Where Are My Eyes Fixed?
Opening Prayer
Gracious God, help me be open to Your will as I read Your Word today. May I learn and obey.
Read Genesis 13:1-18
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Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society. All rights reserved throughout the world. Used by permission of International Bible Society.
Meditate
“The future is as bright as the promises of God” (Adoniram Judson, 1788-1850). That’s a great way to look at the future!
Think Further
The land that failed to support Abram once before now fails him again, but for a different reason. Strife breaks out. What is Abram to do? His nephew Lot seems to be a rather passive, weak character. I picture the two men on a hill-top south-east of Bethel, looking east. The Promised Land stretches to the left and to the right, to the north and to the south. “You choose,” Abram magnanimously says to his nephew; “north or south–and I will go the opposite way.” But Lot looks straight on, chooses what his eyes desire, and begins his pilgrim’s regress towards Sodom, Gomorrah, Zoar and catastrophe. I grieve for those who follow their eyes’ desires towards disaster.
Lot got what he wanted, but Abram got what God promised. The Lord intensifies his earlier promise of a seed (three times) and the land. I dwell on the Lord’s emphasis on Abram’s unnumbered descendants, repeated several times in Genesis (Gen. 15:5; 16:10; 28:14; 32:1). I allow my heart to dwell on the images of the dust of the earth (16) and, later, the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore (Gen. 15:5; 22:17). Imagine Abram’s feelings after Lot left. Did he regret his generosity? Had he learned something from Pharaoh? Did he not have the right to assert his seniority? But he is invited to fix his eyes not on the land’s inadequate resources, not on scarcity, but on the richness of God’s promises. I notice that Abram’s feet are to take him to and through what his eyes have seen (17). Paul speaks of the measureless love of Christ, the measureless fullness of God, and his measureless power to do beyond what we ask or imagine (Eph. 3:18-20). Am I living in this economy of promise?
Apply
Is the Lord calling you to some costly act of generosity, which jeopardizes something that you hold dear? Will you obey?
Closing prayer
Gentle Shepherd, I know the history of my life swings on small hinges. Fill me with Your wisdom and discernment so that I will make wise choices.
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