Every Day With God

Read Genesis 31:1-55

My wife and I dated long distance for the first two and a half years of our relationship.  In a day without e-mail, Facebook, texting, or even good long-distance calling plans, our communication was largely through handwritten letters.  In those letters, we would often seek to encourage one another with Bible passages.  I can remember citing Genesis 31:49:

“May the Lord keep watch between you and me when we are away from each other.”  (v. 49)

Now, I look back in embarrassment at that!  As I read that verse in its context, I discover that it was a part of a covenant between Jacob and Laban in the hill country of Gilead, in which they expressed their mistrust in one another.

Indeed, the two of them were interesting characters.  Jacob had his own history of deception.  He had taken his brother’s birthright at a vulnerable time in Esau’s life (Gen. 25).  Later, he had stolen his brother’s blessing through a conniving plan that he and his mother had put together (Gen. 27).

But Jacob met his match in Laban.  Jacob wanted to marry Laban’s younger daughter.  In exchange, Jacob agreed to serve his father-in-law for seven years.  Through a convoluted series of decisions made by Laban, however, Jacob had given twenty years of his life in service to dear old dad.

Now, it was time to part ways.  God had made it clear that Jacob was to take his family and his flocks and return to the land promised to his father Isaac and grandfather Abraham.  And so they snuck off.  Soon, Laban caught up with them.  With what must have been tense words, Jacob and Laban made a rock pile that was designed to remind them of the conditions for a covenant:

• Jacob was to mindfully care for Laban’s daughters and not marry any others.
• The stones were to serve as a boundary between the two.  Neither was to pass over into the land of the other.

This “mountaintop” experience in the Bible certainly does not fit well into a stereotype of incredible encounters with God.  It does, however, point to an unfortunate reality.  Some relationships require the establishment of healthy boundaries.  We need incredible wisdom in identifying which relationships those are and what boundaries are both protective and biblical.

Steve Kern

Read Genesis 22:1-24

Abraham had left Haran decades earlier with a promise that must have sounded almost too good to be true.  He would inherit land.  He would be the father of a great nation.  And his descendants would become the source of blessing to others.

But shortly after seeing his new real estate for the first time, famine forced him to a neighboring country.  And, as to his descendants, Abraham and Sarah just couldn’t seem to conceive.

Finally, twenty-five years after receiving the promise, with both of them beyond the age of normal child bearing, their son, Isaac was born.  He was a miracle and the fulfillment of a promise.  But then came God’s instruction that would seem to contradict all of those years of struggle and anticipation:

“Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.”  (v. 2)

Every time I read those instructions, my fatherly instincts kick in.  How could God ask that of any father?  How could any father follow through?  As if to magnify the difficulty, God further describes Isaac as “your only son.”  He was the son of promise that God had in mind decades before.  God goes on to describe Isaac as the one “whom you love.”  Abraham’s attachment to this lad was indescribable.

How could Abraham ever follow God’s instruction?  By faith.  That’s what it says in Hebrews 11:17-19.  Mt. Moriah, you see, was a place of faith.

But Mt. Moriah was also a place of provision.  If God had promised an outcome and commanded an action, He must have a plan that can be trusted.  You see, the instruction He gave Abraham was only a test.  Instead of Isaac, the ram caught in the thicket became the sacrifice.  God provided a substitute…much as He did when Christ went to the cross for us.

And that’s where we see the events on Mt. Moriah on that day as also a foreshadow of
things that were yet to come.  God, our heavenly Father, would take His one and only Son, the Son whom He loves, and sacrifice Him so that we might live forever with Him.

(By the way, Mt. Moriah eventually became the site on which Solomon’s temple was built.)

Steve Kern

Read Genesis 8:1-9:17

There is something about mountains that attract our attention.  Their towering majesty seems to provide an almost magnetic draw for many.  Others are not just content to be near them, admiring their beauty from a nearby valley.  These people feel the need to be in them as part of the mass, or even on them as one looking out at the valleys below.  I have been near, in, and on three different mountain ranges in my life:  the Rockies, the Smokies, and the Alps.

But our 21^st century fascination with mountains is not unique.  The Bible describes several mountains that came to have special, historical and spiritual significance.  It seems that God often chose mountains as the location for significant milestone events.  Over the next several days, we will explore many of these in more details.

The mountains of Ararat are among the first peaks to capture our attention on the biblical skyline.  Located in present-day Turkey near the Iranian and Armenian borders, these mountains provided not only the catcher’s mitt for the ark, but also the backdrop for some important instruction from God.  This instruction included:

1. A new promise – God promised to never again destroy the entire earth with a flood (9:8-17).  As a visible reminder of this precious covenant, God has given us the rainbow.
2. A renewed command – Once again, God told Noah and his family to be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth (8:17, 9:7).  From the very beginning God had placed great value on procreation and the populating of the globe He had created (Gen. 1:28).
3.  A new diet – Up to this point, men and women seem to have only enjoyed a vegetarian diet (Gen. 1:29).  Starting at Ararat, however, God gave man the freedom to eat meat as well (Gen. 9:3, 4).
4. The roots of government – It was first at Ararat that God gave Noah and his family the responsibility for punishing wrong.  While God would later outline more specific laws that men and women were to adhere to, here He clearly identifies murder as a punishable offense.

Though thousands of miles stand between us and Ararat and thousands of years have passed since those events, we still live in the shadow of those instructions given.

Steve Kern