Genesis 21

Adding Value to Your Life and the Lives of Others

Abraham is worried about who his son, Isaac, will choose to marry. And so he sends out his oldest servant to find his a wife — not among the Canaanites in the foreign land they inhabited, but from among his own people, Israel. The servant arrives and sets 3 criteria when he prays to find a woman who says, “Yes (kindness) have a drink (service) and I will water your camels too (thoughtfulness).”

This is a woman who exemplifies the love of God. She had drawn the water for herself and her family, it’s not like she was hoping to bump into someone to give it to. Now she gave her water to this foreign visitor, and not only that, she had to make at a minimum two more trips to the well. One or more for the camels, and one or more for her original purposes. She fulfilled not only the request of the stranger, but saw — and met — an unspoken need as well.

We should strive to be like Rebekah. Adding value to the lives of others through kindness, and observation, and service. And we should surround ourselves with Rebekahs who will do the same. In that way we can carry and support each other as we seek to emulate Christ.

Have a blessed Sunday. See you at church.

Genesis 21:8-24:67 | 007/365

Influence

Influence. We are all affected by it. Whether we are subject to it or exerting it.

Such is the case with Lot and his family. When two angels of the Lord come to Sodom to test Lot’s righteousness, he takes them in offering to wash their feet and house them for the night. But the townspeople want Lot to deliver these strangers over to be sexually abused.

Lot instead appears to offer his virgin (engaged) daughters. APOLOGETIC NOTE: How is this a righteous man!? What a monstrous thing to do! It is unlikely that Lot was actually offering up his daughters to this mob. In reality he was making such a statement only rhetorically as if to say, “please treat these foreigners with the same care you would treat the most vulnerable members of our own community”.

The angels of the Lord protect Lot and his family, but both of the daughters’ fiancés refuse to leave the city and are destroyed. Lot’s wife looks back at what she is leaving behind and is destroyed. And some time later, Lot’s daughters get him drunk to commit incest with him. Their children become tribes that would be enemies of Israel.

Be careful with whom you associate, what you read, and what you listen to. We can be influenced by cultural ideas slowly and seditiously, often without even realizing it. Does this mean we should hide in a Christian bubble? Hardly, but make sure those people and things which have the most influential roles in your life and spurring you on toward Christ.

Genesis 18:1-21:7 | 006/365