Today's Reading: Genesis 20:1-22:24
Luke 4:31-5:11
Psalm 8:1-9
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Focus Verses:
Genesis 22:13-14
13 Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. 14 So Abraham called that place The LORD Will Provide. And to this day it is said, "On the mountain of the LORD it will be provided."
Insight:
Abraham and Isaac believed that the God they followed and worshiped was the only true God. The devotion they had for their God was no less than the devotion the pagans around them had for their false Gods. If those worshiping pagan deities were willing to sacrifice their children to demonstrate complete devotion, Abraham was willing to do the same.
But the one true God proved himself to be nothing like the false Gods of the pagans. Those false God's were takers who demanded satisfaction. But the true God, the God of Abraham and Isaac, was and is a provider. He doesn't hurt and take away; he gives and protects.
God demands my all and asks me to lay down my life, but it is actually God who has given his Son, Jesus, to save me and give me life. Even as I surrender my all, God provides more than I have to give.
Response and Action:
Like Abraham, I want to be willing to give up anything for God. I want to demonstrate that my devotion to God is as whole-hearted as anyone else's devotion to anything else. I want to seek God above all else. I do not want anything or anyone to be a rival for my commitment to God. I am grateful that God is a giver. I rejoice that God is a giver and a provider, not a taker who diminishes me. Instead, as I offer him my all, he provides and blesses me and makes me more than I could ever be on my own.
O Lord, you are good and gracious to me. Thank you for Jesus who emptied himself for me and for all humanity. Help me to become like him in my attitudes and actions toward others. Help me to give grace more than I seek it; to love others more than I seek to be loved; to forgive others more than I ask for forgiveness; to understand others more than I seek to be understood. Through Christ, I pray. Amen.
Spiritual Formation Verses:
1 John 4:9-10
9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
Resources:
How To Read Genesis
by Tremper Longman
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