thousand generations he’s been as good as his word.
It’s the Covenant he made with Abraham,
    the same oath he swore to Isaac,
The very statute he established with Jacob,
    the eternal Covenant with Israel,
Namely, “I give you the land.
    Canaan is your hill-country inheritance.”
When they didn’t count for much,
    a mere handful, and strangers at that,
Wandering from country to country,
    drifting from pillar to post,
He permitted no one to abuse them.
    He told kings to keep their hands off:
“Don’t you dare lay a hand on my anointed,
    don’t hurt a hair on the heads of my prophets.”

For Reflection

Who are God's people?  "...you who seek God," those who are from the "seed of Abraham," and those in God's covenantal relationship are God's people. God provides and protects God's people.  God has an eternal covenant with Israel and the same covenant with those who seek God.  God excludes no one who lives up to God's expectations for human lives.

Pray

Pray so that you will understand the blessing of God's covenantal relationships.  Pray so that you can live a life worthy of God's trust in you.


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People and Animals Disembark

God Destroys and Recreates

Noah's Steadfast Faith

Genesis 8:1-19 The Message

8 1-3 Then God turned his attention to Noah and all the wild animals and farm animals with him on the ship. God caused the wind to blow and the floodwaters began to go down. The underground springs were shut off, the windows of Heaven closed and the rain quit. Inch by inch the water lowered. After 150 days the worst was over.
4-6 On the seventeenth day of the seventh month, the ship landed on the Ararat mountain range. The water kept going down until the tenth month. On the first day of the tenth monththe tops of the mountains came into view. After forty days Noah opened the window that he had built into the ship.
7-9 He sent out a raven; it flew back and forth waiting for the floodwaters to dry up. Then he sent a dove to check on the flood conditions, but it couldn’t even find a place to perch—water still covered the Earth. Noah reached out and caught it, brought it back into the ship.
10-11 He waited seven more days and sent out the dove again. It came back in the evening with a freshly picked olive leaf in its beak. Noah knew that the flood was about finished.
12 He waited another seven days and sent the dove out a third time. This time it didn’t come back.
13-14 In the six-hundred-first year of Noah’s life, on the first day of the first month, the flood had dried up. Noah opened the hatch of the ship and saw dryground. By the twenty-seventh day of the second month, the Earth was completely dry.
15-17 God spoke to Noah: “Leave the ship, you and your wife and your sons and your sons’ wives. And take all the animals with you, the whole menagerie of birds and mammals and crawling creatures, all that brimming prodigality of life, so they can reproduce and flourish on the Earth.”
18-19 Noah disembarked with his sons and wife and his sons’ wives. Then all the animals, crawling creatures, birds—every creature on the face of the Earth—left the ship family by family.

For Reflection

Noah, after 150 days on that stinking boat, bobbing and heaving in the wind whipped swells, waited patiently for the storm to cease and then for the flood waters to subside.  Noah maintained his confidence in God's covenant for twenty-one days as he tried in vain to find dry land.  It was the mark of Noah's righteousness.

Pray

Pray so that you will commit to God's new covenant.  Pray and let God guide and counsel you.


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Noah's Family Enters the Ark

God Destroys and Recreates

Noah's Steadfast Faith

Genesis 7:6-10 The Message

6-10 Noah was 600 years old when the floodwaters covered the Earth. Noah and his wife and sons and their wives boarded the ship to escape the flood. Clean and unclean animals, birds, and all the crawling creatures came in pairs to Noah and to the ship, male and female, just as God had commanded Noah. In seven days the floodwaters came.

For Reflection

Oh, how we trifle our lives away. We pay little attention to yesterday, ignore tomorrow and live only for today. The contrast between Noah's household and all others of his time indicates not only a spiritual sphere of his Godly life. It also means Noah's exceptional character in contrast to God's condemnation of others.

In the seven days prior to the opening of Heaven's gates not one person repented. Are we as careless of our souls? Do we look at our righteousness at a distance delaying the achievement of our human spiritual potential?  Are we sacrificing God's gift of life rather than celebrating it?

Pray

Pray so that you are not seduced by the deceitfulness of ordinary life. Pray so that you live the life God has intended.


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Wild and Domestic Animals Climb on Board

God Destroys and Recreates

Noah's Steadfast Faith

Genesis 7:11-16 The Message

11-12 It was the six-hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month that it happened: all the underground springs erupted and all the windows of Heaven were thrown open. Rain poured for forty days and forty nights.
13-16 That’s the day Noah and his sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth, accompanied by his wife and his sons’ wives, boarded the ship. And with them every kind of wild and domestic animal, right down to all the kinds of creatures that crawl and all kinds of birds and anything that flies. They came to Noah and to the ship in pairs—everything and anything that had the breath of life in it, male and female of every creature came just as God had commanded Noah. Then God shut the door behind him.

For Reflection

Only animate creatures were on the ark; their DNA preserved. But, what about everything else, the inanimate earth and vegetation? If all things are interdependent what changes could have occurred?

According to the Smithsonian, we may get a clue from the dramatic extinction of the dinosaurs.  In short, landforms changed and life sprang back. The land eroded and formed new masses at the end of rivers. (Eastern coastal flat lands are formed from particles washed from the Blue Ridge and Appalachian mountains.) Remnants of plants sprouted and the animals pollinated them and spread their seeds. Humans returned and God's grand evolutionary plan reset with Noah's progeny carrying God's spirit.  The divine order of the universe and God's intention for humankind preserved.

Well, that's what I think. Right or wrong the thought gives me hope.

Pray

Pray about all things. Pray so that God's wisdom flows through you. Pray so that you can stay in tune with the melodies of The Creation. Pray so that you continue to evolve into the Grace of God.


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God Will Send a Great Flood

God Destroys and Recreates

Noah's Steadfast Faith

Genesis 7:1-5 The Message

7 Next God said to Noah, “Now board the ship, you and all your family—out of everyone in this generation, you’re the righteous one.
2-4 “Take on board with you seven pairs of every clean animal, a male and a female; one pair of every unclean animal, a male and a female; and seven pairs of every kind of bird, a male and a female, to ensure their survival on Earth. In just seven days I will dump rain on Earth for forty days and forty nights. I’ll make a clean sweep of everything that I’ve made.”
5 Noah did everything God commanded him.

For Reflection

I was wondering how many times God had spoken directly to humans. One account shows that God spoke directly to people 22 times in the Old Testament.  Another found God speaking directly on only three places in the  New Testament and one event, in Revelation, God speaks in a vision (that may not count!).

So, does God speak aloud so that others can hear?  Well, Billy Graham says yes, but rarely. God speaks, it seems, through personal contact in the form of dreams, visions, or a voice heard only by the person spoken too, as Samuel or Noah had.

Sometimes God's voice is heard when reading. Not just through Scripture but through all forms of communication novels, stories, news reporting, plays, music and all kinds of performing and visual arts.  Perhaps, it is a matter of interpretation or perception through the eyes of the Holy Spirit in your soul. Sometimes God's voice is heard through the grace, kindness, and goodwill expressed by others.

Much of the time one hears the voice of God as whispers, a correction or a strengthening or a change in a conviction. Sometimes it comes in a compelling feeling that urges action. One day, one awakes and feels that he or she has to do something righteous.

Pray

Pray about all things and listen to the voice of God.


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The Lord's Sorrow for All Creation

God Destroys and Recreates

Noah's Steadfast Faith

Genesis 6:1-8 The Message (MSG)

Giants in the Land

6 1-2 When the human race began to increase, with more and more daughters being born, the sons of God noticed that the daughters of men were beautiful. They looked them over and picked out wives for themselves.
3 Then God said, “I’m not going to breathe life into men and women endlessly. Eventually, they’re going to die; from now on they can expect a life span of 120 years.”
4 This was back in the days (and also later) when there were giants in the land. The giants came from the union of the sons of God and the daughters of men. These were the mighty men of ancient lore, the famous ones.

Noah and His Sons

5-7 God saw that human evil was out of control. People thought evil, imagined evil—evil, evil, evil from morning to night. God was sorry that he had made the human race in the first place; it broke his heart. God said, “I’ll get rid of my ruined creation, make a clean sweep: people, animals, snakes and bugs, birds—the works. I’m sorry I made them.”
8 But Noah was different. God liked what he saw in Noah.

For Reflection

God's creation is systematic.  That is, Creation has form, substance and a structural driving process. Some have suggested the inherent method of the structure is evolution.  This may mean that the whole Creation is continuously changing adjusting to the impacts of other facets in the Creation. Therefore, all things (some more than others), driven by an instinct to survive, adapt.

Humans, perhaps, are not independent of the evolutionary mechanisms. God has graced humans with freedom of choice. We see the results of that freedom in the evolution toward separation from rather than a commitment to God's intention for humankind. God did not create evil. Humans did.

God also gave humans a soul. Noah stands in contrast to the human majority. Noah has responded to the resident point in his heart (soul) by fulfilling God's ambitions for God's Creation. God, saddened by the turn of events, pushes the reset button. All of the interactive webs of Creation were affected. Noah remains to become the archetype for human spiritual development.

God will push the reset button again. God will show God's self in Christ.

Pray

Pray about all things.  Pray so that you can deepen your relationship with God.  Pray so that you will respond to the point in your soul, the Holy Spirit. Pray with your hands and feet so that you will walk this Earth in the manner of Jesus.


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