- araratchurch
- Jul 26, 2024
- 3 min read
Psalms 34:15 NLT
You are probably familiar with the story of Abraham and Sarah. As well, you probably are familiar with the “Hagar incident.”
Sarah, being barren, encouraged Abraham to have a child by Hagar, Sarah‘s servant.
It seems that as soon as Hagar became aware that she had conceived, she began to treat Sarah with contempt. So, being very distressed with the situation, Sarah confronted Abraham concerning Hagar‘s behavior towards her.
Abraham left dealing with Hagar to Sarah, as Hagar was her own servant. Sarah then began to deal harshly with Hagar, causing her to run away into the wilderness.
As the story goes, the angel of the Lord found Hagar in the wilderness, and instructed her as to what she should do.
“The angel of the Lord found Hagar beside a spring of water in the wilderness, along the road to Shur. The angel said to her, “Hagar, Sarai’s servant, where have you come from, and where are you going?” “I’m running away from my mistress, Sarai,” she replied. The angel of the Lord said to her, “Return to your mistress, and submit to her authority.” Then he added, “I will give you more descendants than you can count.” And the angel also said, “You are now pregnant and will give birth to a son. You are to name him Ishmael (which means ‘God hears’), for the Lord has heard your cry of distress. Thereafter, Hagar used another name to refer to the Lord, who had spoken to her. She said, “You are the God who sees me.” She also said, “Have I truly seen the One who sees me?” So that well was named Beer-lahai-roi (which means “well of the Living One who sees me”). It can still be found between Kadesh and Bered.”
Genesis 16:7-11, 13-14 NLT
Hagar’s interaction with the angel of the Lord caused her to address the Lord as, “You are the God who sees me” (El Roi in Hebrew). In fact, this name for the Lord first appears in the Bible in the story of Hagar.
Hagar must’ve felt very alone and scared out in that wilderness. But it doesn’t take being in a wilderness to experience the feeling that no one really sees or understands what you’re going through.
I suspect that you can identify with that lonely, sometimes desperate, feeling. Indeed, most of us can. Ironically enough, sometimes we can feel alienated and alone, even in the midst of a crowd, even in the midst of our own family and friends. And, we may feel this way, even when we know there are others who are ready and willing to help us.
In our opening scripture, we see David expressing his confidence in the fact that the Lord watches over the righteous, sending help when it’s needed.
Child of God, whatever you are going through. No matter how alone you feel. Please understand that as you call out to the Lord from a heart that is broken and yielded before Him, He will not fail to see you. He will not fail to answer you.
I’ll leave you today with some lyrics from an old spiritual that originated in the days of slavery in the United States. People, working hard in fields owned by someone else, cultivating and raising food for someone else to eat, found solace in these words:
Nobody knows the trouble I've seen
Nobody knows but Jesus
Nobody knows the trouble I've seen
Glory, Hallelujah
Indeed, we can all find solace in those words.
No matter what our situation, no matter how bleak the road we walk, He knows! He sees! He cares! He answers!
Peace to you.
Jesus is coming! Get ready for Him!
- araratchurch
- Jul 25, 2024
- 3 min read
“And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.”
Romans 8:28 NLT
There is an old gospel song (1956) that has a line in it that has always struck me as being a little funny: “Surely I will Lord; surely I will. If anyone makes it precious Lord, surely I will.”
Sometimes Christians throw around promises from the word of God as if they are certain of their eligibility to receive the promise. Indeed, they may become indignant, supposing that God has “shortchanged” them if they don’t see what they have been promised.
Now certainly, our hope is in what God has promised through Jesus Christ. But in order to receive the promise(s), we must meet the condition(s).
Consider this often quoted promise from our Lord:
“Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.”
Matthew 6:33 NLT
Jesus, in teaching about the fact that we should not have anxiety over the things we need, makes the point that God will give us what we need. But what is the condition? We must put the Kingdom of God first in our lives.
God, speaking prophetically through the psalmist, addresses the people of His covenant who are not keeping their part of the covenant. The Lord basically tells them that they have no right to speak of the guarantees in His covenant with them, because of their wickedness.
“But God says to the wicked: “Why bother reciting my decrees and pretending to obey my covenant? For you refuse my discipline and treat my words like trash. When you see thieves, you approve of them, and you spend your time with adulterers. Your mouth is filled with wickedness, and your tongue is full of lies. You sit around and slander your brother— your own mother’s son.”
Psalms 50:16-20 NLT
The verses just before the above scripture, give the remedy for God’s people and their wayward ways:
“Make thankfulness your sacrifice to God, and keep the vows you made to the Most High. Then call on me when you are in trouble, and I will rescue you, and you will give me glory.””
Psalms 50:14-15 NLT
The remedy for these covenant breakers is also repeated after this passage:
“While you did all this, I remained silent, and you thought I didn’t care. But now I will rebuke you, listing all my charges against you. Repent, all of you who forget me, or I will tear you apart, and no one will help you. But giving thanks is a sacrifice that truly honors me. If you keep to my path, I will reveal to you the salvation of God.””
Psalms 50:21-23 NLT
Make no mistake, Jesus has done for us what we could not do for ourselves, taking our sin upon Himself and paying the awful price for our transgression.
However, the work of Jesus has not freed us from our responsibility to keep the word of God, following close behind Him, living lives reflecting His nature.
In fact, it is the very work of the cross that has enabled us to receive God’s Holy Spirit Who leads us into all truth and all righteousness.
Our opening scripture is one of those scriptures Christians embrace, often leaving off the second part of it. We cannot suppose that God is working all things together for our good if we are not living our lives in the fear of the Lord and in obedience to His will for us.
But if we do come to Jesus, if we do get under His yoke, following on to truly know Him, then we can be certain that we will receive every promise given from the Lord to His children. And yes, God will then make all things work together for our good!
Peace to you.
Jesus is coming! Get ready for Him!
- araratchurch
- Jul 24, 2024
- 2 min read
Updated: Aug 15, 2024
“Don’t be misled—you cannot mock the justice of God. You will always harvest what you plant. Those who live only to satisfy their own sinful nature will harvest decay and death from that sinful nature. But those who live to please the Spirit will harvest everlasting life from the Spirit.”
Galatians 6:7-8 NLT
Shakespeare’s Juliet famously said that, “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” The context was that the one who she loved (Romeo), had a family name (Montague), at war with those of her family name (Capulet). We could extend Juliet’s adage and say, “You can call a rotten fish a daisy but it will still stink.”
A particular name may become associated with certain traits; but renaming something, does not change traits.
Rationalizing our sinful behavior is a way of putting a better name onto something we are doing that is not good. And, in doing so, people may actually become self-deceived, somehow believing that what they are calling, what they are doing, will change the outcome for which they are actually working.
In our opening scripture we see Paul reminding the Christians at Galatia that mocking, taking lightly, the judgment of God, will not change the certainty of the same.
Indeed, he reminds them that living a life aimed at satisfying sinful lusts will reap the wages of sin: death. On the other hand, those who live their lives aimed at pleasing God will reap everlasting life.
Another dimension of the law of sowing and reaping not taken into account by those who would mock it, is the fact that whatever is sown will be multiplied: We will not just reap a crop of exactly what we planted. That is to say, planting three apple seeds will not produce three apples. Far to the contrary, planting three apple seeds, can result in three apple trees, on which there will eventually be multiplied hundreds of apples.
That calculus may render a wonderful result if we were only talking about apples. But make no mistake, the multiplication, the certainty of multiplication, is not negated by what we called what we were sowing.
Again, not only will we reap what we have sown, we will get it back in abundance.
“They have planted the wind and will harvest the whirlwind. The stalks of grain wither and produce nothing to eat. And even if there is any grain, foreigners will eat it.”
Hosea 8:7a NLT
In the above scripture, the Lord, speaking prophetically through Hosea, said that the evil being done by the children of Israel was going to be returned to them as destruction.
Child of God, let’s ask the Holy Spirit to help us to be honest about what we are doing. Let us not deceive ourselves into thinking we can “repackage” sin such that it will not produce what God said it would produce.
I’ll leave you with the instruction that comes right after our opening scripture:
“So let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up.”
Galatians 6:9 NLT
Peace to you.
Jesus is coming! Get ready for Him!