January 4 - Promised Son

Read: Genesis 21 and 22

I will bless her, and moreover, I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall become nations; kings of peoples shall come from her. But I will establish my covenant with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this time next year. The Lord visited Sarah as he had said, and The Lord did to Sarah as he had promised. (Genesis 17:16, 21; 21:1 ESV)

He said, Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you. And Isaac said to his father Abraham, My father! And he said, Here am I, my son. He said, Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? Abraham said, God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son. So they went both of them together. And the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven and said, By myself I have sworn, declares the Lord , because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice. (Genesis 22:2, 7, 8, 15-18 ESV)

God demonstrated his love for Abraham by promising him a son; but then—in what seems to be a strange twist—God asks Abraham to take his son to a mountaintop and sacrifice him. Abraham was an old man by the time Isaac was born. His wife Sarah had already passed her natural season for child birth. Abraham follows the heart of God in faith. Isaac himself willingly complies with the will of his father.

All of this points ahead to Jesus. God, loved his creation so much that He sent a promised son, His only begotten son. The Son of God, Jesus Christ, willingly complied with the Father. Whereas Isaac was spared upon the mountain by divine intervention, Jesus was not. Instead Jesus became our divine intervention to spare us from the fate of eternal damnation.

Sometimes it is hard to hold on to the promises we feel that God has put in our heart. God knows us better than we know ourselves. He knows our flaws, frustrations, and failures. He himself intervened for us for a promised deliverance. Whatever you feel God has promised you in your heart, hold on to it. Hold true to it. Do not waiver. Show the faith of Abraham and Isaac. Jesus is worth it.

January 3 - Father Abraham

Read: Genesis 12, 17

I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. (Genesis 12:3 ESV)

God said, No, but Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his offspring after him. (Genesis 17:19 ESV)

I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near: a star shall come out of Jacob, and a scepter shall rise out of Israel; it shall crush the forehead of Moab and break down all the sons of Sheth. (Numbers 24:17 ESV)

The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until tribute comes to him; and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples. (Genesis 49:10 ESV)

The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, (Matthew 1:1, 2 ESV)

Abraham is often called the father of faith. Rightly so. God hand picked him to begin the family line of the Jews, and specifically the Messiah. Abraham believed in God's promise that he would have a son, even in his old age, and God saw his faithful disposition as righteousness.

Jesus fulfilled God's promise to Abraham. He is the blessing to the whole world. He is the embodiment of God's everlasting covenant. Jesus is the star and scepter rising out of Israel. The promised son rising from a promised people to deliver God's promised redemptive work to mankind. The rule is his, the glory is his, and the effort is his alone. What an amazing portrait the Bible paints across history to show God's blessed work to free his people from the clutches of sin and death.

Just as Jesus is the promised son, so are those who have been saved the promised sons of Father Abraham. A work of faith that reaches across millennia to prove God's prophetic grace for all mankind.

Tree of Life

The forbidden fruit was tasted, and a curse fell upon mankind. A curse of sin and separation. The inaugural human couple was thrust from the Secret Garden, angelic sentries poised at the indiscernible entrance, and immortality was mercifully kept without the grasp of man. Thank God. Genesis 3 recounts to us the story of the fall of man. Some terrible things are at work, but in the midst of the great tragedy of the fall, there is also an incredible mercy. God separated mankind from the possibility of an attainable physical immortality. What if He hadn't? What if God had never allowed physical death?

You see, many people I know, or have read, who discount either the goodness of God or His sovereignty often do so by building a case upon the existence of death. Why would a good God allow death? How could an all powerful God allow death? To these I say, how could He not?

Had mankind been allowed to eat of the Tree of Life we would have been hopelessly lost in our immortality. We would have been forever stuck in this less-than-real existence, the super-reality of the spiritual realm lost to us. Furthermore, to fix this, God's Son Himself took on the form of man and allowed Himself to be murdered, to die, in order to restore the gap between human transgressors and the divine Godhead. Without death, there is no cross, no sacrifice, no atonement, and no resurrection.