For a description of the (Y2) reading plan, see the “About” page.
Luke 12
“I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! But I have a baptism to undergo, and what constraint I am under until it is completed!” (Luke 12:49-50). Whew – what a statement!! I’ll break it down into what I see in it.
- If you are disgusted, fed up, and at your wit’s end about all the STUFF going on in the world these days, take heart! You are not alone! Jesus was fed up with it, too. God longs to rid the world of the evil that consumes it. But He is patient for our sake.
- Though Jesus longed to take care of His ultimate mission, He knew He first had to pave the way for those who are His to come to Him. Before He could unleash God’s judgment, “[He had] a baptism to undergo.” That means two things. One, He had to pass through death to life. And two, He had to obediently submit to God’s will. (Refer to my thought on 1 Peter 3 from Day 330 of last year’s musings for more explanation of that statement).
- Jesus said He came to bring fire on the earth. Both Matthew and Luke record John the Baptist as saying that Jesus will baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire. First there was water – the symbol. Then there was the Holy Spirit – our connection to God, who is life. The final baptism – the ultimate passage from death to life – will be the fire. But unless we are baptized with the Holy Spirit, we cannot survive the fire. It will refine those whose hearts are pure because Jesus is found there, but will consume whoever is not protected by the blood of the Lamb.
Gen. 23-24
I wonder if the blessing Rebekah’s family said to her on her departure was a typical kind of blessing for this type of situation or was purely God-inspired? It was certainly in line with God’s promise and His plan for Rebekah’s offspring! “Our sister, may you increase to thousands upon thousands; may your offspring possess the cities of their enemies.” (Gen. 24:60). God’s hand was clearly at work in this entire deal.
One other little interesting thing I noticed in this reading. Genesis 24:62 says, “Now Isaac had come from Beer Lahai Roi”. That is the well where God first came to Hagar when she fled from Sarah after becoming pregnant with Ishmael. The name means, “well of the Living One who sees me.” I find it rather ironic that the very site where God promised innumerable descendants to a man whose “hand will be against everyone and everyone’s hand against him” (Gen. 16:12) is the same site where Isaac, the son of the Promise, received his wife, whose offspring would “possess the cities of their enemies.” I find it even more ironic that the name of this site reminds us that God sees it all.