Tag: Sarah

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Genesis Devotions

The God who will make us laugh again

The Lord came to (or “visited“) Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did for Sarah what he had promised.

Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age,at the appointed time God had told him…

Sarah said, “God has made me laugh, and everyone who hears will laugh with me.” (Genesis 21:1-2, 6)

In this broken world, our lives can be painful.

It was for Sarah who for years longed to have a child but couldn’t.

But in his timing, God “visited” her and blessed her with a child, and she found laughter.

I’m thinking of two people right now. One who is broken by his sin. Another who is broken because of family issues. And so I’m praying for them.

“Father, as you visited Sarah, visit them. Bring them healing. And in your timing, make them laugh again.”

Who are the broken people in your life? Pray for them. And as you can, touch them with God’s love.

Maybe you’re the one who’s broken right now.

Don’t lose hope.

God still loves you. He forgives. He heals. And he always keeps his promises to us.

So keep following and waiting on him. In his timing, you will find laughter again.

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Genesis Devotions

When God visits

Genesis

Now the Lord was gracious to Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did for Sarah what he had promised. (Genesis 21:1, NIV)

The NIV translation is very interesting when it says, “the Lord was gracious to Sarah.”

Most translations say “The Lord came to Sarah” or “The Lord visited Sarah.”

After a little digging, what I found was that in the Old Testament, the words “The Lord came” or “The Lord visited” often has the nuance of the Lord coming either to bless or to curse.

And in this case, he came to bless Sarah, just as he had promised, giving her a son.

Hundreds of years later, the Lord would visit another woman named Mary. And in doing so, he kept another promise: to send a Savior to save us all.

And as John tells us, from Jesus, we have received “grace upon grace.” (John 1:16)

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again,

Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift! (2 Corinthians 9:15)

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Genesis Devotions

At the appointed time

Genesis

I don’t know why, but maybe because Christmas is right around the corner, I’m seeing a lot of things through that lens.

The Lord asked Abraham,

Why did Sarah laugh, saying, “Can I really have a baby when I’m old?”

Is anything impossible for the Lord?

At the appointed time I will come back to you, and in about a year she will have a son. (13-14)

Those words rang a bell with me, and I thought of Gabriel’s words to Mary.

The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.

Therefore, the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.

And consider your relative Elizabeth—even she has conceived a son in her old age, and this is the sixth month for her who was called childless.

For nothing will be impossible with God. (Luke 1:35-37)

And then I thought of Paul’s words to the Galatians.

But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship. (Galatians 4:4-5, NIV)

The birth of Isaac was the first step to God fulfilling his promise that Abraham would be a blessing to all nations. It seemed impossible, with Sarah already being 90 years old.

But she did give birth to a son, turning her laughter of doubt into laughter of joy.

Then at the right time, God sent Jesus in an equally impossible situation, with Mary, a virgin, giving birth to a son.

But now, through him, we rejoice as children of God.

For as Paul wrote,

And because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba, Father!”

So you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then God has made you an heir. (Galatians 4:6-7)

So let us rejoice with Paul, saying,

Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift! (2 Corinthians 9:15)

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Hebrews

A faith that sees beyond

Hebrews

This earth is not our home.

Most Christians know this. But how many actually live this way?

Abraham did. The writer of Hebrews said of him,

By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.

By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise.

For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. (Hebrews 11:8-10)

For Abraham, the land he would receive as his inheritance was Canaan. For us, it is a new heavens and new earth.

Abraham made his home in Canaan, even though it really wasn’t his yet. And until its “transformation” into the land God promised him, he lived there as a stranger in a foreign country.

In a land that was filled with paganism and sin, he lived a life that was pleasing to God.

In the same way, this world we live in now will someday be transformed and we will inherit it as God’s children. But until that day, it is filled with sin and the worship of things that are truly not gods.

So here we live, not as citizens of this present world, but as strangers in a foreign country, looking forward to the day when all things will be made new.

So how should we live? We should live doing all that God asks us to do even if we don’t see all the results in our lifetime.

For Abraham, God promised to make him a great nation and to give him many descendants that would inherit the land of Canaan.

And so Abraham left his father’s household and his very country to go where God directed him. But when he died, he only had one son and the small plot of land he had purchased in order to bury his wife Sarah.

The same could be said of Isaac, except he had two sons.

And the same could be said of Isaac’s son Jacob, except he had twelve sons, and he died in Egypt where God through his provision kept him and his family alive in a time of famine.

Each of them followed God’s will. But none of them saw the promises completely fulfilled. And the writer of Hebrews says of them,

All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance.

And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth.

People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own.

If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country–a heavenly one.

Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them. (Hebrews 11:13-16)

God always keeps his promises. He did make Abraham into a great nation. And though nations have come and gone over the millenia, Israel still stands.

And the day will come when all Christians, both Jews and Gentile will stand as one great nation, pointing to Abraham as our father.

But until that day, do the things God has asked of you.

You like Abraham may not receive everything God has promised in your lifetime. But you will see his promises realized in the end.

And even on earth, your children and your children’s children will reap the benefits of your faithfulness.

Moreover, remember that this world is not your home. If you’re always looking back at your old life, you will have opportunity to return. But in doing so, you’ll lose all the good things God had planned for you.

So keep longing for your heavenly home and be faithful, knowing that God has prepared a city for you, and that one day he will come back for you and make all things new.

Remember what Jesus told his disciples,

In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you.

I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. (John 14:2-3)

Amen. Come soon, Lord Jesus.

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Galatians

Children of promise

Galatians

In this passage, Paul makes a very interesting allegory to drive home a simple point: We are children of God based on His promise, not children of God based on our keeping his law.

He talks about the story of Hagar and Sarah found in Genesis 16-21.

God had promised to give Abraham a son, but after years of waiting, Abraham and Sarah had started to lose hope that God would keep his promise.

So Sarah suggested that Abraham have a child through her slave Hagar (something atrocious to us, but perfectly normal back in those days).

Through Hagar, Abraham got his first son, Ishmael. But this was a son that came not based on the promise of God and his provision. Rather, it was based solely on human efforts.

Later though, Sarah did give birth to a son named Isaac. His birth was a total miracle, a total act of God, as Sarah was 90 years old when she gave birth.

And it was through Isaac, God told Abraham, that He would keep his promise to make Abraham into a great nation.

Paul then says those who try to be justified by the law are symbolized by Hagar and her son Ishmael. They are not trying to receive the blessing of God based on God’s promise and God’s work. Rather, they are trying to achieve it through their own human effort.

But there’s a problem with this. Children born of a slave are slaves themselves. So people who try to be “children of Hagar,” justified by their own human efforts, will in reality only find themselves enslaved by the law of sin and death.

In other words, the law can’t save them at all. All it does is point out their sin and condemn them to death. (Galatians 4:24-25)

On the other hand those who are trying to be justified before God by his grace are like Isaac, children and heirs of God based on God’s promise and God’s work.

Because of that, we are no longer enslaved by the law of sin and death. We have been set free and are now true children of the most high God. (Galatians 4:26-28)

But just as Ishmael, the child born of human efforts, persecuted Isaac, the child born of God’s promise, so the Judaizers persecuted the Christians.

In particular, the Judaizers tried to shut out the Galatian Christians until they agreed to put themselves under slavery to the law like the Judaizers were. (Galatians 4:29)

So Paul speaks very strongly here:

What does the Scripture say? “Get rid of the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman will never share in the inheritance with the free woman’s son.” (Galatians 4:30)

In short, “Get rid of these false teachers. They are children of the slave. And they will never share in your inheritance. They have no part with you. They are trying to exclude you when the reality is that it is they who are excluded.”

And then he reemphasizes,

“Therefore, brothers, we are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman.” (Galatians 4:31)

He then charges them,

“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again under a yoke of slavery.” (Galatians 5:1)

Let us never forget that. Christ set us free from the law, not so that we would go under it all over again, but that we would truly be free from it forever.

He set us free so that we could live as children of God, knowing that we are already accepted by Him, and not worrying about whether we are good enough.

How about you? Are you living with the peace and joy of a child of God? Or are you still living like a slave burdened by all the rules of religion?

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Isaiah

The legacy we’ve inherited

Isaiah

Some Christians don’t like going through the Old Testament.  Sometimes, they wonder why it’s even worth reading. 

I have to admit, this is the longest period of time I’ve spent in the Old Testament for my quiet times. 

I believe it’s been about a year and a half that I’ve spent here, and it could be another year and a half before I get to the New Testament.  If I’m lucky.

But here, God tells the Israelites to look upon the legacy they inherited from their forefathers, to Abraham and Sarah who started the Israelite nation. 

And he says,

Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness and who seek the Lord (Isaiah 51:1)

I don’t believe God is just talking to the Israelites here.  He’s talking to all of us who are seeking the Lord.  What does he tell us?

Look to the rock from which you were cut and to the quarry from which you were hewn; look to Abraham, your father, and to Sarah, who gave you birth. 

When I called him he was but one, and I blessed him and made him many.  (1-2)

While Abraham and Sarah were the literal father and mother of the nation of Israel, we have our own spiritual connection to them as Christians. 

They were the first to illustrate a life of walking by faith.  Of a righteousness that comes by faith. 

This is not to say that no one before them ever walked by faith.  But when the New Testament talks about those who were made by righteous by their faith, it always starts with Abraham. 

Paul wrote of Abraham, quoting the Genesis account,

Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.  (Romans 4:3)

Why do we read the Old Testament?  We’re looking at the rock from which we were cut.  Where our legacy of the righteousness that come by faith comes from. 

Not only that, we see the God they put their trust in and his faithfulness to them.

Isaiah writes of Him, recalling his redemption of Israel from Egpyt,

Was it not you who dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep, who made a road in the depths of the sea so that the redeemed might cross over?  (10)

He also recalls how God was the one who brought all things into being, saying,

For I am the Lord your God, who churns up the sea so that its waves roar– the Lord Almighty is his name…

I who set the heavens in place, who laid the foundations of the earth, and who say to Zion, ‘You are my people.’   (15-16)

And so as we look back on who God is and this legacy of faith by people such as Abraham and Sarah, God charges us,

Hear me, you who know what is right, you people who have my law in your hearts:  Do not fear the reproach of men or be terrified by their insults. 

For the moth will eat them up like a garment; the worm will devour them like wool. 

But my righteousness will last forever, my salvation through all generations…

I, even I, am he who comforts you. 

Who are you that you fear mortal men, the sons of men, who are but grass, that you forget the Lord your Maker, who stretched out the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth, that you live in constant terror every day because of the wrath of the oppressor, who is bent on destruction?  (Isaiah 51:7-8, 12-13).

If there is anything that can undermine faith, it’s fear.  Fear of the future.  Fear of others and what they think of us or what they might do to us if we follow God. 

But the same God who watched over Abraham, Sarah, and the others who followed in their legacy of faith, watches over us. 

The same God who created us and saved us from our sin, is strong enough to deliver us from those who would destroy us, even the Enemy of our souls.

So let us remember the legacy of faith we’ve inherited.  Let us remember the God who has given us this legacy.  And let us put our trust in Him.