Passage of the Day: Reference of Today’s Chronological Bible Study: Genesis, Chapters 30-31 … To study these chapters, go to this link -
Genesis 30: 1-5: … [Horizontal Impatience Ignoring Vertical Guidance] … 1 When Rachel saw that she was not bearing Jacob any children, she became jealous of her sister. So she said to Jacob, “Give me children, or I’ll die!” 2 Jacob became angry with her and said, “Am I in the place of God, who has kept you from having children?” 3 Then she said, “Here is Bilhah, my servant. Sleep with her so that she can bear children for me and I too can build a family through her.” 4 So she gave him her servant Bilhah as a wife. Jacob slept with her, 5 and she became pregnant and bore him a son.
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Genesis 30: 22-24: … [Waiting on God Pays Godly Dividends] … 22 Then God remembered Rachel; he listened to her and enabled her to conceive. 23 She became pregnant and gave birth to a son and said, “God has taken away my disgrace.” 24 She named him Joseph, and said, “May the LORD add to me another son.”
My Journal for Today: Are we getting the message yet? For a number of these devotionals in Genesis dealing with the lives of the great Patriarchs of the faith, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, we see a message weaving itself repeatedly through the lives and stories of these men, their wives, and their children. And if you’ve been reading along with me, what do you think that message is?
Yes, it reads through loud and clear, doesn’t it >>> WAIT ON GOD!!”
And I’m not going to go into great depth here in this journal entry by reviewing all that the story of Abraham and his family has taught us about this issue in these past readings this month in Genesis. But quickly, some of the prime lessons – at least for this humble seeker - are …
>>> First, we need to wait on God by seeking His will and then move by following it. … How often did we see Abraham’s family try to circumvent God’s promises and His will with their own planning, only to find their run-on-ahead schemes causing great problems into the future of the family and for mankind.
>>> Secondly, our horizontal planning can never be as good as God’s will and purpose for our lives. An old friend, who’s now with Jesus, used to tell me, “First obedience, then the blessing!” And that is so right on target. When we seek out God’s will, primarily from His word, even if we have to wait and wait, knowing that our heavenly Father always knows best, we’ll come out a winner for the wait.
>>> Thirdly, as Christians, it often boils down to how much we believe the truth of Romans 8: 28; and I hope that we all have memorized and internalized that one and are faithfully comforted and directed by its truth in our lives.
>>> And finally, we need always to remember, as New Covenant Christians, having so much more of an advantage over Abraham and his roller-coaster examples of faith and faithlessness, we have the record of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection; and we have, as committed members of His Church, i.e., the Bride of Christ, the sealing ministry of God’s Spirit, indwelling us to give us the grace of sanctification as well as the grace of salvation. In this, all we need to do is live as a disciple of Jesus, the Christ and our Messiah, Who told all of His disciples, … to deny ourselves and follow Him … to love others as we love the Lord, … and to go and make disciples, with the power of Christ always with us to carry out His commission.
So, I hope you join me … to follow Him … and to go as we’re called to, being patient to follow His way and to lead others to Him by living as we are directed by His truth from His word.
My Prayer Today: … Lord, may we wait by seeking, and then follow to go, leading others to You and Your way through Your word. Amen
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