Your Part, God's Part

[WalterandDebbie]

Tuesday 10-11-22 3rd. Day Of The Weekly Cycle, Tishri 14 5783 20th. Fall Day

Your Part, God’s Part

Read: Genesis 12:1–9 | Bible in a Year: Isaiah 37–38; Colossians 3
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Go . . . to the land I will show you. . . . So Abram went. Genesis 12:1, 4

When my friend Janice was asked to manage her department at work after just a few years, she felt overwhelmed. Praying over it, she felt God was prompting her to accept the appointment—but still, she feared she couldn’t cope with the responsibility. “How can I lead with so little experience?” she asked God. “Why put me here if I’m going to be a failure?”

Later, Janice was reading about God’s call of Abram in Genesis Twelve and noted that his part was to “go . . . to the land [God] will show you. . . . So Abram went” (vv. 1, 4). This was a radical move, because nobody uprooted like this in the ancient world. But God was asking him to trust Him by leaving everything he knew behind, and He would do the rest. Identity? You’ll be a great nation.

Provision? I’ll bless you. Reputation? A great name. Purpose? You’ll be a blessing to all peoples on earth. He made some big mistakes along the way, but “by faith Abraham . . . obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going” (Hebrews 11:8).

This realization took a big burden off Janice’s heart. “I don’t have to worry about ‘succeeding’ at my job,” she told me later. “I just have to focus on trusting God to enable me to do the work.” As God provides the faith we need, may we trust Him with all our lives.

What worries do you have about your responsibilities? How is God asking you to trust Him in your present circumstances?

Dear God, I want to surrender to You my fears and worries about succeeding in my roles and responsibilities. Please help me to do my part as You do Yours.

INSIGHT

The Hebrew phrase translated “go” (Genesis 12:1) is literally “go to yourself.” While difficult to translate, this emphatic command is perhaps captured more closely by the King James translation: “Get thee out.”

The promises given to Abraham—land, abundant children, and blessing (vv. 2–3, 7)—echo the consequences of Adam and Eve’s fall—exile from the garden, difficult childbirth, and difficulty cultivating the land (3:16–24). These parallels hint that God would begin His plan to undo the consequences of the fall through this couple, through whom “all peoples on earth” would “be blessed” (12:3).

By Leslie Koh |October 11th, 2022

Obedience Genesis Twelve:1-9

1 Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee:

2 And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:

3 And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.

4 So Abram departed, as the Lord had spoken unto him; and Lot went with him: and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran.

5 And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran; and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan they came.

6 And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Sichem, unto the plain of Moreh. And the Canaanite was then in the land.

7 And the Lord appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land: and there builded he an altar unto the Lord, who appeared unto him.

8 And he removed from thence unto a mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, having Bethel on the west, and Hai on the east: and there he builded an altar unto the Lord, and called upon the name of the Lord.

9 And Abram journeyed, going on still toward the south.

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Love, Walter and Debbie

 

[Jay Ross]

hello,

If I may comment, the scholars of past years could not comprehend that God told Abraham to go to an "earth," the earth that He had created on the first day of creation. In Genesis 1:1 God created the "הָאָֽרֶץ", and in Genesis 12:1 God told Abraham to go into the "הָאָ֖רֶץ" that He would show him. In the above Westminster Hebrew text, there is a difference in one character, whereas in the BHS Hebrew Text the words are the identical.

In the Breadth of the scriptures, we are told that our inheritance is the whole earth, i.e., Daniel. 7:27, not just the Land of Canaan, which formed the "Promised Land" which God stripped them of when the Israelites refused to stop their idolatrous worship around the time of Christ's first advent. In 2 Chron. 7:19-22, God explicitly warns that if Israel continued to sin and turn away from worshipping Him with all of their being that they would remove them from the fertile field of the Land of Canaan and cast them out of His sight towards the four corners of the earth. He also warns that the temple would also be destroyed and become a proverb and a byword for all that pass by.

Now the solemn covenant that God entered into in Genesis 15 was a sign covenant that, when Israel had possession of the prescribed land, that they would know that they would in the future inherit the whole earth. Their fixation of the Promised Land, which was to be a confirming sign for them, has meant that the "Promised Land" became an "idol" and a distraction for them which led them astray.

This is also true for "Christians" today who want the future promise of eternal life today, instead of living the promise of "life" in their lives today.

The Christian understanding has not progressed that far from the understanding that the Israelites still hold.

Shalom