2 Samuel 1, Ezekiel 10

Read 2 Samuel 1 and Ezekiel 10.

This devotional is about 2 Samuel 1

First Samuel ended with Saul committing suicide (31:4d) in order to escape torture at the hands of the Philistines (31:4c) after he was mortally wounded (v. 3c). Second Samuel began with David learning of Saul and Jonathan’s deaths (vv. 1-4). The man who reported their deaths claimed to have killed Saul at Saul’s command (vv. 6-9) which differs with the account given in 1 Samuel 31. What do we make of this difference?

The man’s account may be true. If so, then Saul did fall on his own sword in 1 Samuel 31 but this Amalekite finished him off. This chapter, then, adds additional information to 1 Samuel 31.

Or, the man’s account may be false. In that case, then, 1 Samuel 31 described how Saul actually died. In this chapter, the Amalekite found Saul dead but took credit for killing him in a way that sounds compassionate. His reasoning may have been that it was merciful to end Saul’s suffering quickly and that David would approve of his actions as if he did the right thing. In other words, the Amalekite lied and brought Saul’s crown and arm band to David to ingratiate himself with the new king.

I tend to think the second explanation is the correct one, but either could be correct and we just don’t know. Regardless of what the actual truth is, David judged the man based on his words (v. 16). Instead of being grateful to the man, David was incensed that he would take the life of the man God had chosen to be anointed king (v. 14). What this passage reveals, then, is one of the character qualities that made David “a man after God’s own heart.” In this case, it was David’s submission to and respect for God-ordained authority.

We see David’s submission to Saul in two ways here 2 Samuel 1:

First, David referred to Saul as “the Lord’s anointed” twice (vv. 14, 16) and punished the Amalekite for killing Saul. By calling Saul, “the Lord’s anointed,” David was bowing to the will of God and the authority God invested in king Saul. Saul mistreated David wickedly, but David remained loyal to his king to the very end of his life.

Second, David eulogized Saul, even saying that Saul (and Jonathan) were “loved and admired” (v. 23). That goes against human nature; we tend to kick dirt on people who have sinned against us. It is even more delightful to our sinful nature when a leader we dislike falls. But David was genuinely sorrowful at the death of Saul because David loved and trusted in God.

David did some wicked things in his life but the absolute submission he showed to God’s will demonstrates that he was a man who walked with God. If you were tested this way, could you submit to God’s will? If you were asked to be a pallbearer at your boss’s funeral, would you be able and willing to do it? Could you stand by, availably, waiting for a long time before getting what you want, like David did?

Think about these things and the remarkable strength of character they require. Then ask God to strengthen YOUR character, to help you to love your enemies, to submit to his will, and to wait for his timing.

1 Samuel 27, Ezekiel 6

Read 1 Samuel 27 and Ezekiel 6.

This devotional is about 1 Samuel 27.

It must have been discouraging and exhausting to live like a nomad in the desert constantly on the run from Saul. The logistics of living like that are hard to imagine. Verse 2 told us that David had 600 men with him and verse 3 records, “Each man had his family with him, and David had his two wives….” So the number of people involved in David’s nomadic group was at least 1,200 and probably many more assuming that these families had children. It was a big job, I’m sure, finding food and water for these people day after day plus a suitable place to camp when they needed to move to maintain their security.

On top of the difficulty of living this way, Saul’s hunt for David left Israel at risk from her enemies. Back in 1 Samuel 23, the Philistines attacked Israel while Saul was out chasing David (23:27-28). Maybe their timing was fortunate or maybe they knew that Saul was preoccupied with David; either way, Israel was not ready to defend itself while the king and his army was out trying to kill the next man who would be king.

In light of all of this, David decided, according to verse 1 here in chapter 27, to try living with the Philistines again. Remember that he had come to Achish king of the Philistines back in 1 Samuel 21:10 but that time he was alone (21:1) and vulnerable. This time, here in 1 Samuel 27, he was traveling with a large group of fighting men and their families; furthermore, it was now known that Saul regarded him as an enemy (v. 12). Maybe you’ve heard the secular, military proverb, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Achish felt it applied in this situation. So David and his men were given asylum first in the capital city of Gath (v. 4) and then a more private and comfortable distance from Achish in Ziklag (vv. 5-6). This move allowed these families to settle down and lead a more peaceful life because Saul did not go looking for David in Philistine territory (v. 4).

What did David and his men do during this year and four months living in Ziklag (vv. 6-7)? One thing they did was make Ziklag part of Israel (v. 6b). This town was located in the territory God had assigned to Judah but God’s people had not obeyed the Lord and taken control of it yet. Now, through David’s actions, they owned this place God had promised to them.

In addition to Ziklag, David and his army invaded other nations south of the promised land that God had told Israel to conquer, namely “the Geshurites, the Girzites and the Amalekites” (v. 8). Again, God had commanded Israel to attack and extinguish these people because of their sins against him. Although David was evasive with his reports to Achish about where he was fighting (v. 10), he and his men were doing what Israel’s army was supposed to be doing.

So David and his men were at risk from their true king Saul and, for their own safety and well-being, were temporarily subject to a king who did not know God. They were subordinate to ungodly, disobedient leaders yet they had the ability to do the will of God anyway by attacking Israel’s enemies.

Have you ever had a time in your life when you were accountable to an ungodly or maybe just an unwise leader and there was little you could do about it? Maybe you’re in that position now–you’re married to an unbelieving husband, have unbelieving parents, are trying to graduate from a school taught and run by unbelievers, or work a job under a foolish boss. What do you do? The answer is you do the will of God as much as possible. God’s commands provided the moral compass David and his men needed during this strange period in their lives. Let God’s word point you in the direction where you should go, too. Do what is moral and right and just in God’s sight with whatever freedom you have. Let the wisdom sayings of Proverbs help you do what will bring prosperity within the will of God. Put your hope in God and look for deliverance from that situation, but while you wait for the deliverance, do what you can to advance God’s interests and will.

1 Samuel 11, Jeremiah 48

Read 1 Samuel 11 and Jeremiah 48.

This devotional is about Jeremiah 48.

In this chapter, Jeremiah prophesied judgment for the people of Moab. Moab was established and had lived a peaceful existence for many years (v. 11) but now God prophesied military defeat and exile for her (v. 12). The same Babylonians that took Judah would take Moab as well. This would be a military defeat (vv. 8, 15) but God would be the one causing this destruction. Verse 10 goes so far as to say that the invading, killing soldiers would be “doing the Lord’s work!” So the military loss would actually be an act of God’s judgment (v. 15).

On what basis would God judge Moab? Three verses in this chapter spell it out.

  • Verse 7 says, “Since you trust in your deeds and riches, you too will be taken captive….”
  • Verse 42 says, “Moab will be destroyed as a nation because she defied the Lord.”
    And in what way specifically did Moab defy the Lord? The third verse answers:
  • Verse 35: “‘In Moab I will put an end to those who make offerings on the high places and burn incense to their gods,’ declares the Lord.”

Idolatry was the reason for Moab’s judgment. At the heart of idolatry is self-trust. Again, verse 7 says, “Since you trust in your deeds and riches….” Worshipping other gods is not a sincere attempt to find truth, to meet the real God; it is trust in self instead. Instead of believing God’s word, the idolator thinks, “This religion has a better idea” or “I believe this god is true because he is more to my liking.”

As Christians, we are tempted still to trust ourselves instead of submitting to the word of God. We trust our “deeds and riches” (v. 7) when we don’t like what God commands or when we think we see a better way than what the Bible teaches.

Are there any areas of your life where you are trusting yourself instead of trusting God and obeying his commands?

Judges 18, Jeremiah 32

Read Judges 18, Jeremiah 32.

This devotional is about Jeremiah 32.

In the first section of Jeremiah 32, Jerusalem is in big trouble. Nebuchadnezzar had the city under siege (v. 2), which means he was going to starve the people into surrender. Jeremiah, likewise, was in trouble. Not only was he in Jerusalem, he was incarcerated in the palace (v. 2b-5). While in this predicament, Jeremiah’s uncle approached him wanting to do business. Specifically, he wanted Jeremiah to buy some land from him (v. 8). God had told Jeremiah this would happen (vv. 6-7), so Jeremiah bought the field and made it all official (vv. 9-12). Then Jeremiah had the deed preserved in a clay jar (vv. 14-15).

That was an object lesson and its purpose was to demonstrate that God was not finished with Jerusalem. Although he was warning the people that their city would fall to the Babylonians, after 70 years in captivity, God’s people would be returned to this land. Jeremiah’s family, then, would be able to use the field that Jeremiah purchased.

After this, Jeremiah prayed an eloquent, worshipful, God-honoring prayer (vv. 17-25). He praised the Lord as Creator (v. 17a), all-powerful (v. 17b), loving and just (v. 18a-b), exalted and powerful (v. 18c), wise and all-knowing (v. 19), revealing (v. 20), redeeming (v. 21), and covenant-keeping (v. 22). He also acknowledged the guilt of Israel (v. 23), a form of repentance.

That prayer is a great model for us in our prayers. In a very dire situation, Jeremiah worshipped God personally and specifically and confessed sin before asking for God’s help in verse 24-25.

What is your prayer life like? Is it like ordering in a fast-food drive in? You fly in, demand what you want from God, and expect it to be “hot and ready” when you expect?

Or do you take time to love God with our words, asking for his help but acknowledging that his will may be very different from what we want. This is reverent prayer. This is what it means to bow before the Lord, not just symbolically with your posture but in every way submitting yourself to our Almighty Master?

Are you willing to accept the kind of “no” to your prayers that Jeremiah received in this passage?

Can you hold on to God’s promises even if he waits for generations before keeping them?

Judges 14, Jeremiah 27

Read Judges 14 and Jeremiah 27.

This devotional is about Jeremiah 27.

God commanded his prophets to do some strange things at times. These strange things had a point, however, which was to deliver God’s truth in vivid, memorable ways. Here in Jeremiah 27, the prophet was commanded to take the yoke that oxen would wear and put it on his own neck. (v. 2). People used these yokes to get animals to submit to them and plow their fields. The yoke, then, is a symbol of submission. God told the prophet to use this visual aid to teach people that they should just go ahead and submit to Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian king. It would be easier for everyone and cost many fewer human lives (v. 8) than trying to defeat Nebuchadnezzar outside the will of God (vv. 5-7).

This visual aid is unusual but so was the audience for Jeremiah’s prophecy. God told him to spread this message to “the kings of Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre and Sidon through the envoys who have come to Jerusalem to Zedekiah king of Judah” (v. 3). Most of the time God’s prophets were sent to his people, Israel and Judah. This time God sent his word from the prophet to several nations. That wasn’t unheard of but it was unusual.

The kings of these pagan lands had their own gods so I wonder if they would think it strange that the God of Israel would try to tell them what to do. God anticipated that objection and affirmed his Sovereign right because he is the Creator: “With my great power and outstretched arm I made the earth and its people and the animals that are on it, and I give it to anyone I please” (v. 5).

Other nations have their gods but their gods are fake. Only Israel’s God–our God–is the true God. Because he created everything, he has the right to rule everyone and require everyone’s obedience. Keep this in mind when unbelievers tell you that they have their own religion or that they don’t believe the Bible so it is not important what the Bible says. These are attempts to evade their accountability to God. But because God is Creator, they are accountable to him. Indeed, everyone on earth will stand before God and answer to him whether they submitted to his word or not.

Every person who ever lived is responsible to obey God’s word. Unbelievers are not off the hook because of their unbelief; to the contrary, their unbelief is one of many ways in which they live in rebellion to the true God. Unbelievers are responsible to obey God but they are not capable of obeying him.

Neither are we.

That is why we needed Christ to come into the world. He obeyed God for us (we call this his “active obedience”) and to die for our sins (this is his “passive obedience”). Unbelievers don’t get out of accountability by denying God or his word; they avoid God’s judgment by receiving his grace.

Joshua 20-21, Jeremiah 10

Read Joshua 20-21 and Jeremiah 10.

This devotional is about Jeremiah 10:23-25.

Here we are, ten chapters into the prophecies of Jeremiah and many more chapters to go. And what have we been reading? Condemnation of sin and predictions of judgment, mostly.

Chapter 10 here is no exception. God spoke to his people (v. 1a) urging them to stop following the idolatry of other nations (vv. 2-5, 8-11) and instead to fear God (vv. 6-7) the true God (v. 10) and creator of all things (vv. 11-16). So, verses 1-16 hit the “condemnation of sin” button pretty hard.

Beginning in verse 17, the “predictions of judgment” began. You might as well pack up and leave now (v. 17) because you’ll be leaving one way or the other (v. 18).

After all this, Jeremiah cried out to the Lord in verses 23-25. He did not ask God to reconsider his plan for judgment or try to make a case that his people were undeserving of God’s wrath. Instead, he humbly submitted himself to the will of God (v. 23) and asked God to use the coming problems as an act of discipline, not anger (v. 24). Finally, he asked for God’s wrath to fall on Israel’s enemies for their sins against God’s people (v. 25).

What strikes me here in this section (vv. 23-25) is the tender-hearted humility of Jeremiah. Despite being a faithful prophet of God and a godly man, he knew that his life was not perfect before God. Instead of asking God to focus on “the real sinners” out there first, he asked for God to bring the loving hand of discipline into his own life, breaking his will and his sin-patterns without personally breaking him apart (v. 24c). This is an attitude far from our natural inclination to feel that God has treated us unjustly if something unpleasant comes into our lives. It shows his reverence for God, a recognition of God’s absolute lordship over everyone (v. 23).

Is this the attitude you bring to your walk with God? Have you ever asked God to discipline you, to purge out from your heart and your life anything that displeases him? It is a scary thing to ask for because God’s discipline can be very painful. Yet, as a loving Father, we can trust him not to pulverize us as he does his enemies, but to deliver a healing wound, like a surgeon does. When the doctor cuts a person open to remove the cancer from his body, a painful wound results and, even after that heals, a permanent scar is often left behind. Yet we thank the surgeon for healing us instead of complaining about the wound and the scars.

So it is with our Lord. When he hurts his children, it is for our ultimate good, our spiritual growth, to strengthen us to live more holy lives. May we emulate the prayer of Jeremiah in those moments of pain.

Numbers 24, Isaiah 14, Psalm 129

Read Numbers 24, Isaiah 14, and Psalm 129.

This devotional is about Numbers 24.

Balak had a strange idea of what prophets do. He believed that any word a prophet spoke would become reality. His idea was that paying Balaam to curse Israel meant that Israel would be cursed automatically. Balaam told him repeatedly that he could only do what God empowered him to do (for example, verse 12), but Balak couldn’t understand. In verse 10 we read, “Then Balak’s anger burned against Balaam. He struck his hands together and said to him, “I summoned you to curse my enemies, but you have blessed them these three times.”

The theology behind Balak’s plan to curse Israel was that God exists to serve us like a cosmic vending machine. Put in the right coins, make your request, and out comes exactly what you want. He assumed that God would do whatever a “holy man” like Balaam asked.

It is comical to read this section and see Balak’s reaction to Balaam’s prophetic blessings. But we act this way ourselves sometimes. We believe that God must answer our prayers the way that we want. We may say, “if it is your will” in our prayers but if it isn’t God’s will, it bothers us. One thing these chapters about Balak and Balaam teach us is that God Almighty is not under our control; he’s not there for us to control. He controls us and we submit to him and what he wills to do.

I think it is also important to point out that Balak wanted God to do something that was outside of his moral will. God had expressed his intention to bless Israel for generations. Asking God to do the opposite of what he said he would do in his word is a way of praying that God is never going to bless with yes. People do that today, too, ignoring God’s written word and asking him to do something that is contrary to it.

Do you have any of this kind of “Balak theology” in you? Balak was an unbeliever but we believers can slip into this kind of thinking, too. Ask God to give you a submissive heart to his will and learn how to pray in ways that are in concert with what he has already revealed about his will in his word.

Numbers 12-13, Isaiah 2, Psalm 119:145-176

Read Numbers 12-13, Isaiah 2, Psalm 119:145-176.

This devotional is about Numbers 12

It is more than a little ironic that Moses is the author of Numbers and that he wrote verse 3, “(Now Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth.)” The humblest man on earth wrote in holy scripture about how humble he was. The first literary instance of the humblebrag.

Not really, of course, because the Holy Spirit inspired those words, so we are reading God’s assessment of Moses, not his self-assessment. There is plenty of evidence of his humility, too, such as how he resisted the Lord’s call to lead Israel and how he insisted that God blot him out of the book of life if the Lord blotted Israel out of it. Despite how powerfully God used him to lead, then, he truly was a humble man, someone who did not have an inflated view of himself.

His brother and sister did not have the character trait of humility. We can see that in verse 2 where they said to each other, “‘Has the Lord spoken only through Moses?’ they asked. ‘Hasn’t he also spoken through us?’” The implication of their words is that they were co-equal leaders with Moses. If they didn’t like his wife (v. 1), then he should be held accountable to them.

The problem is that God had chosen Moses directly and had commanded him to lead Israel. Aaron and Miriam were called to supporting roles under Moses’s leadership. Although it was true that God had spoken through Aaron and Miriam, he had not spoken to them in the same way that he had spoken to Moses (v. 8). They were way out of line, then, when they tried to exercise equal authority to Moses. Moses, being the humble man that he was, waited for God to take up his cause instead of defending himself. Moses was not disappointed because God did in fact speak up to defend him (v. 4: “At once the Lord said…”).

Two issues of application come to mind when I read this passage.

  • First, stay in your lane! God has called each of us to different responsibilities and has invested in us different levels of authority. If your leader is in sin, then you should confront him (Gal 6). If you think he is making a bad decision, you can “appeal to him as a father” (1 Tim 5:1). But most of the time, it is our job to follow the leaders God has given to us, not to question or rebuke them. Whenever we speak to someone we are supposed to follow or serve in a way that presumes equal or greater authority to that person, we have shown a level of pride that is not pleasing to God.
  • Second, let the Lord fight your battles for you. Humanly speaking, Moses had every right to defend himself but he did not. Because of his humility, Moses allowed God to take up his cause and vindicate Moses. The New Testament urges us to follow that pattern ourselves. Romans 12:19 commands us, “Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay.’ says the Lord.” It takes real humility to let God fight for you when you are being mistreated or your authority is being usurped. Instead of fighting for ourselves, justifying our actions and angrily denouncing our opponents, what if we trusted God enough to let him handle the situation?

So what’s the state of your humility. The title of humblest man ever is taken but each of us can and should follow Moses’s example in our own lives. If you are a follower, be a good follower and stay in your lane. If you are a leader and you know what you are doing is right before the Lord, let him handle the criticism and and fallout that comes your way.

This is pleasing to God because it puts all our cries for justice in his righteous hands to execute.

Exodus 38, Proverbs 14, Psalm 86

Read Exodus 38, Proverbs 14, and Psalm 86.

This devotional is about Proverbs 14:2, 16, 26, 27.

Fear is feeling that motivates people to act in ways that other feelings do not. You may love America, for example, but I’ll bet you pay your taxes more because you fear being prosecuted than because of patriotism.

These verses in Proverbs are linked by the concept of the “fear of the Lord.” The first two of them describe about how the fear of the Lord motivates people to do what is right:

  • 14:2: “Whoever fears the Lord walks uprightly….”
  • 14:16: “The wise fear the Lord and shun evil….”

We often hear that “fearing the Lord” doesn’t mean being afraid of God but rather having a sense of “reverential awe” toward him. Reverential awe is good but there is more to fearing God than just being in awe of him. Someone who fears God is reverent because of who God is personally but a God-fearing person also respects his role as Lord and judge. Fearing God does not mean we serve him because he’s angry and we’re terrified of being annihilated at any moment for doing or saying the wrong thing. It does mean, however, that we submit to his authority to make the rules and we obey the rules because we believe in him and all that he is, including that he is just. Verses 2 and 16 tell us that this kind of proper fear of the Lord causes someone to do right (“walks uprightly”) and avoid doing wrong (“shun evil”). These are the consequences when someone fears God.

Verses 26 and 27 show us, however, that fearing God is not negative at all; it is positive. Verse 26 says that fearing the Lord provides a person with “a secure fortress” and verse 27 says that it “is a fountain of life.” When you believe in God as the Bible presents him, it brings security (v. 26) and blessings such as joy and purpose to your life (v. 27). Why is that true? Because sin is dangerous! Verse 27 says that the fear of the Lord turns “a person from the snares of death.” Sin kills but fearing God will help you avoid it.

We need God’s grace to fear him and to live obediently because we fear him. That means extending grace, of course, to others who truly fear God but still give into the desires of the sinful nature within. But, please understand, we do ourselves and our loved ones no favors at all when we act like sin is no big deal because God’s grace in Christ covers it all anyway. Sin is a big deal! The wages of it “is death” (Rom 6:23). When we rebuke someone who is sinning because we fear God, we are not trying to cut them down personally; we’re trying to save them from the destructive effects of sin. If you’ve ever had a loving friend step in and help you avoid or extricate yourself from sin, you know what a blessing that is. Until we are fully redeemed by God (at death or Christ’s return), we are vulnerable to the deceptive lives of our sin nature, the world, and the devil. But if we fear God and his discipline in our lives, it will help us avoid sin and find the fountain of life Solomon described in v. 27.

Genesis 35-36, Job 2, Psalm 34

Read Genesis 35-36, Job 2, and Psalm 34.

This devotional is about Job 2.

In Job 1 we were introduced to this famous man of the Old Testament. Although he is not tied through any genealogy to Israel, he was someone who worshipped the true God. As 1:1-2 told us, “he feared God and shunned evil.”

In chapter 1 we learned that Job loved God, had a large, loving family, and was financially prosperous. God pointed him out to Satan as an example of spiritual greatness. Satan responded by asking and receiving permission to test Job’s faith.

After taking everything Job had but his wife, here in chapter 2 Satan received permission to cover Job’s body with painful sores. He was now suffering immensely inside and outside. His wife, also a victim of everything Job suffered except for the sores, was unable to contain her anger at God. “Curse God and die!” she said to her husband in verse 9. In verse 10, Job responded with a condensed form of his understanding of discipleship: “Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?” The longer version was spoken in Job 1:20-21: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.”

In both of these quotations, we are challenged to accept our place as the “creature” in the “Creator-creature” hierarchy. God is the Creator; he owns all things, including us, right down to the length and quality of our lives and the health (or not) of our bodies. Anything we have is on loan to us from God because we came out naked and leave naked (1:21a-b). If it was loaned to us by God, he has the right as the Creator to reclaim it anytime he wants: “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away.” Our mission in life is, whether happy or sad, prospering or suffering, to worship and praise God: “may the name of the Lord be praised.” When Job asked his wife, “Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?” he was speaking reverently and in submission to God, his Lord and Creator.

But Job’s attitude is a tough one to replicate, isn’t it? God did not create us to suffer; he created us to worship and serve him in joy. It was the entrance of sin that brought suffering into the world. Since God could have stopped the entrance of sin or the causes of our suffering, it feels unjust to us when suffering comes into our lives.

This is why suffering–trials–is the test of our faith. When we curse God, we call him unjust. We appeal to our own sense of right and wrong, a sense that is permanently skewed in our direction. We want mercy when we do wrong but justice when we feel that wrong has been done to us. God allows us to suffer to expose our unbelief, the weaknesses in our faith, so that they can be purified from our hearts and we can trust him even more purely and fully.

Everyone reading this is suffering in some way, or emerging from suffering, or heading toward it, probably unknowingly. Let the presence of pain in your life strengthen your walk with God. Let it cause you to turn to him for hope and comfort not away from him in anger or bitterness. Let it teach you how to truly praise God from the heart and trust him. Remember that Job did not have the answer to “why” that we were given in chapters 1-2. All he had was his theology and his circumstances. When those two seemed irreconcilable, he went with his theology and staked his hope there.

May God grace us to do the same.

—-

(By the way: people refer to Job sometimes as “the oldest book in the Bible.” It might be, but we really don’t know. My Old Testament professor in seminary wrote his Ph.D. dissertation on Job and he thought the author could be Solomon based on the Hebrew text. But Job the man probably lived prior to Abraham, so his story is quite old regardless of when God inspired someone to write it.)

Genesis 27, Esther 3, Psalm 26

Read Genesis 27, Esther 3, Psalm 26.

This devotional is about Genesis 27.

God’s will for Isaac’s successor was clear. Before Esau and Jacob were born, the Lord told their mother Rebekah, “…the older will serve the younger” (Gen 25:23e). Later, Esau sold his birthright to Jocob as we read in Genesis 25:27-34. Despite these things, Isaac favored Esau over Jacob (25:28) and was determined to bless Esau, giving him the right to become the patriarch. Isaac was attempting, then, to do this outside of what God had willed, to get his own way regardless of what God wanted and decreed. In other words, he did not have faith in God when it came to his heir; Isaac wanted his own will to be done.

Rebekah and Jacob, likewise, knew what God had said and that Jacob would be the one to carry the blessing of the Abrahamic covenant and become a great nation. Instead of confronting Isaac with this fact or waiting for God to intervene in Isaac’s plan, Rebekah and Jacob hatched a plot of their own to engineer the outcome they wanted.

Isaac, Rebekah, and Jacob, then, were not acting obediently to God’s will. None of them was trusting God’s word and living in obedience to it; they were, to borrow the words of Proverbs 3: “leaning on their own understanding.” God used the disobedience of Rebekah and Jacob to accomplish his will over the desired will of Isaac. But the disobedience of all of them created problems in their family that would be painful for each of them.

How often do we do the same thing? How often do we seek to engineer our own desire instead of seeking to align ourselves with what God has revealed and living in faith and obedience to that? If you’re in the middle of that kind of situation now, let this passage lead you to repentance. Turn to God and trust him. Let him accomplish his will and have faith that it will be best.

Ephesians 1:11-14

Ephesians 1:11-14

Ephesians 1:1-10 taught us that God has a plan for everything. But how do we know that God’s plan is working? What evidence is there in the world? What evidence should you look for in your own life that God’s plan is working? Find out more about it in this message from Ephesians 1:11-14.

This is a message from chapter 1 of the New Testament book of Ephesians by Pastor Brian Jones.

This message was delivered on Sunday, November 8, 2009 at Calvary Bible Church in Ypsilanti, Michigan.

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