Category: Genesis

Take a moment to read the entire chapter of Genesis 15 before reading the devotional below.

God’s promises keep coming as he continues to tell Abram that he will protect his family and reward Abram with greatness. There’s a critical sentence in verse 6: “And Abram believed the Lord…” God is still reassuring him that a great nation will come from his descendants, yet Abram still has no children. He doesn’t see how it’s all possible, but yet he believes God’s promises.

Then God shows up in a symbol and a dream, revealing that his plans are well-thought out. He’s making chess moves 400 years into the future, and it’s really too much for Abram to comprehend. His relationship with God is such that he is leaning into God’s promises rather than running away. He is choosing to trust.

Here’s your freedom for today:

God doesn’t just see the big picture, he sees the whole picture.

God makes the impossible possible because he’s not limited by the things that limit you. He’s playing things out today for 400 years from now, or for 1,000 years after that. Our tunnel-vision and our focus on ourselves causes us to fear and doubt, but God knows exactly what he is doing. If you don’t see how it’s all going to work, God does. Trust him.

Take a moment to read the entire chapter of Genesis 14 before reading the devotional below.

Today we begin to grasp the breadth of the nations that have developed in Abram’s era. It’s amazing to see how civilizations and armies have been established, and we certainly don’t get all the historical details here. Remember, the Bible corresponds with history but is not meant to be a complete history book. We are tracing the history of the Jewish people which is captured here.

An important name appears in this chapter and again in Psalm 110 and Hebrews 7: Melchizedek. We don’t know much about him other than the fact that he was a king and a priest. Abram acknowledged him as such by giving him a tenth of everything he had, establishing the concept of a tithe. Recall that God has promised to use Abram to build a great nation for himself. This early foreshadowing of a mediator between mankind and God is central to the concept of Jesus as Messiah.

Here’s your freedom for today:

God is our source of victory.

Melchizedek gave Abram a blessing on behalf of God, a powerful statement of God’s provision and victory. Abram honored God with an offering. This exchange could not be direct because — as we know from Genesis 3 — sin had created a barrier between people and God. Melchizedek is the first biblical example of a mediator between a person and God, thus making him the ultimate example before Jesus of how people could offer sacrifices to God. We know that God had talked to Noah and to Abram, but the concept of a covenant (promise) and a sacrificial system is introduced here. This system will serve throughout the entire Old Testament as a symbol of the reality that we can never sacrifice enough to overcome our sin.

Take a moment to read the entire chapter of Genesis 13 before reading the devotional below.

If only all family disputes could be settled as easily as the one in today’s chapter between Abram and his nephew, Lot. Funny how when you are rich, there’s more to fight about. Turns out the herdsmen weren’t getting along, trying to keep Abram’s flocks and Lot’s separate. Ultimately, they needed more space and they moved to different areas.

This map shows the land that we know as modern-day Israel. Lot moved down towards Zoar, in the area of Sodom and Gomorrah (spoiler alert: those cities don’t last much longer). Abram went up towards Hebron and Mamre, just below Bethlehem. God made a promise to Abram to give him all the land around him — as far as the eye could see.

Here’s your freedom for today:

God loves to share his wealth.

God was interested in blessing Abram, and raising up a special nation from his descendants. Today we know them as the Jewish people. God loves to bless his children and give them good gifts. It’s interesting that wars are still being fought over these lands, and this chapter in the Bible is one reason why. For thousands of years, the Jewish people have believed that God himself gave them the land and it is rightfully theirs. Other people groups (some of whom were there even before Abram) disagree. Regardless of how you might view that politically, you can see God’s desire to build a nation for himself and bless Abram in order to do it.

Take a moment to read the entire chapter of Genesis 12 before reading the devotional below.

How does God talk to you? Perhaps it’s hard to describe, and it’s a question I wish I could go back and ask of Abram. Often the Bible says, “God told him _________,” with no clear explanation as to how that actually came about (other than perhaps with Moses and the burning bush. We don’t know how Abram heard or understood God, we simply know that he obeyed. Perhaps that is the only detail God wants us to pick up from the interaction.

The second half of today’s chapter is complicated. As a woman, it’s hard to sit with some of the ways that women were objectified in these stories. Sarai is beautiful, and ultimately Abram’s actions as her husband were an attempt to protect her. He was right that the Egyptians would objectify her, and unfortunately his lie backfired. Where was the voice of God when he came up with that plan?

Here’s your freedom for today:

You don’t need to tweak God’s plans.

We’ll see a few examples of this in Abram’s life throughout this Genesis series, but he tends to get a plan from God and then meddle with it when it takes too long. I can sadly relate. God told him where to go, and he promised that land to Abram’s descendants. There is no verse that says, “God told Abram to go to Egypt during the famine.” Does that mean that Abram got worried and did what he thought he had to do? Did he have a conversation with God to ask how to handle the famine? Too often, we forget that God brings us to places where he wants to show us that he can accomplish supernatural things. Earthly circumstances are not a good gauge for the voice of God.

Take a moment to read the entire chapter of Genesis 11 before reading the devotional below.

God has watched humanity since the beginning, and he is well aware of how much destruction we can bring to the world. In today’s chapter, it may seem that God is intimidated by all that humans might be able to accomplish. However, given what he has seen in Adam, Noah, and everyone in between, this chapter may be more like an inventor whose “Frankenstein” takes on an ugly life of its own.

God sees that a united humanity could become a strong force, and the presence of evil in the world means that destruction is likely to follow. He scrambles language and scatters various tribes and nations to prevent another downfall like the one that led to the flood.

Here’s your freedom for today:

God is looking for people he can use.

At the end of this chapter, we meet Abram. We’ll see God’s involvement with him in the coming chapters, but it’s clear that God is not a set-it-and-forget-it kind of God. Instead, he’s actively involved in his creation, keeping mankind from destroying itself and choosing individuals that can rise up as leaders. We’ll see throughout Genesis that God’s leadership choices are not always who you’d expect. So far, what we know is that God plans to birth his own nation from a woman who can’t have kids. We’ll see where that leads us…