Bible

Would you join a club that required you to have surgery on an extremely private and intimate part of your body? Probably not. Yet this is exactly what God required of Abram in Genesis chapter 17.

God comes to Abram when he is ninety-nine years old and promises to change everything about his life. God tells Abram He will:

But God asks Abraham, and all the males in his household, to go under the knife and be circumcised! This command sounds strange to modern ears, but God wants to mark Abraham and his people as intimately and undeniably associated with Him. God calls it, “My covenant in your flesh.” (Genesis 17:13)

God is still calling us to follow Him. He is still promising to multiply our numbers and claim the spaces in which we travel for His own. He still wants to change us…not in name but in character.

And God still calls us to be circumcised, but not in our flesh. Instead, God wants to circumcise our heart. (Romans 2:28-29). He wants to put our hearts under the knife of His Holy Spirit, so it can be transformed and identified as belonging exclusively to Him.

Is there a part of your heart that still needs to be transformed by the scalpel of God’s Spirit?

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Ever have a problem you felt God was not handling, or at least not handling quickly enough? When this happens, we often try to do something logical or reasonable to help the situation along.

This is what Sarai tried to do in Genesis chapter 16. She and her husband Abram were childless and well past child-conceiving age. It made logical sense to Sarai that, if they were going to have a child, they would need to do that through a surrogate. So Sarai offered her female servant to Abram and encouraged him to have a child through her.

But this seemingly “logical” act created a deep animosity that has continued to be adversarial thousands of years later. Just look at the current state of Israeli/Palestinian relations.

When we try to make something happen on our own wisdom and power (apart from the guidance and direction of God,) we wind up making things more complicated and consequential than God ever intended. God will continue to move forward with His plan, but now there’s increased complication, aggravation, or heartache that we have to live with…all brought on by our own attempts to “help.”

As hard as it may be, we must learn to trust and submit to God’s sovereignty and timing in our situations. Unless He has directed us, we must resist the urge to try to help Him do things quicker or better.

Despite how it looks, God really does see what’s going on. He really does hear our fears and frustrations. He really does care about what we’re going through. He’s “got this.” The question is…do we trust Him.

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In the Star Wars movie “The Empire Strikes Back,” the Jedi master Yoda raises Luke Skywalker’s ship out of the Dagobah swamp using nothing but the force. Stunned by the feat, Luke exclaims, “I don’t believe it!” To which Yoda responds, “That is why you fail.”

Yoda’s words are not only a rebuke to Luke Skywalker but to all who hear them. So often we fail to achieve because we fail to believe.

The importance of belief is key to Genesis chapter 15. In this chapter, God promises Abram generations of descendants and a land to call his own, but Abram was an elderly, childless vagabond with no land to his name. There was absolutely no visible reason to believe what God had told him.

Still, Abram chose to believe God over his circumstances. He chose to trust more in what God said than in what he (Abram) saw. Genesis 15:6 NLT says, “Abram believed the LORD, and the LORD counted him righteous because of his faith.”

Abram believed what God said, and it unleashed a power greater than any lightsaber. Nothing changed immediately, but everything changed completely.

How would your life be different if you really believed what God has told you? What freedom would you know and what power would be unleashed if you trusted God completely?

I didn’t like group projects in school, because one person would do most of the work while those who did little took the credit. When a group of people work on something it’s hard to give credit where credit is due.

In Genesis chapter 14, you find Abram making sure to give credit where credit is due.

In this chapter, a band of marauders has swept through the land taking anything they can get their hands on…including people. When Abram finds out these marauders have kidnapped his nephew and family, he mobilizes his men and they pursue the marauders; defeating them and reclaiming all they had taken.

On his return, Abram is met by the King of Sodom and the King/Priest of Salem. Abram shows his gratitude to God by giving the priest one-tenth of all he had reclaimed.

Then, the King of Sodom tells Abram he can keep the rest of the bounty for himself. But Abram refuses to take anything except what his men had already eaten because Abram didn’t want people to see how blessed he was and give the King of Sodom credit for it. Abram wanted to make sure God got the credit for all He had done for Abram.

Giving God the credit He’s due is a good practice. James 1:17 tells us that every good gift ultimately comes from God. Yes, we may work hard for what we have, but even then it is God who gives us the ability to earn what we earn. Deut. 8:18.

Think about it. When people look at your life, do they assume the good things in your life are the result of your hard work or do you make it clear those good things come from God? Are you giving credit where credit is due?

One holiday season, my family and I passed a man collecting donations for a charity. He was using an up-turned tambourine to collect the money, so I gave my preschooler a handful of change and told her to put it in. Before I could stop her, raised that fistful of change into the air and forcefully threw it into the tambourine. The next thing I knew, that gift was flying back in our faces like shrapnel from a grenade. It was the gift that gave back.

You see the same thing in Genesis chapter 13. Abram and his nephew Lot had become quite successful. Their herds had grown to the point that the land can no longer sustain both of them. They had to separate.

Abram, being the elder, had the freedom to choose the choice real estate, but instead, he generously gave his nephew first choice. The youthful Lot chose the prime land and Abram was left with the not-so-prime land. But as soon as Lot left, God promised to give Abram all the land he could see.

Too often, we hold onto things out of a fear of scarcity. We’re afraid that if we give it away, we won’t have it when we need it. Slowly, our self-protection crowds out our generosity.

Abram discovered that generosity is the gift that gives back. Jesus confirmed this when he said, “Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” – Luke 6:38.

Where do you need to let go and be more generous? What’s holding you back? Imagine what God might do if you were more generous. Look for a place to be generous today.

I was the kid who was always the last one to be picked when choosing up sides for basketball, baseball or any sport. I didn’t know much about sports and was not very athletic. I was more of a detriment to a team than an asset. So I was only chosen when there were no other choices left.

In Genesis Chapter 12, God chooses Abram as His first pick. It is an odd pick, in that Abram was a worshipper of false gods and knew nothing about God. It was also an odd pick because God knew that despite a great start, Abram would let Him down by the end of the chapter. Yet God chose Abram and made him the captain of the team!

It gives me hope to know that despite my lack of knowledge and despite my failures, God is willing to choose me. There are certainly others more qualified, more faithful, more courageous and more obedient, but he still chooses me.

Maybe you know what it feels like to not be chosen, to be passed over, to be rejected. You may not feel like God would ever choose you, but guess what…you’re chosen. All you have to do is step out and follow the Chooser.

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The other day I watched my granddaughter building a tower out of blocks. As the tower grew higher, so did her pride. But the tower would eventually come crashing down, either because her pride would cause her to exceed her limits or her younger brother would maliciously bring the tower crashing to the ground.

In Genesis chapter eleven, the people of earth come together to build a great tower as a monument to their acclaim and accomplishment. This doesn’t sound like such a bad thing, but God doesn’t like it. He confuses their language and causes them to scatter…leaving the tower unfinished.

Was God like my grandson, maliciously waiting to tear down what they had built? Or did God just have something against building towers?

The problem had nothing to do with the tower. The problem was the two big sins driving the people to build the tower.

First was the sin of self-elevation. The people were building the tower as a monument to their greatness. Their pride had caused them to elevate their desires and importance above God.

Second was the sin of self-preservation. Self-preservation sounds like a good thing, but not when it’s in direct opposition to God’s desire. In Genesis 9:1, God had told Noah and his sons to multiply and fill the earth. Now in Genesis 11, mankind was huddled up in one spot to protect their fame and power, rather then doing what God had commanded.

You might not be building a tower, but could God be using disruption and confusion to address sins of self-elevation or self-preservation in your life?

Each evening, I watch the national news on one of the 3 major networks. The pattern for the news broadcast is the same each night. Most of the broadcast is filled with dark and ominous news until you get to the last story. The last story is usually a feel-good story about an everyday person who is making a positive difference in the world. It’s a story meant to contrast all the negative stories that preceded it.

Genesis chapter 6 paints a dark picture of the growing corruption of the day. You read words like: “every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time” (Gen. 6:5) – “Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence.” (Gen. 6:11) – “all the people on earth had corrupted their ways.” (Gen. 6:12)

But there was a man named Noah who stood in contrast to the world around him. In the midst of all the darkness and corruption, Noah is described as righteous and blameless. He is someone who walked with God and did all that God commanded. Because Noah stood in contrast to the world around him, he found favor in God’s eyes and was used to rescue creation itself.

Do you and I stand out in contrast to the world around us, or do we blend into the landscape? Is there a distinct difference between us and the world at large? As followers of Christ, we’ve been given the same covenant and commission as Noah…stand in contrast to the world and be instrumental in its salvation.

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