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Gen. 17
A few thoughts and observations from this chapter:
- God repeatedly referred to the covenant He made between Him and Abraham as, “My covenant”. He established it, and He fulfills it. The only thing required of Abraham and the rest of the people of the Covenant was circumcision. It is the same with the New Covenant in Jesus Christ, which is not so much ‘new’ as it is the object of which the former covenant was merely a shadow. God established the covenant. He fulfills it. And all we have to do is remove the flesh from our hearts, committing ourselves as His.
- God told Abraham, when He changed his name, “For I have made you the father of a multitude of nations.” (Gen. 17:5b). He said it as if it was already done, even though Abraham was still childless. So it is with all of God’s promises. They are so sure that we can consider them already done.
- I find it interesting that God gave His people the land of Canaan. The Canaanites were descendants of Ham, Noah’s cursed son. Thus, Canaan was the land of the cursed. So in giving this particular land to His established people, God demonstrated that His blessing would overcome the curse of sin for those who belong to Him.
Matt. 16
Just what kind of sign were the Pharisees and Sadducees looking for? Were the multitude of all kinds of healings and the large, diverse group of changed lives surrounding Jesus not enough? What could they possibly have been looking for? I can’t help but think that Jesus’ refusal to give them what they asked for goes far deeper than the knowledge that giving another sign wouldn’t have changed their hearts. It makes me wonder if they were asking for something more specific. Jesus did not meet anybody’s expectations for the promised Messiah. So perhaps they were asking for something more along the lines of everybody’s expectations; something more military. And since deep down, I don’t think they really wanted Jesus to be the Messiah, I’m wondering if they asked for such a sign so they could use it against Him with the Roman government.
Going back to my thought from Yesterday’s Matthew passage, this all has me thinking about how I seek knowledge of God and His wisdom. Do I look for Him to meet my expectations? Do I seek in an effort to prove myself right? Or do I maybe seek in order to prove somebody else wrong? The common error I see in all of those approaches is self. To truly seek God, I need to remove self from the equation. Only then will I find God, whatever the context may be.
Neh. 6
Oh, wow – in light of what I just wrote, I am really seeing a correlation between Nehemiah and Jesus this morning. The people’s expectations of Jesus were for His kingship. And I was just musing on the possibility of the Jewish leaders using those expectations to try to trap Jesus and get Him in trouble with the Roman government. Now I see the same situation was true, at least to ta point, for Nehemiah. I don’t know that there was any real expectation for Nehemiah to become king, but his enemies certainly attempted to use the notion against him. Like Jesus, however, Nehemiah kept his mind on his true mission, which was also much like Jesus’ mission. Both came to build a kingdom, not for themselves, but for God.