Year 4, Day 31: Genesis 32

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: D2, Character

• Character: Having the interior life that is necessary to support the work that God sets before a person.  It is hearing from God and obeying.  It is doing the right thing when nobody is looking.

Often, character is best formed in the D2 stage of discipleship.  What is the D2 stage of discipleship?  D2 is the place where instead of just learning the information about God we actually start to put it into practice.  We go out and try and make a difference.  Instead of watching God, we start to help God while He continues to work around us.

Unfortunately, this is often our time of greatest failure.  We always fail the most at the beginning.  People riding bicycles never fall as much as the first few days that they are learning.  Serious students seldom do any worse than the first exam they take under a particular teacher.  Leaders seldom make wrong judgments as often as when they just start leading.  While painful, this is true.  Who we are is forged out of our failure.

God steps into those times of difficulty and teaches us.  He forges our character out of our struggle.  It is just like Jacob the deceiver.  Jacob has deceived Esau twice.  He has fled from Esau and deceived Laban – although let’s not forget that Laban was not innocent, either.  Now Jacob comes back and he continues to put himself first as he puts several groups of human shields between himself and his brother.  His character has continued to fail and fall, so God comes and wrestles with Jacob.

What makes Jacob worthwhile in this study is that he isn’t afraid to wrestle with God.  He isn’t afraid to develop his character.  He isn’t afraid to struggle.  Out of that struggle will come a man that God can use to lead His people.  The same can be true of all of us if we are willing to wrestle with God and be humbled before Him.

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Year 4, Day 30: Genesis 31

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Character

• Character: Having the interior life that is necessary to support the work that God sets before a person.  It is hearing from God and obeying.  It is doing the right thing when nobody is looking.

We’ll continue in our look at Jacob through the lens of character.  Do you see what is happening in Jacob’s life?  Jacob maneuvers Laban’s wealth into becoming his own wealth.  Jacob flees without giving Laban the opportunity to say goodbye to his daughters and grandchildren.  Jacob doesn’t recognize the possibility that Laban might be right when he claims that someone stole his household gods!  In this chapter, Jacob is all about his bravado and his right to be powerful.

However, there is a place in this chapter that I think his lack of character is most on display.  Early in the chapter, God tells Jacob that if he goes back to the land of his father, then God will be with him.  God is trying to arrange for Jacob to leave and go to a place where God can begin to work on this character of Jacob.  But look at how Jacob turns God’s promise around.  Whereas God says, “I will be with you,” Jacob says, “God has been with me.”  Jacob assumes that because he is prosperous that God must love him more.  Jacob doesn’t get it.  Whereas Jacob is still focused on prosperity, God is looking ahead to developing character.

God cares more about who we are than what we have.  God desires that we have the interior life to follow Him more than the material possessions necessary to prosper.  Since we often prioritize differently than God, building character is often difficult.

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Year 4, Day 29: Genesis 30

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Character

• Character: Having the interior life that is necessary to support the work that God sets before a person.  It is hearing from God and obeying.  It is doing the right thing when nobody is looking.

I can’t help but read Genesis 30 and know what’s coming.  I can’t help but realize that Isaac imitates Abraham’s faithfulness and his unfaithfulness.  In Jacob and Esau, the unfaithfulness increased.  Now that Jacob is away from his family and living on his own, we see that the unfaithful behavior increases even more.  I know the rest of the stories of what’s to come in Genesis and how many of those stories deal with issues of character.  I think we’ll be talking quite a bit about how God develops character as we conclude Genesis.

For today, though, let’s look at Jacob.  His wives compete for his attention, even going to the point of involving their slaves so they can one-up each other in the children department.  That’s not something we would expect to see in Jacob’s family if he had a strongly developed character.  Jacob then abuses Laban’s trust and divides the sheep so that he can take the majority of Laban’s wealth.  That’s not something we would expect to see in a person with strongly developed character, either. 

At this point in the story, Jacob is not a man of character.  Jacob does not have the interior life with God to support God’s work.  He does not have the character to make the right decisions when nobody is looking.  The name Jacob means deceiver, and up until now we have seen that he is aptly named.

However, there is grace.  We have seen a glimmer of hope in Jacob in the past.  We will see God develop character in Jacob in the future.  Just because Jacob doesn’t have the interior life with God now doesn’t mean that he never will.  But for now, it is important for us to realize that much of the rest of the book of Genesis will deal with Jacob’s character and how his current lack of character influences the family around him.

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Year 4, Day 28: Genesis 29

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Provision, Protection

• Provision: God gives us what we truly need.  God knows our needs better than we can know them.  We learn to trust God to provide for us.
• Protection: God shelters us.  He knows our threats and knows how to bring us through them.  We learn to trust God to protect us.

Today we see the story of Jacob, Leah, and Rachel.  I’m going to look at Leah specifically through the lens of two parts of the hexagon: provision and protection.  Leah is the tender one – sometimes translated as weak one.  Leah is the overlooked eldest daughter.  Leah is described as “hated” by Jacob because he really wanted Rachel.

However, God knows what He is doing.  In spite of her rejection, God opens Leah’s womb and she becomes quite fertile.  She bears four sons to Jacob, and each of these sons will play a very significant role in the rest of the story of Genesis.  Reuben and Simeon will be the family leaders for much of the time.  Levi will become the great line of priests and Levites.  Judah will eventually become the family leader and will ultimately produce the line of David.  It is out of the line of Judah that Jesus comes.  God provides incredible honor for Leah in spite of being hated by the world.

God also protects Leah.  She could have been forgotten in this world, but through Laban God grafts Leah into His people.  She could have been abused and neglected by Jacob, but God opens up Leah in order to provide Jacob’s first four sons.  God not only grants her provision but protection by grafting her into a family that can care for her and bring her into a place where God can literally work through her and her offspring.

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Year 4, Day 27: Genesis 28

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Obedience

• Obedience: Genuine and satisfying obedience comes out of our identity.  Our true identity comes only from Father.

For two straight days we’ll take a look at obedience, for again we get two great perspectives on obedience.  The first example, Esau, is another negative example.  Esau hears Isaac talk to Jacob about the trouble of wives from outside God’s family and he does something about it himself.  He finds himself an Ishmaelite woman, which means that this third wife would have been a part of Abraham’s descendants.  However, Esau is simply compounding the problem.  Esau hasn’t dealt with the two wives he already has.  Adding a third wife won’t solve anything!

Jacob, on the other hand, finally begins to sort out his life.  Jacob begins to obey.  He is obedient to His father and seeks out Laben.  In that obedience, he is also obedient to God.  We can see this in the dream that Jacob has.  God comes to Jacob and tells him that so long as Jacob follows His ways that He will bless Jacob.  This is a promise of obedience.  So long as Jacob follows God, gets his identity from God, and obeys Him then God will bless Jacob.  Here we get our first glimpse of the obedient Israel shining forth out of the deceiving Jacob.

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Year 4, Day 26: Genesis 27

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Obedience

• Obedience: Genuine and satisfying obedience comes out of our identity.  Our true identity comes only from Father.

Clearly Genesis 27 is a chapter in which we have characters who all demonstrate struggles with obedience.  Isaac is determined to bless Esau in spite of Esau’s blatant disregard for God’s ways.  Rebekah is determined to have Jacob blessed rather than Esau, whom Isaac desires to bless.  Jacob is determined to help his mother carry out the lie and steal Esau’s blessing.  In this story, Esau is the only one who displays any kind of obedience, but unfortunately it is a selfish obedience to gain a blessing.  Esau has already forsaken his birthright and married foreign women; he is not an obedient man.

Here’s the thing.  Each of these disobedient characters are only disobedient to God.  They are obedient to their own selfish human desires!  Isaac wants to bless his choice.  Rebekah wants her favorite son blessed.  Jacob wants the blessing for himself.  Esau wants the blessing for himself.  They are disobedient to God, but absolutely obedient to their own desires.

That’s the interesting thing about humanity.  It isn’t ever a case of being just disobedient.  The proper question is what are we obeying when we are disobedient to God?  What is the identity we are pursuing obediently instead of the identity we should be pursuing?  Who or what is giving us a faulty identity when we should be getting our identity from God?

Not once do any of the characters pause and ask what God would have them do in this story.  That’s the root of their troubles with obedience.

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Year 4, Day 25: Genesis 26

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Imitation

• Imitation: This is the second over-arching step of the discipleship process.  First we gain information, then we imitate our spiritual mentor.  Imitation leads to innovation of spirituality in our own life.

When we look at this chapter, it reads like a summary of Abraham’s life.  In fact, many scholars have tried to argue that these stories didn’t really happen but rather that someone got Abraham and Isaac confused and changed the main character to Isaac and duplicated the stories.  However, I think it makes perfect sense that Isaac should have a similar life to Abraham.  Isaac would have learned from Abraham and it would make sense that he would similarly imitate him.

In the greater scheme of things, this is a great pattern to recognize.  Yes, Isaac imitates the faithfulness of Abraham as well as the deception of passing off his wife as his sister.  When we imitate others, we often imitate the good and the bad.  But for the most part, Isaac is blessed as he learns to imitate his father Abraham.  He makes good decisions because he is following a good leader.

We should do likewise.  We need to find spiritual mentors who can teach us.  Then we can imitate their faith in our own life.  After we imitate their faith, we can then innovate their faith and make it our own in ways that make sense to the person that God has created us to be.

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Year 4, Day 24: Genesis 25

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Calling

• Calling asks whether or not God has called the person to the particular work at this point in their life.

One of the most striking aspects of Esau is his inability to sense calling.  He is put in the perfect opportunity.  He is the firstborn in the lineage of Abraham.  God has already promised that not only would Abraham have many descendants but that the world would be blessed through his descendants.  However, the Bible tells us that Esau thinks too little (despised) of his birthright.  He is in the perfect place to be a part of God’s plan and he just doesn’t value the calling.

On the other hand, there is Jacob.  Jacob seizes his opportunity.  He convinces Esau to sell him his birthright.  As we’ll see in a few chapters, Jacob may not have the greatest character in the beginning of his life.  But he absolutely senses his calling to be a part of God’s people and he seizes the opportunity fully.

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Year 4, Day 23: Genesis 24

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Calling, Capacity, Character, Chemistry, Competency

• Calling asks whether or not God has called the person to the particular work at this point in their life.
• Capacity asks whether or not the person has the time in their life to obey God.  
• Character asks whether or not a person have the interior spiritual life needed to be obedient to God.
• Chemistry asks whether the person in question can work with the other people that God has called.
• Competency asks whether or not the person has the readiness to be obedient to God’s will.

Whenever I read Genesis 24 I am struck by Rebekah.  Here is a woman that is put together.  She has been raised well.  Her faith in God is strong.  She is a leader, but one who is humble about her leadership.  She is willing to do as God asks of her.  I believe the presentation of Rebekah in this chapter is one of the great examples in God’s Word.

We can use the 5 C’s to evaluate leadership potential.  If we look at this story of Rebekah through the lens of the 5 C’s we can also get at what it is that God really sees in Rebekah.

Certainly Rebekah displays calling when she listens to God as he asks her to be hospitable and draw water for Abraham’s servant and his camels and in so doing answer his prayer.  Certain Rebekah displays calling when she agrees to go with this man and be a wife for a man she’s never met.  Rebekah displays capacity in taking the time to serve Abraham’s servant thoroughly enough to also water his camels.  Rebekah displays character in her hospitality.  She also displays character when she meets Isaac for the first time and she covers herself up in modesty.  Rebekah displays chemistry with Abraham’s servant at the well in addition to displaying chemistry with Isaac, enough so that the Bible notes that Isaac loved her all his days.  Finally, Rebekah displays competency in both her discernment about what God is asking her to do as well as in her hospitality at the well.

In this story we see a leader who is clearly demonstrating all five of the leadership dynamics at a very high level.  Rebekah was the full package.  She was a great choice for Isaac as God continues to unfold his plan for humanity through the descendants of Abraham.

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Year 4, Day 22: Genesis 23

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Character

• Character: Having the interior life that is necessary to support the work that God sets before a person.  It is hearing from God and obeying.  It is doing the right thing when nobody is looking.

 When I look at the story of Sarah’s death and burial, I see in Abraham a man of great character.  Here is a man who has lost his wife of many years.  She was a confidant to him.  She occasionally had played the role of counselor.  She was the mother of his only son, and in that act she had become the object of a miracle from God.  A rather significant portion of his life ended the day that she died.

Yet, when I look at how Abraham acts in this passage I am struck by the image of a man who is composed.  He has the internal character to act appropriately.  He mourns and grieves, but he mourns and grieves as one who has hope. 

Furthermore, Abraham is not a nuisance to his neighbors.  Abraham knows that Sarah needs to be buried.  He comes and bargains for land.  We can see in his interactions with the people around him that they respect him.  Even in this time of mourning when he could have been irrational, Abraham is lifted up as one who is welcome in the midst of the people.  Abraham has the interior character from God that allows him to dwell among the people and be a blessing among them.

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Year 4, Day 21: Genesis 22

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Identity, Obedience

• Identity: Our true identity comes from God.  Only when our identity comes from God can we be obedient in ways that satisfy our person to our core.
• Obedience: Genuine and satisfying obedience comes out of our identity.  Our true identity comes only from Father.

I think Genesis 22 is a clear avenue to lift up this idea of identity.  God comes to Abraham and tells Abraham to take his only Son and go to Moriah and lift him up as a sacrifice.  Now, let’s put this into perspective.  Remember that Abraham was a hundred years old when Isaac was born.  It’s not like he’s a spring chicken and likely to have many more children.  Additionally, God had to open up Sarah’s barren womb in order for a child to come forth.  Furthermore, God had already promised Abraham that his offspring through Isaac would be like the sand of the seashore and like the stars of heaven.  This grand vision from God is put in jeopardy because at a ripe old age God asks of Abraham to make a sacrifice out of Isaac.

Yet, Abraham’s identity is in God.  I’m not advocating child sacrifice.  Neither am I advocating thoughtless obedience.  But I am advocating obedience in general.  Abraham can be obedient to God because his agenda is set on godly pursuits.  He trusts that God has his best interests in mind.  He is willing to put God’s agenda ahead of his own.  Abraham’s identity is from God, not from himself.

It is only because he is willing to be obedient to God that he ends up blessed.  That’s the point of Genesis 22:16-17.  God blesses Abraham and makes him the father of his chosen people because Abraham’s identity was in God and that identity led to obedience.

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Year 4, Day 20: Genesis 21

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Invitation, Identity

• Identity: Our true identity comes from God.  Only when our identity comes from God can we be obedient in ways that satisfy our person to our core.
• Invitation: God is always inviting us into relationship with Him. He desires that we know Him and we know His desires for us.

The story of Isaac and Ishmael is a great lens through which we can look at identity.  If we look at Isaac, his identity is easy to establish.  He is the promised child of Abraham and Sarah.  He is created through God’s power in opening up Sarah’s womb.  His identity is clearly rooted in God’s handiwork.

Ishmael is a more difficult person to look at with respect to identity.  He’s the product of a human plan.  He’s the child of a union between a man and his slave.  From a worldly perspective, he doesn’t have a great hope for identity.  Yet, God gives Ishmael an identity.  God loves Ishmael in spite of his worldly origins.  For me, this is the powerful testimony in these verses.  Isaac’s identity is clearly rooted in God.  But Ishmael has an identity that is just as equally rooted in God’s love.

This happily leads us into the realm of invitation.  God desires us to be in relationship with Him.  He desires that we know Him.  He doesn’t care about our origins; He cares about our relationship with Him.  He invites us to come and know Him deeply.  He invites us to get our identity from Him, our Father.

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Year 4, Day 19: Genesis 20

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Up

• Up: Up is the word we use for what we worship.  If we are following God’s will, God will occupy the Up position.  Our life, our identity, our mission, our family on mission is all derived from Up.  This is why God needs to be in our Up position.

This is an interesting story through which we can view the Up position of the relationship triangle.  The fundamental question that each of us has to face is: what is in our Up position?

When we look at Abraham’s behavior here in this story we do not see a person who has God in his Up position at this particular moment.  He is not protecting the purity of Sarah.  He is not protecting the purity of her womb.  He is not protecting the future testimony that God will do through an old man and a barren woman.  He is trading God’s great design for His own safety and prosperity.  Certainly Abraham is a man of faith, but in this particular story we see his flaw more than his faithfulness.

Fortunately, in this story we see that God is a loving and forgiving God.  God protects Abimelech.  God protects Sarah.  God even protects and forgives Abraham. 

There is a reason that God deserves to be our object of worship.  He deserves to be in our Up position because He gives us true identity.  He forgives us when we sin.  He protects us when we fail to do so.  Nobody else can do for us what God can do, even when we do not deserve it.

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Year 4, Day 18: Genesis 19

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Identity, Authority

• Identity: Our true identity comes from God.  Only when our identity comes from God can we be obedient in ways that satisfy our person to our core.
• Authority: Our calling.  This comes from God as king.  Because He calls us as His representatives, He gives us authority to go and do His will.

When I look at Lot in Genesis 19 I see a crisis of identity.  Whatever is at the top of Lot’s Covenant Triangle, it doesn’t seem like it is God.  God tells Lot to run away, but Lot can’t bring himself to leave without being dragged away.  God tells Lot to flee to the hills, but Lot can’t bear to think about not being a part of civilization.  Lot ends up in the hills, and he chooses drunkenness and infidelity with his own daughters rather than being a responsible man.  Here is a man whose identity is rooted in the world rather than being rooted in the Father.

However, when we look at Abraham we see a man whose identity is from the Father and whose authority comes from the King.  Whereas Lot is always on the brink of corruption and has to flee without looking back, God permits Abraham to look upon the valley of Sodom and live.  Abraham has authority in his life to not be corrupted by the sinfulness of Sodom.  That kind of authority over human sinfulness can only come from the Father.

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Year 4, Day 17: Genesis 18

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Invitation, Challenge

• Invitation: God is always inviting us into relationship with Him. He desires that we know Him and we know His desires for us.
• Challenge: God does not merely wish us to be in relationship with Him as we are.  He challenges us to grow, stretch, and transform as we take on the mantle of being His representatives to this world.

As I look at these two stories in Genesis 18, the lens of invitation jumps out at me.  After all, in the first story we have God coming to Abraham and sharing with him the vision that within a year he will have a son born to him.  If that doesn’t scream invitation, I don’t know what does!  That story is all about God, His love, and allowing Abraham to experience His love through their relationship.

As we get to the end of that story, we hear God debating whether or not to clue in Abraham as to what He is about to do in Sodom.  I hear the struggle of God calibrating invitation and challenge with Abraham.  God had just piled a huge amount of invitation on Abraham.  God wrestles with whether to allow Abraham to stay in the invitation or to draw him out into the challenge. 

What sticks with me is that God does draw Abraham out into the challenge.  He challenges Abraham with respect to Sodom.  Abraham responds.  Abraham rises to the challenge.  Abraham argues for the righteous people in Sodom.  He accepted God’s challenge and succeeds with high marks when God invited him into a spiritual challenge.  Abraham is God’s representative and even reminds God about the need to balance righteousness and love.

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Year 4, Day 16: Genesis 17

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: King

• King: This is the pinnacle of the Kingdom Triangle.  When we look towards God’s position in the universe, we acknowledge that He is king.  Authority comes from Him.  Power comes through His authority.  He is looking for representatives for His kingdom.

As I read through Abraham’s story in this chapter, I couldn’t help think about the kingship of God in two dimensions.  First, I thought about it with respect to yesterday’s reading.  In that story Abraham and Sarah and Hagar were caught up in sin and avoiding God’s perspective.  Certainly this was a dark spot on Abraham’s relationship with God.  But what happens?  In this chapter God demonstrates that he is King.  He can work in spite of Abraham’s sinfulness.  His power to bring about His will is greater than Abraham’s sinfulness.

This leads me into God’s greatness.  In this chapter He truly displays His kingship.  He knows the world needs a savior.  He knows that savior has to come from Him.  So how does He begin this journey to go from Abraham to Jesus Christ?  He starts with an old man and a barren woman.  Out of the impossible God brings about a baby.  Abraham couldn’t believe it.  We wouldn’t believe it either.  Yet this story serves to demonstrate that God is king of this universe.  He has full power and authority over this world.

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Year 4, Day 15: Genesis 16

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Learning Circle

• Learning Circle: The learning circle is the tool that we use to discover what God is saying to us.  It leads us through the process of repenting so that we can find what God is saying to us.  It also leads us through believing so that we can act upon what God is saying.

When I read through this example in Abraham’s life, I see a man who is in desperate need of a tool to help him listen to God.  His wife comes to him with a plan to conceive a child with another woman.  That should have tipped him off to something.  Then, when his wife and the woman that he impregnates have conflict, rather than encourage resolution he simply tells Sarah to “deal with her however she feels fit.”  Here is a man who should have been the spiritual leader, but he doesn’t even seem to desire to hear what God might have to say about the situation.  Truthfully, it seems as though the only one who listens is Hagar!

How different might this situation turned out if Abraham would have made a noticeable observation about Sarah’s suggestion.  What might have happened had he reflected upon Sarah’s plan and the possible consequences?  What might have happened had Abraham taken up Sarah’s suggestion with a spiritual mentor before acting upon it?  How might he have been able to hear God’s plan for his life rather than Sarah’s plan?

Or, even after the sin, how might it have turned out differently if he had observed the effects of the sin?  How might it have turned out differently had he reflected on what that act had upon his family?  How might it have turned out differently had he discussed his issues with someone who could have led him into repentance?

Chances are that Abraham would have been able to hear God.  He could have responded in repentance and then believed in a better future in God’s calling.  He could have set a plan and been held accountable to that plan.  He could have taken his plan and set it into action.

I believe this is the lesson to learn here.  We are sinful human beings.  God will break into our life and attempt to teach us.  We can either run from the lesson or turn to it and learn.  As we can see in the story, life is easier when we turn to God and learn the lesson.

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Year 4, Day 14: Genesis 15

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Father, Identity

• Father: This is the pinnacle of the Covenant Triangle.  God is the Father.  He is the creator.  He is love.  Our relationship with the Father is rooted in His love for us.  we get our identity through Him.
• Identity: Our true identity comes from God.  Only when our identity comes from God can we be obedient in ways that satisfy our person to our core.

As you might expect in the chapter where we see God give the first covenant to Abraham, we’re going to talk today about the covenant triangle.  If you haven’t already done so, click on the link above to the theological commentary and read the last section in that post regarding covenants in the ancient world.  What I say that follows will assume you have access to that knowledge.

What I love about God’s covenants is that He is the only being who makes a covenant in which He assumes that He is the only one doing all the necessary work.  God makes the verbal promise, Abraham receives it.  God passes through the cut up animals, Abraham receives God’s figurative oath coming through that act.  God does all the work!

The same is true in our life as well.  We have the opportunity to come to God and become praus – that is, fully submitted – to Him.  It is then that we discover His identity for us.  It is then that we discover His desire for our life.  It is then that we discover relationship with Him.  It is then that we discover just how much He has indeed already done for us.  We simply need to follow.  We simply need to embrace what He is already at work doing within us and through us. 

It all starts with the Father.  He brings salvation to us.  He brings forgiveness to us.  He gives us identity.  He tells us who we are and who we can be.

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Year 4, Day 13: Genesis 14

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Up

• Up: Up is the word we use for what we worship.  If we are following God’s will, God will occupy the Up position.  Our life, our identity, our mission, our family on mission is all derived from Up.  This is why God needs to be in our Up position.

Abraham displays a great sense of Up in this passage.  He comes across two kings.  One of them gives spiritual truth.  The other offers worldly gain.  Which one does Abraham choose?

Abraham meets Melchizedek.  Melchizedek offers him a spiritual blessing.  In Melchizedek, Abraham sees a spiritual superior.  In fact, this is the only man in Genesis that Abraham treats as a spiritual superior.  Melchizedek gives Abraham a spiritual blessing and Abraham humbles himself in his midst.  Abraham gives him a tithe.  Abraham values the spirituality of Melchizedek because of his relationship with God.

Then Abraham meets Bera, the king of Sodom.  Bera offers Abraham all the plunder from the war if Abraham would allow him to have the people.  On the surface, Bera is giving Abraham an opportunity for incredible worldly gain.  But Abraham is able to reject this offer.  Again, this is because of his relationship with God.   For Abraham, worldly gain is nothing if it doesn’t come from God.

Because Abraham has a good Up relationship with God, he is able to live with values that reflect that relationship.  He is able to be humble when called upon.  He is able to value true blessing rather than worldly gain.  It all starts with Abraham’s relationship with God.

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Year 4, Day 12: Genesis 13

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Authority, Power

• Authority: Our calling.  This comes from God as king.  Because He calls us as His representatives, He gives us authority to go and do His will.
• Power: This is the natural outcome when we truly get our authority from the king.  When our authority is from God, we are equipped with His power to accomplish His will.  We act on His behalf in a world that He desperately loves.

In Genesis 13 we get an incredible portrait of why it is that God chooses him to be the father of His people in faithfulness.  Abraham and his nephew return to the Promised Land after prospering in Egypt.  But they have to choose to separate because their combined wealth is too much for the land to sustain.

When it comes to separating, Abraham allows Lot to pick.  Abraham tells Lot, “You pick the direction and I’ll go to the place you don’t pick.”  He could easily have used his age, wisdom, and human authority to pick the better location.  But he doesn’t.  He allows Lot to pick.

Why is this important?  It is important because Abraham knows that with God on his side he will succeed wherever he goes.  If Lot wants the better land, it’s okay because God can prosper him whenever.  Abraham understands his place in God’s kingdom.  His authority comes from God, so he has the power to succeed regardless of the land he ends up in.  In other words, Abraham understands that his authority and power is not wrapped up in geography, land, or wealth.  His authority and power come from his relationship with God.  What a powerful testimony!

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Year 4, Day 11: Genesis 11-12

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Obedience

• Obedience: Genuine and satisfying obedience comes out of our identity.  Our true identity comes only from Father.

In Genesis 11-12 we can see two stories of obedience.  One is partial obedience and the other is full obedience.  We see them in Terah, Abraham’s father, and Abraham himself.

After the fall of the community attempting to develop Babel, the people disperse.  Eventually the focus of the Bible falls upon a distant descendant of Shem: Terah.  We hear that Terah is living in Ur among the Chaldean people.  God calls Terah to leave Ur.  Terah obeys full heartedly.  The problem is that God calls Terah to go to Canaan.  Terah stops in Haran.  Terah is only partially obedient.  I believe this comes out of a conflict with Terah’s identity.  Instead of looking for what God desires of him, Terah settles for a nice place to live and raise a good family.  Terah’s identity is not fully rooted in God, thus he doesn’t have the interior life to sustain a whole quest to Canaan.  He’s just not fully looking for what God fully desires.

Abraham, on the other hand, listens to God and manages to go the whole way to Canaan.  Abraham’s identity is indeed rooted in what God wants for him.  This is true at least, until a famine sets in.  Then we see Abraham falter a little.  But with respect to Abraham’s identity, he sees himself as the man God sees him as he gives up his life in Haran and continues on to the Promised Land.  He is obedient, because His identity is found in God.

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Year 4, Day 10: Genesis 10

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Identity

• Identity: Our true identity comes from God.  Only when our identity comes from God can we be obedient in ways that satisfy our person to our core.

I think it makes sense to speak about identity when we come to a genealogy.  After all, what is the point of a genealogy but to locate a person among those who come before – and subsequently, after – them.  Genealogies are inherently about identity and discovering who we are and what we are about within God’s family.

When we look within this genealogy, this is exactly the view that we get.  The Semites, the people of Shem, are the people of Mesopotamia and are directly involved in God’s work in the Old Testament.  It is these people out of whom Abraham comes.  The Japhethites are the people who go into Asia Minor and Europe and become the people to whom the mission goes in the New Testament.  Notice that both of these peoples come from the sons of Noah who respected their father at the end of the prior chapter.

Then, there are the Hamites.  These people are the people of Canaan and Africa.  These people become the perpetual adversaries of the Hebrew people and seldom if ever respond to God on any kind of large scale.  Remember that it was Ham who did nothing to help his father at the end of the prior chapter.

Here we can see identity with respect to God’s greater scheme.  He respects and does not abandon those who respect and follow His ways.  Those who seek to find their identity in places other than God’s ways will continually find themselves at odds with God and God’s ways.  It really boils down to the question: where do you get your identity?

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Year 4, Day 9: Genesis 9

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: In

• In: This is the word we use to express our relationships with our spiritual family.  These are often the people who hold us spiritually accountable.  They are the ones to whom we typically go for discussion and discernment.  These are the ones with whom we learn to share leadership.  They are the ones with whom we become family on mission.

There are many ways to go with Genesis 9 and a look at discipleship.  Today, I am struck by the examples we see in Noah’s sons – especially when Noah is in a compromising situation.  For me, we see here a great example of contrast, and it really helps define the “In” for Noah.

At the end of this chapter we see Noah get drunk and become unable to control his circumstances.  Of course that is sinful behavior.  But along comes Ham.  Ham finds his father drunk.  What does Ham do?  He goes out and tells his brothers.  Rather than help his father out, Ham broadcasts his father’s sin.  This is not “In” behavior.  Here we have a clear example of people who are blood related but not acting as spiritual family.

On the other hand, we have the example of Shem and Japheth.  What do they do when they hear about Noah’s condition?  They resolve the issue.  In fact, they resolve the issue in such a way as to try and not disgrace their father further and to not get wrapped up in his sinfulness themselves.  That’s “In” behavior.  They are there for Noah when he needs them.  They cannot take away his sinful behavior, but they can be there to help discern and manage what he’s gotten himself into.

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Year 4, Day 8: Genesis 8

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Up

• Up: Up is the word we use for what we worship.  If we are following God’s will, God will occupy the Up position.  Our life, our identity, our mission, our family on mission is all derived from Up.  This is why God needs to be in our Up position.

I love seeing what happened to Noah once the waters subsided.  Remember, he was on the ark for over a year when it was all said and done.  He was trapped there with all those animals, his family, and the like.  A year had gone by before the sealed ark was reopened.  What is the first thing that Noah does?  He builds an altar and worships God.

That’s awesome.  I’m sure that Noah – like the rest of us – had his faults.  I’m sure when he stepped off the ark he wanted to run free with feet back on stable ground again.  I’m sure he wanted to build a shelter for his family.  I’m sure he wanted to do a bunch of things, honestly.  But he worships God first.

It makes me wonder today, what is in my Up position?  Is God my first thought this morning?  Is my identity really beginning with the Father?  Is my authority really beginning with the King?  Is God setting the agenda for my missional focus and spiritual relationships?

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Year 4, Day 7: Genesis 7

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Obedience

• Obedience: Genuine and satisfying obedience comes out of our identity.  Our true identity comes only from Father.

What can we say about Noah other than he is an extraordinarily obedient man.  God tells him to build a super-huge ark and he does.  I don’t think I can imagine the effort put into that process.  Remember, it’s not like there was a Home Depot just down the street.  The lumber needed to be felled and then cut.  The nails and wooden pegs needed to be fashioned.  The pitch for waterproofing had to be found, made, refined, then applied.  I can’t imagine how much effort that project took and how obedient Noah was to God’s plan.

Furthermore, the animals needed to be gathered.  They had to be controlled.  Supplies needed to be found for all the animals.  What an undertaking that had to have been.

Not to mention that his family still had to be managed.  Sure, Noah’s sons helped along the way.  But I can’t imagine everything was roses.  I’m sure there were days when Noah’s sons were tired, frustrated, cranky, irritable, or sore.  Yet, through all of this, Noah’s primary characteristic is his obedience.  Noah saw God’s direction and obeyed.

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Year 4, Day 6: Genesis 6

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Calling, Capacity, Character, Chemistry, Competency

• Calling asks whether or not God has called the person to the particular work at this point in their life.
• Capacity asks whether or not the person has the time in their life to obey God.  
• Character asks whether or not a person have the interior spiritual life needed to be obedient to God.
• Chemistry asks whether the person in question can work with the other people that God has called.
• Competency asks whether or not the person has the readiness to be obedient to God’s will.

The 5 C’s are a means of looking for spiritual leadership.  In order for a person to successfully follow God’s directive, each of these characteristics should be present.  It takes Calling, Capacity, Character, Chemistry, Competency in some form to obey.

Within this opening story of Noah, we can clearly see each of these aspects, although some are admittedly more prominent than others.  Certainly Noah is called; God clearly speaks to Noah about His plan.  Noah has capacity as he is able to seemingly drop his life’s work and dedicate his life to the building of this large boat.  Noah has the character he needs as he is willing to obey God’s specifications regardless of how the people around him may have reacted to his actions.  Noah has the chemistry needed to work with others, although admittedly the people with whom he’s working is his own family.  Noah has the competency to accomplish the task as at the end of this chapter we can see that the ark is constructed and ready to be used.  Noah has what it takes to be obedient to God.

We can obey God.  But it is always easier to be obedient to God when our Calling, Capacity, Character, Chemistry, Competency increase.  The greater we have these characteristics within us, the more likely we will obey and be successful in our obedience while not wrestling with what God has asked us to do.

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