Author: missionspaul

Lent day 35: Who is Arphaxad?

Luke 3 v 36 “the son of Arphaxad”

His name means ‘one that releases’.

He was born 2 years after the flood and life was difficult as they began to re-populate the earth and expand into territories, building and planting, creating infrastructure. How was this going to happen? How would law and order prevail? How would people still follow their Creator?

The ‘one that releases’ may have been a call of prayer to hand the pressure of that over to God who can carry what man could not.

Today there are burdens you need to release that are too heavy for you to carry. He will sustain you and you will be moved so long as you release what is not yours to carry. Psalm 55:22

Today, you may see others with the weight of sin holding them down, either their sin or they are a victim of someone else’s sin. Release their burdens. Isaiah 58:6

God does want you to carry things in your life, but these burdens are light and easy. He wants to give you rest so release the heaviness that is around you today. Say NO, disappoint perhaps, alter your schedule, change the programme. There are no miracles without God so the question is: has God asked you to do this? Matthew 11:28-30

If God has commanded your work then He has your hand and He will help you to accomplish it even if it looks impossible and too difficult for you. Commanded work is not necessarily easy work but it is accompanied work. Isaiah 41:13

As I grow older and my hair gets greyer and less I realise I need to know the carrying God and delivering Saviour more than ever before. In my youth my immature energy and ignorant passion sustained me but now I know it is He who sustains. In my youth He sustained me when I didn’t know but now He expects more wisdom from me. Isaiah 46:4.

I will release the pressure today and I will do it in prayer with a prayer that I have prayed all my life, “Help me!” Psalm 34:17

The challenge to the release of these burdens is the fear that things won’t get done or I will disappoint. In short, the fear of man continues to be a snare. So with eyes lifted high I choose to hear the ancient words, “Fear not, for I am with you”. Isaiah 41:10

Join me as I choose to be Arphaxad today and release from my life what should not be there!

Lent day 34: Who is Canain?

Luke 3 v 36 “the son of Canain”

Luke records: “the son of Shelah, the son of Cainan, the son of Arphaxad, the son of Shem”

But Genesis 11: 10-13 records: “Two years after the flood, when Shem was 100 years old, he became the father of Arphaxad. ¹¹ And after he became the father of Arphaxad, Shem lived 500 years and had other sons and daughters. ¹² When Arphaxad had lived 35 years, he became the father of Shelah.¹³ And after he became the father of Shelah, Arphaxad lived 403 years and had other sons and daughters.”

So who was Shelah’s father? Was it Canain or Arphaxad?

The name means ‘one who laments’.

• If ‘the son of’ is merely ‘a descendent of’ then Canain is the father and Arphaxad the grandfather (still possible at 35yrs if he and Canain had fathered at 17 years of age).
• There was a levirate marriage occurring and Arphaxad took Shelah as his own.
• The Greek for Canain and Kenan (v37) are the same and a Gentile copyist of the New Testament made an error in copying. Canain is Kenan repeated in the wrong place.

 

Maybe Canain really existed and he is lamenting still today because no one knows who he was!

Are you grieving today? Mourning the loss of a loved one or a misunderstanding or even an error that has occurred that cannot now be fixed?

Sometimes that is all we have left. The book of Lamentations is a collection of poetry after the destruction of Jerusalem. It shows that even now in 2019 we can lament over the situation around us and who we have become.

We can be drained emotionally:  2 v 11 “My eyes fail from weeping, I am in torment within; my heart is poured out on the ground because my people are destroyed, because children and infants faint in the streets of the city.”

 

We can struggle for words to say: 2 v 13 “What can I say for you? With what can I compare you, Daughter Jerusalem? To what can I liken you, that I may comfort you, Virgin Daughter Zion? Your wound is as deep as the sea. Who can heal you?”

 

We can have regret, knowing things could have and should have been different: 2 v 14 “The visions of your prophets were false and worthless; they did not expose your sin to ward off your captivity. The prophecies they gave you were false and misleading.”

 

We can be ashamed of our situation: 2 v 15-17 “All who pass your way clap their hands at you; they scoff and shake their heads at Daughter Jerusalem: “Is this the city that was called the perfection of beauty, the joy of the whole earth?” ¹⁶ All your enemies open their mouths wide against you; they scoff and gnash their teeth and say, “We have swallowed her up.
This is the day we have waited for; we have lived to see it.” ¹⁷ The Lord has done what he planned; he has fulfilled his word, which he decreed long ago. He has overthrown you without pity, he has let the enemy gloat over you, he has exalted the horn of your foes.”

 

We can be crying constantly, 2 v 18-19 “The hearts of the people cry out to the Lord. You walls of Daughter Zion, let your tears flow like a river day and night; give yourself no relief, your eyes no rest. ¹⁹ Arise, cry out in the night, as the watches of the night begin; pour out your heart like water in the presence of the Lord. Lift up your hands to him for the lives of your children, who faint from hunger at every street corner.”

 

This is the condition. It can get as bad as it can get. Sometimes our only prayer is:

Look, O Lord, and consider …v20

And He will look and He will consider and whether there is error or whether you really existed and are incredibly overlooked or misunderstood, Canain is in the lineage of Jesus. He takes the errors and the inconclusive bodies who lament over their situation and works salvation through them!

Lent day 33: Who is Shelah?

Luke 3 v 35 “the son of Shelah”

This name means ‘missile’ and also ‘prayer’.

2 Corinthians 10: 4 “For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds”

Ephesians 6: 12 “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”

I led 2 Churches over 21 years with Prayer and Action being crucial to growth and influence. The 5 principles I held to can be summarised in this way:

1. Prayer positions the Church so that it can be commissioned.
2. Prayer changes the Church in order to bring change.
3. Prayer enlightens the Church to know how to go into the world.
4. Prayer refreshes the Church as it does the work of God.
5. Prayer empowers the Church to defeat the power of the enemy.

SHELAH is the prayer of war.

1. M. Bounds (1835-1913) the great Church leader and author who wrote 9 out of 11 books on prayer said this regarding the Weapon of Prayer:

“In many places an alarming state of things has come to pass, in that the many who are enrolled in our churches are not praying men and women. Many of those occupying prominent positions in church life are not people who pray. It is greatly to be feared that much of the work of the Church is being done by those who are perfect strangers to the closet. Small wonder that the work does not succeed. While it may be true that many in the Church say prayers, it is equally true that their praying is of the stereotyped order. Their prayers may be charged with sentiment, but they are tame, timid, and without fire or force. This fact is similar to the crisis which would be created were a country to have to admit in the face of an invading foe that it cannot fight and have no knowledge of the weapons whereby war is to be waged. Prayer is the genius and mainspring of life. We pray as we live; we live as we pray. Life will never be finer than the quality of the closet. The mercury of life will rise only by the warmth of the closet. Persistent non-praying eventually will depress life below zero.”

The battle is no greater demonstrated than the battle for our children. They are growing in a generation that is attacking the very value system of Christianity. We must pray for our children!

In the 16^th century a mystic Jewish Rabbi, Isaiah ben Abraham Horowitz, wrote a special prayer for the welfare of children, it is still used today and is known as the Shelah’s Prayer. Here is an extract:

You are Hashem (meaning NAME), our G-d, before You created the world and You are Hashem, our G-d, after Your created the world… You wrote in Your Torah: Be fruitful and multiply, and You wrote in Your Torah: And you shall teach them your children, and the meaning of both of them is one and the same.
You did not create the world in vain but to be inhabited, and for Your honour You created, You formed and You also made so that we, our children and the children of all Your people Israel will know Your Name and learn Your Torah.

Therefore, Hashem, King of kings of kings, I will come to You and will beg You, my eyes raised to You, to have compassion and hear my prayer and bestow on me sons and daughters that they shall too shall be fruitful and multiply, they, their children and their children’s children, until the end of all generations, so that they and I, and we all should engage in the study of Your holy Torah
to learn and teach, to guard, to do, and to fulfil all the words of study of Torah with love.

May they be masters of Torah, masters of the written Law, masters of Mishna, masters of Talmud, masters of kabbala, masters of mitzvot, masters of hessed, masters of noble character,
and may they serve You with love and true fear, not with false fear. Grant each one of them all that he needs with honour, give them health, honour and strength, give them stature, beauty, grace and kindness. May there be love, brotherhood and peace between them.

It is a beautiful prayer and one that parents, grandparents, godparents, the whole family and Church should be thinking about. We need to increase our prayer for our children in this war for their mind and heart that they may grow to become men and women of God.

Focus on the family have prayers published that can be used. Prayers such as:

Help our children to stand for what’s right instead of what’s easy but wrong.

Give them enough success to be certain of Your love for them, enough favour to be aware of Your kindness, but enough humility to know that they can do nothing worthwhile without You.

Show them Your holiness, and give them the power to live in a way that honours You.

We can all be Shelah people today as we go to Church and see the children who are there to worship a God who has special attention for them.

Lent day 32: Who is Eber?

Luke 3 v 35 “the son of Eber”

His name means “crossed over” or “traveller”. He was the father of Peleg (“divided”) but outlived his son by about 191 years.

Crossed Over outlived Divided.

The name is also derived from the same root as the name ‘Hebrew’.

Jewish tradition tells the story that Eber refused to help with the building of the Tower of Babel and so his language was not confused. He and his family alone retained the original human language, the language of Adam, a language named after Eber (Heber).

 

How true is that? Well, its tradition so who knows! But a lovely story it is.

One thing I have discovered is that those who are prepared to travel and cross over are ones who will sustain themselves in the work of God as opposed to those who specialise in division or making a name for themselves as there is a limit to self-exaltation before God steps in.

 

Will you cross over today?

 

Everyone else may be focusing on self-promotion and becoming big. But will you turn away and cross over, will you go beyond, will you travel into a changed season?

 

Will you face the fears and the psychological barriers that have been placed before you and even your previous generations and cross over? Joshua 3: 16 “the water from upstream stopped flowing. It piled up in a heap a great distance away, at a town called Adam in the vicinity of Zarethan, while the water flowing down to the Sea of the Arabah (that is, the Dead Sea) was completely cut off. So the people crossed over opposite Jericho.”

 

Will you be ready in the day of battle that is here now? Can you be counted on to stand your ground and cross over? Joshua 4:12 “The men of Reuben, Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh crossed over, ready for battle, in front of the Israelites, as Moses had directed them.”

 

The Lord will make a way for you but will you be brave enough to go for the change that is needed? Will you lead others to cross over too? Can you influence a town, a city, a region, a nation? Can you raise soldiers to advance like a troop and scale a wall and cross over into new territory? Joshua 4:13 “About forty thousand armed for battle crossed over before the Lord to the plains of Jericho for war.”

 

The Church in my nation needs leaders who will not remain in one place to promote themselves. The Church needs leaders who belong to a movement that move, that are not afraid to cross over, to make the changes, to make the Church relevant, to walk the ancient paths and see restoration of people to be people of God!

We need Eber people. Will you be an Eber today? Will you cross over? If you do you will outlive what is the norm. You will leave a legacy that will last long after you have gone.

Lent day 31: Who is Peleg?

Luke 3 v 35 “the son of Peleg”

In Genesis 10:25 we see why his name was Peleg: “Two sons were born

to Eber: One was named Peleg, because in his time the earth was

divided.”

 

There is an incredible story of human achievement immediately after the Genesis genealogy and then the family history of Peleg is mentioned again after this story. The story is the Tower of Babel and it could well be that Peleg was named because of it.

 

The people wanted to make a name for themselves and build a tower that would reach the heaven. It was a task full of pride and arrogance and it would lead to a constant battle between man’s kingdom and God’s kingdom. But before dismissing that story as evil think some more. If only those people were sanctified and were walking with God. Can you then imagine what they could do for God’s kingdom? Can you imagine:-

• Through the power of communication (one language).
• Through the power of oneness (unity).
• Through the power of imagination (thinking what could be).

 

Can you imagine what is possible then?

But they were not sanctified and so God’s judgment was to divide them. As the world has continued in its pride and arrogance it has continued to divide so today there are 7,111 languages spoken today and 23 languages accounting for half of the world’s population.

Yet Peleg sits in Luke’s genealogy of Christ which shows us that Jesus Christ came to heal division and reconcile all differences in Him.

So what is the plan of God? Is it to unite into one language? Wouldn’t that be easier for world evangelisation if everyone spoke English? No. Let’s use that story of division again.

1. God sees the danger of unity worse than the power of a unified language. Maybe it is because He knows the world cannot be trusted with one language. Maybe it would wipe out the gospel completely and not advance it. When you have seen the power of the gospel in a language you do not know then you understand that it is more effective in many languages than just one.
2. God can speak every language. The One who divided it is the One who speaks them all and to them all. Christianity isn’t tribal. The gospel is more beautiful when seen through the lens of difference.
3. God had the end result in mind when He divided the earth. He who divided will bring the whole earth together in their divided languages into a united mass of praise to Christ:, Revelation 7:9-“After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”

 

(It is worth noting that I am in full admiration of people like the Wycliffe Bible translators who state that the full Bible is now available in 683 different languages, giving over 5,714 million people access to Scripture in the language they understand best. The New Testament is available in another 1,534 languages, reaching another 699 million people. Selections and stories are available in a further 1,133 other languages, spoken by 424 million people!!)

 

Peleg was born at a time of division. What language does your neighbour speak? You may say you do not understand them (and they speak English!) but the gospel can reach them for sure! Don’t try and get them to speak your language (your language may have fallen into the language of Zion and become totally non-understandable!) but try and demonstrate the gospel in their language, whoever they are.

Lent day 30: Who is Reu?

Luke 3 v 35 “the son of Reu”

His father was Peleg whose name means ‘to divide’.

Peleg must have realised that division is not the best way to live your life and named his son Reu, meaning ‘friend’.

I agree with Peleg.

Yesterday I led one of my regular leadership meetings and after I spoke a Pastor asked to share his thoughts on my message and where he was in his life. He commenced respectfully by saying ‘You are my boss’ and instantly I responded with ‘No, I am your friend.’ I wasn’t surprised that came out of my mouth because that is how I live my life. The day before I came away from another leadership meeting and I was chastising myself. Not because of anything I had said but what I had done. I had offered a handshake to someone I normally embrace. Everyone who knows me knows after I get to know someone then I am a hugger! Though out of respect for some who I know are “hand-shakers only” I will respectfully not creep into their comfort zone! That Pastor was sat with a “hand-shaker only” and I knew it would be awkward to hug one and hand-shake the other. I didn’t know what to do! So I did hand-shakes only, but the problem was the Pastor came in for an embrace but was cut short and nearly fell into me, the hand-shake saved the Pastor from toppling forward! Oh the pressures of leadership!!

Now we don’t need to be people who go around embracing everyone, but we do need to be a friend.

On the night before his death, Jesus called his workers together and said this: “No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you” John 15:15

How would Jesus demonstrate this? He said, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” John 15:13

Never underestimate the power of being a friend, friendliness, friendship.

Even UK companies are understanding that a friendly work-place is a more productive one. In 2017 a survey amongst 120 diverse firms revealed that friendship at work was more important than the scale of their salary. Interestingly 81% of female workers prioritised workplace friendship over salary, yet 45% of their male equivalents opted for the financial reward. But even amongst men who don’t do friendship as well as women generally, it is still a high percentage.

I wonder if UK Churches focused on friendship more whether there would be a greater productivity.

I try and live by these principles regarding friendship:

1. Be nice and friendly to everyone, smile, be positive, change atmospheres to hopeful ones, redeem situations even if it hurts personally and you pay the price, negative responses often come from hurtful places, hurting people hurt people so the first blow is often a reaction or attention-seeking. Be generous of heart and pocket. Give time and energy. Every conversation is important. Call everyone a friend even if they are just acquaintances and especially be a ‘friend of sinners’ as it confuses the enemy who is trying to destroy them.

 

2. Be careful who you let in to your life. There are some people who will drain the very life from you, they will suck every ounce of joy from you and dump into your life such negative rubbish through their constant whinging and complaining, that something in you is going to die in that situation. You have the choice and the choice has to be made. You choose the type of people you want in your life. There are some that are only friends for the sunshine, it takes the clouds of life to blow them away and then you are left with your true friends. Adversity, mistakes and failures will prove your true friend.

 

3. Search for Agape friends. This is not a friendship based on a feeling or impulsive but a love that is constant, that looks beyond a person’s faults. Every relationship will have its time of testing, problems and difficulty. A friend loves at all times and a brother is born for adversity Pro 17:17 This covenant friendship is commitment. Covenant friendships are the joining by God of people together with a commitment that is long lasting, that will and has survived many hurts, trials and disappointments and misunderstandings. What kind of person do I want to become? Decide to find someone to walk with. Choose to walk with people whose thoughts, words and actions are what you would love to have yourself. Choose integrity, character. Choose wisdom, goodness, truth and discipline.

 

Let us all be Reu people today wherever we go and whatever we do. Go for the embrace but carry a hand-shake in reserve as it is needed on occasions but don’t confuse the two!

Lent day 29: Who is Serug?

Luke 3 v 35 “the son of Serug”

Serug whose name means ‘shoot’ or ‘branch’ was born in the 2^nd century after the flood and at a time where there was an expansion of the population leading to division and uncertainty. Idolatry was rising as man began to forget God and His promises. The close-knit community in the Ark was now so far removed from the value-less divided family. The command to fill the earth was dropped for the vision to make a name for ourselves (the tower of Babel). Was this 2019?

Into that moment a man called Reu names his son ‘shoot/branch’, Serug.

Serug is the hope that was needed. He was a fruitful branch that would begin something new, declaring a new season of returning to God.

He lived in a vast area of modern-day Irag, Syria and Turkey, known then as Mesopotamia (Genesis 10:30).

Today, we are Serug people.

We live amongst a rising idolatry, a Bible forgotten people where the family has been systematically broken down. In this generation and on our watch values that were the strength of society have been replaced with a desire to pursue personal dreams.

Wherever you live today, work, rest or play, you are Serug, a hopeful shoot and a representation of new life.

You may feel dwarfed by the vastness of your world. How can I make any impact here? I am just one of many.

You may feel inadequate. You may feel less than a branch, more like a reed and a broken one at that! But God will use you: “A bruised reed he will not break, and a smouldering wick he will not snuff out.” Isaiah 42:3

You are not just Serug, you are a follower of Jesus.

1. Isaiah 11:1 A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branchwill bear fruit.
2. Jeremiah 33:15 In those days and at that time I will make a righteous Branchsprout from David’s line; he will do what is just and right in the land.
3. Zechariah 3:8 Listen, High Priest Joshua, you and your associates seated before you, who are men symbolic of things to come: I am going to bring my servant, the Branch

You may feel small and intimidated. You may ask ‘what can I do?’ Just be Serug. And in the light of Jesus be a branch that bears fruit today (1), do what is just and right (2) and though you may feel like a burning stick be cleansed and speak grace to those around you (3, reading the whole of chapter 3).

Lent day 28: Who is Nahor?

Luke 3 v 34 “the son of Nahor”

There is uncertainty on the name but the Hebrew would indicate it means either to snore or to snort!

So he is either asleep or angry!

I wonder which you prefer? Or what does the world see when it looks at us the Church?

Are we asleep? Are we irrelevant? Are we not connected to what is the important issues for their lives? Church is a place to sleep.

Or are we against things? Angry with sinners who are making our world even more sinful? Church is a place for angry campaigns against everything.

Are we snoring or snorting?

AW Tozer wrote that if the Holy Spirit were completely withdrawn from the Church, “95 percent of what we do would go on and no one would know the difference”. Sigmund Freud said that we do things asleep we would not do if awake! The problem is we may be asleep but we hate the alarm clock. It can be disappointing being part of a group who are snoring.

Three times Jesus finds his closest 3 disciples sleeping whilst he is going through his trials. Though there was little chastising by him we can sense the disappointment.

Surviving your Gethsemane will mean that you need to keep on praying despite even the closest disappointing you. The key is ‘the spirit is willing but the body is weak.’

Salvador Dali has a painting which looks really strange at first sight. He paints the Gethsemane scene and Jesus is the central and largest figure on the canvas. He paints him in such a way that it looks like his spirit is larger than his body, like it is enveloping it. He also has painted the 3 disciples in the bottom right hand corner as very small figures revealing the weakness of the body.

The prayer during disappointment is the prayer that brings the eternal part of you, the God-focused, Christ-centred, Spirit-dwelt part of you to the surface and to make this the loudest voice, the clearest vision and the most powerful thought over what your body is experiencing.

We need to wake-up the Church. But we also need to make sure the Church is not snorting at the wrong people. There are always a few angry people near us. They are in every Church. But they are not as powerful as they think they are. Louder doesn’t mean more able. They may have conviction but they have not been discipled to carry their convictions or temper them and we need to find ways to love them because Jesus died for them. However, we need to direct their anger to the right place. When Jesus walked around the Temple he was angry because of the exploitation of the poor which was happening inside the place of prayer. That is what we need to be angry about.

Nahor people are either asleep or angry and we need to know what to do with them.

Lent day 27: Who is Terah?

Luke 3 v 34 “the son of Terah”

Genesis 11: 27-32 “This is the account of Terah’s family line. Terah became the father of Abram, Nahor and Haran. And Haran became the father of Lot. ²⁸ While his father Terah was still alive, Haran died in Ur of the Chaldeans, in the land of his birth. ²⁹ Abram and Nahor both married. The name of Abram’s wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor’s wife was Milkah; she was the daughter of Haran, the father of both Milkah and Iskah. ³⁰ Now Sarai was childless because she was not able to conceive. ³¹ Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, the wife of his son Abram, and together they set out from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to Canaan. But when they came to Harran, they settled there. ³² Terah lived 205 years, and he died in Harran.”

Settled is always a great word if that was your destination.

But if it is a stopping off place then it becomes a place of compromise;

a place where you gave up on the journey;

a place of dying dreams.

What have you settled for? Is it second best to what you intended or where you wanted to go?

Terah died neither in the place of his origin nor in the place of his dreams.

He had let go but had not took hold.

Not every dream should be fulfilled nor every journey followed.

His firstborn son, Haran, died. His name means ‘mountaineer’ but he was cut off in his prime perhaps and would never see his dreams and more to the point Terah would not see his son fulfil those dreams.

Terah’s name means ‘wanderer’ and this man who was an idol-worshipper seems to have lived up to his name in that in his grief he wandered off heading to Canaan but as we see never really set out with a solid intent of arriving there. Strangely and sadly for him they pass through the place of his son’s name, Harran. He cannot get past that place. He cannot move on. He had said goodbye to his son before and now he is stuck and cannot move away again. His grief and loss capture him and he dies there in Harran.

It is an incredible sad story all too prevalent today.

We must continue to do all we can to move on from hurt and loss.

Today we follow Jesus who has said there is coming a day when “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” Revelation 21:4

Lent day 26: Who is Abraham?

Luke 3 v 34 “the son of Abraham”

So where do we begin?!

God changed Abram’s “exalted father” name to “Abraham,” “father of a multitude.”

I want us to look at a certain moment of Abraham’s life which he is famous for. It is the moment when the angel of the Lord (which could well have been a theophany of the Son of God appearing on earth for a short appearance in human form) says to Abraham these words:

“Now I know that you fear God” Genesis 22:12

Up to this point Abraham’s credentials to be the father of all nations and the father of 3 of the world’s largest religions was quite suspect!

A man more afraid than full of faith and more used to lying if needed rather than speak the truth despite the consequences. Genesis 12:10-20; 20:1-13: in both passages he is afraid for his life and so announces his wife is his sister.

A man who ‘Ishmaeled’ his ‘Isaac’ taking things into his own hands instead of asking God. Genesis 16:2-3

A man who couldn’t lead his own family very well. Genesis 16: 5-6 he is passive when Sarah abuses Hagar in jealous anger and in ch.19 his brother Lot has to be dragged from wicked Sodom and then weeks later his daughters decide to get him drunk so that they could sleep with him and become pregnant!

So there is hope for us all!

However our list of credentials would probably be longer than Abraham’s!

But how does God know we are ready to be blessed by Him? See the verse 22:12 above again.

Blessing is not automatic.

God would have delayed or even bypassed Abraham if he had failed the test.

So how does God know we are ready?

It is in what we will give up.

Will we let go of something precious to us?

Why is this important? It is because it mirrors Him. God gave up His only Son for us.

If as disciples we follow Jesus then we also are called to surrender and give to God our all, our everything.

When we do we will hear those words also “Now I know (you are ready for blessing)”