7 Chapters Later

517

Hello Friends,

It’s been a while on this platform and I hope you didn’t miss Divine Perspective too much? Lol I know you did. Received quite some concern calls… I do appreciate them. I cannot even begin to tell you how much I’ve missed writing to you guys. Thanks a lot for sticking around. So yeah, we’re back!

Today we would consider a valuable lesson from the life of the foremost Patriarch of faith; Abraham. I’m sure you’d find this helpful.

Abraham is one of the most fascinating figures of the Old Testament. His influence spans across several cross sections of the entire landscape of the Bible and he remains a model to be reckoned with. Imagine God picking out a man and telling the world to look on him for example and model… Isaiah 51:1-2. Such was and still is the stature that Abraham has grown into, in the scheme of things. So when you read Abraham, you must begin to see a model through which God is communicating some eternal values to the entire Family of God upon the earth… because through him will all the families upon the earth be blessed.

One profound event happened in the life of Abraham which speaks to each and every one of us as believers. This particular scenario is a point we all must get to in our walk with God. God will bring this same reality your way, however, painted in a different canvas of your own context.

Genesis 15:1-3 (KJV) After these things the word of the LORD came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward.
2 And Abram said, Lord GOD, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless, and the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus?
3 And Abram said, Behold, to me thou hast given no seed: and, lo, one born in my house is mine heir.

So in Genesis 15, we see God giving Abraham one of the most bankable statements in history and guess what? Abraham missed the point. He was completely lost in his misery that he missed out on probably the most profound promise ever made by God to man. God told Abraham that from then on, He will become to Abraham a shield and that He will belong to Abraham. No… you don’t understand. God told a mortal man that as far as his security detail was concerned, He God was in complete charge of it… (By the way, one of the angels in the host (which are innumerable), that God commands can wipe out 185,000 human beings in one night without breaking a sweat… 1 Kings 19:35) and that God Himself has become a “belonging” to Abraham. That God now belonged to Abraham as a matter of reward and inheritance. This was the weight of the words proceeding out of the mouth of God… But Abraham just point blank missed it.

Why? How? How could one miss out on the biggest promise ever made by an immortal God to a mortal man? Abraham loved God and obeyed Him but when the time came to hear what was most important, he had become dull of hearing and inundated by his own needs. He was blinded by his circumstances and couldn’t quite hear or interpret well.

Guess what Abraham said to such a promise? He looked at the promise an said… “Well that’s a nice thing to say God, but what good is having you as my reward when I don’t even have a child?” (paraphrased). Could you believe that right there on a trading floor, Abraham looked at God and looked at the possibility of having a child and went straight out for the child? To Abraham, having a child was more important than having God as his reward. It saddened God’s heart but you wouldn’t even hear it from Him that He was sad… He was all the more willing and patient to take Abraham through the process of “Value Re-evaluation”. He is such a good Father and we are all loved by Him. The test Abraham failed that day… We all have failed as well at different times and in different scenarios… But rather than God eliminating us, He is ever patient with us to bring us to the chapter 22 of our lives where we finally learn the lesson He’s been trying to teach us.

It eventually took Abraham almost 3 decades and 7 chapters to actually see that God was all he needed to start with, no matter what he had or didn’t have. I have realised that when all you need is all you have… then satisfaction is inevitable. It’s sad that sometimes we wait till God is all we have “left” before we realise He is all we actually need… and guess what? If God has to bring us to that point… He will.

In Genesis 15 Abraham needed a son to believe God’s promise to him, but by Genesis 22, he was willing to give up that same son at a more impossible time to reproduce another, in order to receive God’s eternal and irrevocable oath of promise. 7 chapters after his fatal failure at properly valuing God above all else, he realises that if he gets all else and misses God, he misses everything.

This change in perspective for me is the game changer for every believer. God doesn’t need your money or your son for that matter. He doesn’t need anything He already gave you. What He never wants to lose however is His superior importance and value in your life. For you it may not be a child, it may be a job, a spouse or even money. Whatever you need to have before you see God as faithful will be required of you… Not so that he would collect it from you and make you cry and miserable… But to know where your heart really is. Isaac was not eventually killed but as far as Abraham was concerned even after the chapter 22 ordeal, Isaac remained only an instruction and a knife away from being given up. Now that’s the point God want us to get to. Where our attachment to things lasts only for as long as God is silent about them, the moment God gives an instruction, they are as good as gone. God must always sit at the top echelon of the food chain. That’s the only spot that accommodates His weight in your life. The weight of blessings released on Abraham in Genesis Chapter 22 is not to be compared with those released at earlier interactions. So one quick question… How many chapters away are you from your Chapter 22? Believe me… Everything changes after Chapter 22.

Don’t be too hard on yourself, even Abraham fell short at some point. But re evaluate your life alongside your priorities. God will make sure that anyone He will use to the fullest degree and extent, has no other item of higher importance on his priority list than God Himself.

I trust this has blessed you. Do well to share with friends.

Enjoy the rest of your week. I love you!