June 23rd, 2011 by Kristi Stephens

From time to time through this One Summer, One Story series, I’d like to step away from the “main” storyline briefly to share some devotional thoughts on some of the names of God.

So, today I’m sharing with you some devotional thoughts on God as El Roi: The God Who Sees, as He is named in Genesis 16 by Hagar.

{And it’s my first “vlog!” If you can’t see the video below in your reader or email, consider clicking through?}

How does it impact you personally that God is El Roi, that He sees you?

June 22nd, 2011 by Kristi Stephens

Image via Wikipedia

Yesterday we looked at God’s amazing covenant with Abram – a reminder that though His timetable was not what Abram expected, He was completely in control of it all.

And then, we turn to Genesis 16.

Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar; so she said to Abram, “The LORD has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my maidservant; perhaps I can build a family through her.”

Genesis 16:1-2

Oh, dear.

I’ve heard people be pretty hard on Abram and Sarai. I’ve been pretty hard on them myself at times. But how many times have I found myself running ahead of God? I know He has set me on a certain course, so I recklessly charge ahead rather than waiting for His direction and timing. My timing seems more… reasonable.

Sarai felt that she had waited long enough. She must have misunderstood God’s plan – He said Abram would have a son… perhaps she was the weak link.

Sarai’s plan, which Abram willingly endorsed, was an attempt to help God – to fill in an apparent oversight on His part. The outcome was not what she had hoped.

Abram agreed to what Sarai said. So after Abram had been living in Canaan ten years, Sarai his wife took her Egyptian maidservant Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife. He slept with Hagar, and she conceived.

When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress. Then Sarai said to Abram, “You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. I put my servant in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the LORD judge between you and me.”

“Your servant is in your hands,” Abram said. “Do with her whatever you think best.” Then Sarai mistreated Hagar; so she fled from her…”

Genesis 16:2-6

Sarai’s “helping” caused (not surprisingly!) a huge rift in her marriage, hostility between her and Hagar, and eventually ongoing hostility between Ishmael and Isaac, the son God had promised to them who would be born years later.

God is a covenant-making, covenant-keeping God. When God calls a husband or a wife to a great work, He calls them both. They are one, bound by the covenant of marriage. For those of you who are married, your marriage matters to God. While there certainly can be times when one spouse’s desire to follow and obey God wholeheartedly may cause stress on a relationship with a resistant husband or wife, God does not call us to disregard, fracture, or violate the covenant of marriage.

I am a dreamer, a big-picture excitable thinker who is idealistic and passionate and tends to figure things out as I go. God has blessed me with a husband who is careful, deliberate, realistic, and hesitant to make a quick decision. When God lays something on our hearts, I’m ready to GO and do it NOW. NP rarely is. Does that mean he is a spiritual handicap to me, a hurdle that I should leap over in a single bound? God has taught me time and time again over the years to slow down, allow NP to lead me, submit to his leadership, hold my excitable tongue, and pray that God will give us a unified heart and mind in His timing to show us exactly what He has for us to do. Learning to pray and wait has been a lesson in trusting God’s timing all of its own – and I can only imagine the heartache and poor decisions God has spared me from under the protective umbrella of my husband’s leadership.

Are you running ahead of God? Are you running ahead of your spouse?

Friends, God doesn’t need you to “help.” Do you feel unclear, uncertain, not sure of how the timing will unfold? Pray for clarity. Trust His sovereignty. Wait patiently – and know that God will never call you to violate Scriptural principles in order to accomplish His will.

If you’ve missed anything in the One Summer, One Story series, you can find all the posts indexed here!
This post is linked up to Women Living Well Wedensdays.

June 21st, 2011 by Kristi Stephens

Image from visualbiblealive.com

It’s hard to wait on God sometimes.

He is never in a hurry, while “now” is our preferred time table. His perspective is eternal, while our vision is limited. His ways are not our ways, His thoughts are not our thoughts. He is never late, and He is never early – our times are in His hands.

It is so easy to fear, so easy to wonder if God has forgotten us in the waiting room. Abram was no different.

…the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision:

“Do not be afraid, Abram.
I am your shield,
your very great reward.

Genesis 15:1

God’s words are trustworthy, reassuring. But Abram wanted details.

But Abram said, “O Sovereign LORD, what can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?” And Abram said, “You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir.”

Then the word of the LORD came to him: “This man will not be your heir, but a son coming from your own body will be your heir.” He took him outside and said, “Look up at the heavens and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”

Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness.

He also said to him, “I am the LORD, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it.”

But Abram said, “O Sovereign LORD, how can I know that I will gain possession of it?”

Genesis 15:2-8

God had promised Abram three things: offspring that would eventually become a great nation, a land of their own, and eventually the Promised One who would bless the whole world. Abram had no children, he lived in tents and wandered as an alien with no home of his own. He believed God, he really did. In fact, it was his faith that caused him to be counted as righteousness in God’s sight. But he was human – and his question echoes in our hearts, fellow humans who have often asked the same thing. “O Sovereign LORD, how can I know…?”

God’s response seems strange to us, removed from Abram by thousands of years. But it was a clear and powerful statement.

So the LORD said to him, “Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon.”

Abram brought all these to him, cut them in two and arranged the halves opposite each other; the birds, however, he did not cut in half. Then birds of prey came down on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away.

As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him. Then the LORD said to him, “Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own…

When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces. On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram and said, “To your descendants I give this land…”

Genesis 15:9-18

This whole ceremony seems strange and… icky… to us. But what really was happening is that God was “cutting a covenant” with Abram. The root of the Hebrew word “covenant” is actually “to cut.” When two parties wished to make a covenant with one another, they would cut and arrange animals as Abram did, and then the parties making the covenants with one another would walk between the animal halves together, basically saying, “if I fail to hold up my part of this covenant, may I be like these animals on either side of me.”

But notice – Abram didn’t participate in the actual ceremony. God put him into a deep sleep – and walked through alone.

This covenant with Abram was one-sided. It depended upon God alone. God’s plans will always prevail.

Are you wrestling with fear? Are you struggling with God’s timetable being far different from yours?

Know for certain – He is sovereign and nothing has slipped from His notice, nothing is out of control, nothing has taken Him by surprise.
Know for certain – You are more deeply broken than you can bear to admit, but He loves you more deeply than you are able to comprehend.
Know for certain – His plans will always prevail.

Just like Noah, Abram did not deserve God’s favor. He brought nothing to the table other than his genuine faith, which evidenced itself in obedience. God cut the covenant alone.

You do not deserve God’s favor. You need to bring nothing to Him other than genuine faith, which will evidence itself in your obedience. Jesus paid the penalty – alone.

If you’ve missed anything in the One Summer, One Story series, you can find all the posts indexed here! If this post was meaningful to you, would you consider sharing it on facebook or twitter? Please pray with me that God will use this series in powerful ways!

June 20th, 2011 by Kristi Stephens

Image from visualbiblealive.com

Throughout this summer we will be doing a fast-paced overview of the “Big Story” of the Bible – the underlying plot that ties the smaller stories of Scripture together. If you’ve missed anything, you can find all the posts indexed here!

After Babel, people scattered over the earth and largely stopped believing God yet again. Generations later in the affluent city of Ur there lived one man named Abram who was singled out to follow God in a unique way.

“The LORD had said to Abram,“Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you.

“I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you;
I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”

So Abram left, as the LORD had told him…”

Genesis 12:1-4

God calls Abram out as His own and then He makes three distinct promises:

1. Land – “…go to the land I will show you…”
2. Nation – “I will make you into a great nation…”
3. Leader – “…all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”

God promises that Abram, currently childless, will one day have offspring that will comprise an entire nation. This nation of people would occupy their own land, and one day, all nations would be blessed through Abram.

So, why are we calling this the “Leader” promise? In Galations 3, Paul makes a very interesting statement about this passage.

The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: “All nations will be blessed through you.”

Galatians 3:8

So, where is the Gospel in the promise of God blessing the world through Abram? In Genesis 3, Adam and Eve have a glimpse of Jesus in the promise that one day the serpent would be crushed. In Genesis 12, Abram is given another glimpse – his future son would become a great nation, and through that nation would come the Promised One – and through that Promised One, the serpent would be crushed and the entire world would be blessed.

Adam had responded to God’s promise by naming Eve.

Abram’s response?

So Abram left, as the LORD had told him… (Genesis 12:4)

Three simple words. So Abram left. God communicates with him these unbelievable, incomprehensible promises with eternal ramifications. Did Abram ask for clarification? No questions are recorded. Did he hesitate, did he long to continue his life in Ur? We’re not told. All we know is this: God said go, and so he left.

When God tells us about the Redeemer, real faith demands action.

Friends, we cannot say that we believe in Jesus Christ as our Savior, claim to love Him, and then cling to our past and our physical comfort and our own dreams for what life should be like in our “Ur.”

Jesus Christ is the Promised One. Through Him, all the world has been and will be blessed. He is the promised offspring of Eve who crushed the serpent. This is truth.

Have you left your “Ur?” Real faith is willing to leave it all behind.

Because God’s promise is better than Ur.