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.

<><