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God’s Covenants, March 1, 2021

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Thanks for joining me today for “A Little Walk with God.” I’m your host Richard Agee.

The season of Lent includes several important points for us to consider as we journey through those 40 days leading up to Easter. Initially, baptismal candidates used the time to go through a rigorous catechism to ensure they knew what it meant to take on the title Christian in a pagan world. Church membership didn’t mean just putting your name on a roll and attending every once in a while or giving a few dollars to keep the lights burning. Becoming a member of this band of Jesus followers meant the possibility of giving up everything, including your life. You might lose your job, your possessions, family and friends, everything. As Jesus told his disciples, the world would hate them because of the message they lived before others. Lent, then, allowed these new converts to make sure they believed what they believed and knew what it meant.

Over time, we transferred Lent as a preparation for baptism and church membership to prepare for Easter, something the early church never did because every Sunday they celebrated Easter. That’s why the early Christians celebrated and worshiped on Sunday, the first day of the week when the resurrected Jesus appeared to Mary and his disciples after his crucifixion for the first time. We seem to have forgotten much of what the early church meant by their early baptism practices, Lent, even the meaning of Easter and Sunday. But Lent is in every respect a time of preparation, a time for self-examination and meditation on what God did for us on the cross.

The cross fulfilled his last great covenant with humanity. God made covenants with many throughout the Old Testament. They begin with Adam. He placed him in the garden and gave him dominion over his creation, granting him life for as long as he obeyed a straightforward command. Don’t eat from the tree in the center of the garden. Adam failed the test, and the curse of death fell upon all creation. God gave Noah a covenant and sealed it with a rainbow. He gave Abraham and David and Solomon covenants. Throughout the Old Testament, we read repeatedly covenants God made with individuals and with his chosen people.

God’s covenants have some interesting characteristics, however. His covenants are extraordinarily one-sided. God does most of the work. Covenants today would be called contracts in which each party commits to providing some service to the other party. But in God’s covenants, invariably, God commits himself to do everything except one small item. He calls the other party to obey him. Usually, that’s the sum total of what he asks. That was all he asked of Adam, Noah, Abraham, David, Solomon, Moses, Israel, and the list goes on. His covenants ask for obedience. Just listen and do what he asks. And usually, his rules are not hard. Don’t murder – not so hard. Don’t steal – we can do that. Don’t commit adultery – it seems like our culture leaves that out a lot, but if we control our appetites, we can do that without much effort. Don’t lie – it’s a lot easier to tell the truth, so you don’t have to remember who you told what lie. Don’t covet – there’s that appetite again, but it’s really about being okay with what someone else has. If we do those, it’s easier to have no other God’s before Yahweh, or not to have any images, things we’ve created to take his place, or to take his name in vain, or to set aside time to worship him. When we do all that, honoring parents is easy. And Jesus put it together in two simple commands: Love God; Love others.

So, to sum up God’s covenants, he does everything for us to succeed in his economy. He takes care of our needs, not necessarily our wants. He adopts us into his royal family and makes us part of his kingdom. God renews our humanity as he designed it. And all we need to do is love him and love others. He takes care of everything else. That should sell better than the Gansu knife. But it doesn’t because we think we know more than God. Take a look at God’s covenant with Abraham, for example.

When Abram was ninety-nine years old, Yahweh appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am God Almighty. Walk before me and be blameless. I will make my covenant between me and you, and will multiply you exceedingly.”

Abram fell on his face. God talked with him, saying, “As for me, behold, my covenant is with you. You will be the father of a multitude of nations. Your name will no more be called Abram, but your name will be Abraham; for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make nations of you. Kings will come out of you. I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God to you and to your offspring after you.

God said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but her name shall be Sarah. I will bless her, and moreover I will give you a son by her. Yes, I will bless her, and she will be a mother of nations. Kings of peoples will come from her.” (Genesis 17:1-7;15-16 WEB)

How do we get around our obstinance and worldly attractions? Lent is a good start. Paul tells us in Philippians to think about “whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, excellent, or praiseworthy.” (Philippians 4:8 NIV) The covenant of the cross surely meets that criteria and should be in our thoughts consistently during Lent. Think about what comes from Jesus’ sacrifice – forgiveness, fellowship, adoption, inner peace, eternal life. Meditate on these things and let God’s peace wash over you during Lent.

Jesus did it all for us. He gave his flesh and blood. He endured the agony of the cross, the ridicule, and humiliation from the crowd, even death at the hands of an angry mob. He did it all. And our part of the covenant he instituted on that last night with his disciples? Obey two commands. Love God and love others.

Lent – a time of preparation, self-examination, meditation. Think back to the early church and what it meant to new believers. True believers may not be far from going underground again in this country as Christians are in many countries around the world. It’s time we stop and contemplate what it means to follow Christ. Will you follow him if it means your job, your property, your possessions, your family, your life? Will you pay the price in suffering when you walk in the footsteps of the suffering servant? Those were questions the early church faced. Will we see them in this country? Maybe. Spiritual warfare continues in realms we do not understand. Lent offers a time to reflect. Take the time as another glorious Easter celebration approaches.

You can find me at richardagee.com. I also invite you to join us at San Antonio First Church of the Nazarene on West Avenue in San Antonio to hear more Bible-based teaching. You can find out more about my church at SAF.church. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed it, tell a friend. If you didn’t, send me an email and let me know how better to reach out to those around you. Until next week, may God richly bless you as you venture into His story each day.

Scriptures marked WEB are taken from the THE WORLD ENGLISH BIBLE (WEB): WORLD ENGLISH BIBLE, public domain.

Scriptures marked NIV are taken from the NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION (NIV): Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION ®. Copyright© 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™. Used by permission of Zondervan

Remember Who We Are, June 8, 20202

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Thanks for joining me today for “A Little Walk with God.” I’m your host Richard Agee.

I hope this week will not be like last week. I hope things settle down and the looting, riots, and violence that accompanied the protests over the apparent racial injustice across the country. The swift action of the protestors bothered me as the demonstrations began before investigators and prosecutors even had time to make their case. I trust justice will prevail as courts review the evidence, and a jury of the officers’ peers make decisions about their guilt or innocence.

We need to stop the violence from both sides. Burning cars, breaking windows, looting stores only adds to the illusion that violence requires violence for resolution. But that never works. It only escalates the violent actions from both sides, and innocent people suffer because of it. Certainly, there must be better ways to solve the issues facing the nation than burning down the land where we live and work and raise our children. The destruction makes no sense.

As always, in these situations, we forget that except for the amount of melanin residing in the melanocytes in the epidermis, we are the same. The more melanin, the darker our skin tone. We all have about the same number of melanocytes; it’s just how much melanin those cells produce. Do an autopsy on any of us and cut through that epidermis, and we all look the same inside. Our hearts are in the same place. Our lungs look and operate in the same way. Our stomachs and intestines don’t need different roadmaps to find them based on race or color of our skin. We are very much the same inside.

So why do we become so obsessed with the color of someone’s skin? I think because there is usually something we don’t like about ourselves, so we need to find a way to think ourselves better than them. Whether black, white, yellow, brown, red, or purple, I want to overlook my faults, and to do that, I find fault in those not like me. In Viet Nam, we fought Gooks, not Vietnamese. In Desert Storm, the enemy was ragheads, not Iraqi soldiers or the ancestors of the proud Persian people. In every war, we make the enemy something less than human to make it easier to engage them.

Unfortunately, we have done the same across the world and now within our nation. We are setting ourselves up to destroy ourselves internally in a kind of civil war that has yet to identify precisely how the combatant will align. Politics divide us deeper than in our nearly 250-year history. It is almost impossible to hear a middle ground in any debate anymore. Politics exists only in the far-left and far-right extremes today.

The same seems true as we divide economically. Whether intentionally or unintentionally, our laws support the division of family groups into a widening gap between the rich and poor with fewer considered middle-class. And laws designed to assist the poor, instead keep them below the poverty line and encourage the dissolution of family units or their financial situation would become even worse. While we do all of this, our elected officials make themselves fat at our expense with a national debt impossible to pay. Divided equally, to pay our national debt, every American from the oldest to the youngest now owes about $70,000 each. Any of us handling our personal bank accounts the same way Congress handles our taxes would face imprisonment for fraud, theft, or embezzling. We can’t keep spending what we will never earn.

So how do we fix the mess we created for ourselves over the last several decades? First, we need to remember who we are from the start. Look back at the beginning to see a description of how we began and our responsibilities in this place called Earth. You’ll find it in the very first chapter of Genesis, the beginning.

26 Then God said, “Let us make humanity in our image to resemble us so that they may take charge of the fish of the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the earth, and all the crawling things on earth.”

27 God created humanity in God’s own image,
in the divine image God created them,[a]
male and female God created them.

28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and master it. Take charge of the fish of the sea, the birds in the sky, and everything crawling on the ground.” 29 Then God said, “I now give to you all the plants on the earth that yield seeds and all the trees whose fruit produces its seeds within it. These will be your food. 30 To all wildlife, to all the birds in the sky, and to everything crawling on the ground—to everything that breathes—I give all the green grasses for food.” And that’s what happened. 31 God saw everything he had made: it was supremely good.

There was evening and there was morning: the sixth day. (Genesis 1:26-31 CEB)

We see in these verses; God made all of us. He also gave us the responsibility to care for everything else he created. I think that includes each other. It doesn’t mean coddle, but nurture, teach, bring to maturity. I see that command in Jesus last words to His disciples before He ascended into heaven after His resurrection when He said:

“I’ve received all authority in heaven and on earth. ¹⁹Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰teaching them to obey everything that I’ve commanded you. Look, I myself will be with you every day until the end of this present age.” (Matthew 28:18-20 CEB)

Go into all the world doesn’t leave anyone out. It includes every place, every continent, every people, every race. Teaching them everything He taught goes back to the beginning of time. Be the people God intended you to be. Take care of this place. Take care of each other. Extend mercy and grace to each other. Demonstrate God’s love to one another. Let everyone know the importance of every human life because each one mirrors God’s image, the creator of the universe. Within us lives the spark of God’s creative genius and His breath of life.

How should we treat each other? The videos dominating social media and the news over the last several days clearly demonstrate how not to live. Fortunately, we do not live in North Korea or under Sharia Law. If we did, those looters and demonstrators from the several last days would be summarily executed in front of our courthouses after kangaroo trials. Those reporting the incidents without trying to stop the violence would probably face imprisonment or worse as well.

We still live in a land of opportunity. We must pause and take a hard look at ourselves. Some of our authorities clearly stepped over the line in recent days, but not all of them. Most of our law enforcement and first responders serve proudly without prejudice protecting all citizens’ rights and property. Most deserve our respect and honor. We need a better way to find and root out the bad actors and punish them when they abuse their authority. But as in any community, that percentage of bad actors is small, just as the number of violent actors in the recent protests represented a small percentage of those present.

We must be careful not to let the small percentage of bad actors prejudice our judgment against a community, whether a race of people, a police department, a government agency, or a nation. A few bad actors do not represent the whole. In our haste to stereotype, may God stop us and remind us He made everything very good. We are the ones who damaged His creation, but with His help, we can also restore it in many ways. Before thinking everyone is like the few in the news or social media, remember, God made us all, and He makes all things good.

Then turn to Paul’s last words to the church in Corinth. Listen to his warning to them:

¹¹Finally, brothers and sisters, good-bye. Put things in order, respond to my encouragement, be in harmony with each other, and live in peace—and the God of love and peace will be with you.

¹²Say hello to each other with a holy kiss.^[^a^] All of God’s people say hello to you.

¹³The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. (2 Corinthians 13:11-13 CEB)

If we work to put things in order, respond to encouragement, be in harmony with each other, and live in peace – the God of love and peace will overshadow us. The violence will end. The prejudice will stop. We will become the people God made us to be. I urge you to let His word sink into your heart instead of the political vitriol that pours through the media in the next days.

The voice of the Lord, January 14, 2019

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Today I want to continue to use the common lectionary to focus our attention on God’s word. One of the passages in this week’s scripture lessons comes from Psalms 29 in which the psalmist speaks of the voice of God. In those few verses, he describes God’s voice in some unique ways. He says it thunders over the waters, is powerful, and full of majesty. God’s voice breaks cedars and flashes forth flames of fire. His voice shakes the wilderness and causes oaks to whirl, stripping forests bare. And in his temple all say, “Glory!”

The Israelites at the base of Mount Sinai described God’s voice as the sound of fire and thunder. But Elijah heard God’s voice as a quiet whisper on the mountain. Samuel was awakened by God’s voice and thought it was his mentor, Eli, calling from another area of the tabernacle. Some at Jesus’ baptism heard a voice bellowing, “This is my son.” Others thought they heard thunder.

Whatever God’s voice might sound like, though, people have heard him. He speaks. He is alive. He was there before the world began because he spoke it into existence. He is alive now as many attest to his spirit active in molding lives and working toward the finality of his purposes for mankind and his creation. And he will be alive eternally. God is. Period. And his voice commands.

I like to read the creation story and think what it must have been like for the nothingness to first hear God speak. What would those words be like that could bring light into being and separate land and sea? What sounds would emanate from God that would change the chaos of a meaningless void into an ordered universe we cannot begin to explore or even begin to imagine its secrets as we peer into the depths of space.

Every once in a while stop and look up at the sky on a clear night just to reflect on the awesome power of a God who could speak that pantheon of planets and stars and galaxies into existence. For millennia, we were convinced the earth was the center of the universe. Our sun bent to our needs and traversed our sky. It moved, not us. Of course, the flat earth movement tries to tell us the same thing, but…

Galileo proved the flat earth theory wrong centuries ago and the Hubble telescope has shown us more than 32 billion galaxies spread across an expanding universe filled with stars and planets and moons and comets and all sorts of celestial bodies that are just mind boggling. And to think, God spoke and it came into being. His voice is all it took to change nothing into something. We sometimes think we are creative and can make stuff. And in truth, God did give us a creative capacity since we are created in his image. But there is one huge difference in our creativity and his. He didn’t have any raw materials. He created his own. That, we cannot do. We have learned the magic formula E=mc², but that only converts material to energy and maybe someday energy to material. But it still starts with something. Something God created. God started with nothing.

So God’s voice, his powerful, majestic voice put into place all of the created universe. We are but an insignificant speck in the vastness of that universe. I read a few weeks ago that Voyager 2, one of long range space probes launched in 1977 made it into interstellar space, the area outside the magnetic shield of our sun. Voyager 1, also launched in 1977 passed through the heliosphere into interplanetary space in 2012. Traveling at nearly 35,000 miles per hour, it took these two probes 35 and 41 years, respectively, to reach beyond the influence of our sun’s protective gravity. That’s the size of our relatively small solar system in our medium sized galaxy. One of 32 billion galaxies that we know of in our universe.

We cannot begin to grasp the vastness of what God created when he spoke the stars into existence. How can we begin to understand the power and majesty of his voice? How can we not be in awe of his creative sovereignty? He is God and we are not. Just looking at the sky and recognizing his handiwork shows us who he is and should cause us to bow in adoration.

But too often, we look at the sky and listen to those who would try to explain away God with science. Don’t get me wrong. I like science. I was a chemistry major and biology minor. I’ve taught undergraduates biology. I love learning about new discoveries in the scientific world. I enjoy studying the solutions to problems that have plagued mankind for generations. I like science. But there is a limit to what science can teach and what they can wish away.

With all the knowledge and all the theory about creation and the beginnings of our universe and life on this planet, there is still one question science cannot answer without acknowledging God. Where did the raw material for the universe originate? God’s word gives the answer. God spoke and created the raw material out of nothing. Until science accepts that one premise, the rest cannot be explained. It’s like gravity. Until gravity is accepted as truth, the rest of the properties of physics cannot be explained. There are some facts that just are. We accept them. We believe them to be true even though there is no proof except circular arguments for them.

So what does the voice of God sound like today? I don’t know exactly. I can give you some personal thoughts from my own experiences when I think heard God’s voice. One was when I finally settled what I know was his call for me to preach. It was a late Sunday night in August while we were living in Marietta, GA. Carole and I had always been active in church, helping wherever we could. Part of the choir. Teaching classes. Helping in outreach activities. Just ‘doing’ as James tells us. But I had this nagging feeling that God wanted me to preach. I didn’t particularly want to because I’m a preacher’s kid. I thought I knew what it meant to pastor a church because I’d lived through that as part of the family for many years. My Army career was going well. I was working for the Army Surgeon General and could pick up the phone and call him if I had any trouble with the project I was on. He knew me on a first name basis other than “Lieutenant”, my real first name.

But I couldn’t get away from that feeling. Then came that Sunday night. The impression that came to me, and that was the voice. No words. No booming thunder. No angel on one shoulder and devil on the other competing with each other. Just this overwhelming impression that I could either obey the command God gave me to preach his word or I could go to hell. Obedience or disobedience. That was the choice I had to make that night. And I knew this was my last chance to make that choice. Could God forgive me if I had chosen not to pursue ministry? Yes. Would I have asked for forgiveness later? I don’t know. I don’t know what path I would have taken, but I know it would not have been the right path and life would have been very different and not as rewarding as it has been. So that first monumental moment for me was just that overwhelming knowledge that I had to make a choice.

A couple of years later, I struggled with the question of whether to stay in the Army or leave and accept the pastorate of a church in Georgia. The denominational leadership in the area offered me a church. Others recommended I stay in the Army until retirement so I didn’t have to worry about what costs as I grew older. Pastors just don’t make much for the most part. Few have great retirement plans. Many live in parsonages most of their career and so when they retire they have no nest egg to buy a home and lenders won’t lend a 70 year old with no income the money to buy a home. So there was wisdom in some of their argument. I was torn in my decision.

God’s voice came in the form of a friend. After much prayer, I had to visit a colleague as part of my Army duties. We were talking about recruiting some particular health professionals to fill some vacancies in a couple of our Army hospitals. Out of the blue, almost mid-sentence, he said, “Isn’t it great to be in the Army, move all over the world at government expense, and be able to minister to different congregations?” That was my answer. I was to stay in the Army. To this day, he didn’t remember saying those words. He didn’t remember the conversation. In fact, he didn’t even remember me coming that day because it was a surprise visit. I wasn’t on his appointment schedule. That day, God’s voice sounded an awful lot like my Christian friend’s.

Sometimes God’s voice looks, rather than sounds, like a scripture verse that just sticks in my head and I can’t get away from it. Sometimes God’s voice sounds like a friend. Sometimes God’s voice sounds like mine after I’ve studied and planned and done everything I can to decipher his will in a decision I need to make. Sometimes God’s voice sounds like my wife’s godly counsel. Sometimes God’s voice sounds like my pastor when he steps on my toes in a sermon. Sometimes God’s voice comes as a dream that solves a problem I haven’t been able to solve.

What does God’s voice sound like? I’m not sure we can pinpoint a sound. I am convinced, however, that God still speaks. His spirit is alive and resident in those who believe. His spirit touches our spirit and we can know his will. But the way we know it comes from also immersing ourselves in the words he inspired in his prophets centuries ago. God has not changed. Governments change. Economies change. Cultures change. But God does not change. He set everything in motion and called it good. Because he declared his creative acts good, he doesn’t need to change them. Nor does he need to change because he is the measuring stick against which all things are measured as good or bad.

So when we immerse ourselves in his word, when we follow his teachings, when we allow his spirit in us to direct our path and fill us with his goodness, we can know if we are pleasing him and making the right decisions. Sometimes he needs to hit us over the head to help us make that decision. It took me 10 years of questioning and debating and running away to finally get back to the truth that God desired me to preach. I could only answer yes if I was to please him.

Sometimes he needs to put boulders and mountains in our way to keep us from making the wrong choice. And sometimes we still push those boulders aside and pull out sticks of dynamite to blow away the mountains. He tries to keep us from destroying ourselves, but we just won’t listen and we pay the consequences. All those boulders fall back in place, sometimes on top of us.

But sometimes we face situations and God just lets us use that squiggly, gelatin like mass of neurons that make up our brain to make decisions. You see, I don’t think God cares if I eat yellow cake or chocolate cake. But I do think he cares if I steal one or the other. I don’t think he cares if I like my coffee black or with cream and sugar. But I do think he cares if I a race to Starbucks becomes more important than a race to my devotions.

God speaks. We just need to be ready to listen to his voice. Keep your ears open today. You just never know what he might say.

You can find me at richardagee.com. I also invite you to join us at San Antonio First Church of the Nazarene on West Avenue in San Antonio to hear more Bible based teaching. You can find out more about my church at SAF.church. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed it, tell a friend. If you didn’t, send me an email and let me know how better to reach out to those around you. Until next week, may God richly bless you as you venture into His story each day.

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Joseph: From Slave to Deputy Pharaoh, September 18, 2017

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Bible Reading Plan – www.Bible-Reading.com; The Story, Chapter 3; You Version app, days 15 through 21

This week you’ll read the story of Joseph. You probably remember much of his story if you’ve been around the church. Even if you don’t know much about the Bible, you’ve probably heard something about Joseph. The story of Joseph and his multicolored coat even made Broadway.

But we need to look at Joseph’s story the way it fits into God’s story. Remember we’ve been talking about the difference between the lower story we live in and the upper story God plans. We can’t see farther than the moments we live in. We can’t see around the bend in the road to know how the events of today will really impact our lives tomorrow. But God sees the panorama of eternity. He knows how ever moment of our lives, every moment of suffering, can be turned into good for us.

Joseph could not understand how his brothers selling him into slavery could be good for him. But God knew how he would use it. Joseph didn’t understand how being accused of rape and thrown into prison could be a good thing. But God knew how he would use that horrible event that could mean Joseph’s execution to save the nation He promised to build through Abraham.

Joseph didn’t understand how the broken promise of the baker and his languishing in an Egyptian death row prison could be anything but bad, but God knew how that event would eventually put Joseph in front of Pharaoh at just the right moment to make Joseph second in command of the whole kingdom and become the salvation for not only Egypt, but many of the surrounding nations as well.

Joseph had dreams as a teenager that he would rule his brothers and parents. Those dreams seemed to be dashed when his brothers sold him into slavery. He couldn’t see the big picture of God’s upper story. All he could see at any given moment were the days of suffering in slavery or prison. But Joseph kept his eyes turned upward and trusted God.

That’s why when his brothers came to get food from Egypt during the famine that hit the region he could tell them, “It was not you that did this, but God did it to save all of us.” His brothers might have meant to do Him evil, but God had a bigger view and turned that evil into good and saved Israel through those actions. God’s plans cannot be thwarted.

I sometimes wonder what would have happened had Joseph’s brothers not thrown him into the pit and sold him into slavery. Would Joseph still become the leader of the nation? Probably. God set him apart as revealed in the dreams he had a young man. There was something special about Joseph that God saw that few others did. It caused a lot of friction in his family and as a teenager, he didn’t handle it very well. Neither did his father.

The obvious favoritism in Jacob’s family created horrible internal family dynamics. I can’t imagine the difficulties a family counselor would have trying to straighten that crowd out. The jealousy, infighting, favoritism…everything that all the books tell you creates a bad family happened in that one.

Maybe God let all that happen to get Joseph away from the continued influence of the family dynamic in Jacob’s family. Maybe God needed to teach Joseph some humility through suffering before he could become the great leader God knew he could be.

We don’t know how God works or why we go through the things we do because we can only see the lower story. We see linearly and have all those obstacles in the way. We have to pay our bills, eat, go to work, deal with all of our own family dynamics and our neighbors and our co-workers and church members and, well, …life. We are stuck in this two dimensional view of life and cannot see what is next.

God on the other hand sees all. He is not bound by time. He exists eternally. Past, present, and future. He can see around the bend and can intervene in our lives to make His dreams collide with our lives to make sure His plans are carried out.

Often we have dreams as kids or as teenages that God plants in our heads and we let life destroy them just as Joseph did. I doubt if he thought he would ever become a ruler after he was sold into slavery. I doubt if he thought his dreams would ever come true after he was falsely accused and thrown into prison. I imagine he set those dreams aside and just worked as hard as he could knowing that is would God would expect of him.

But those dreams did materialize for him as he followed God’s ways. Have you ever thought that God might use you the same way? That all things really do work for good for those that love Him and work according to His purpose? They do. There are many examples we will continue to see as we continue to read through God’s story. But remember the two conditions that go along with God’s promise.

First, we must love Him. And second, we must work according to His purpose. That means He must come first. Does your checkbook show that He comes first in your life or does God just get leftovers? Does your calendar reflect your love for God? Do your social activities show God is first in your life? Does your library and reading and listening habits show that you want to hear God’s voice more than anyone else in your daily communications?

God’s promises are almost always conditional. If you don’t really love God and don’t work according to His purposes (not your own), don’t expect this promise from Romans chapter 8 to apply to you. God might do some good things for you just because He is a gracious God, but the promise doesn’t apply. Don’t expect it.

But if you do love Him. If your life reflects you love for Him with your whole heart, soul, mind, and strength, you can be assured everything that happens in your life will work toward something good in your life. I can’t tell you when or how, but God’s promise applies to you and He never breaks His promises.

Just like with Joseph, all things work for good. He spent 22 pretty tough, rotten years suffering at the hands of his brothers and then at the hands of masters and prison guards. But he then spent 71 years as Pharaoh’s second in command. No one had more authority in the known world at the time except Pharaoh himself. He traded 22 rough years for 71 years of luxury in Pharaoh’s palace. God turned bad into good. Both for Joseph and for the nation God was building through the covenant He made those years earlier with Abraham.

Do you have some old dreams that don’t seem to be happening? Maybe you just can’t see around the bend. Look up. God works in the upper story. Follow His will. Work toward His purposes. Love Him with your whole heart, soul, mind, and strength. He works in ways we will never comprehend. Like with Joseph, God can turn our dreams into His dreams and His are so much beyond what we could ever imagine.

You can find me at richardagee.com. I also invite you to join us at San Antonio First Church of the Nazarene on West Avenue in San Antonio to hear more about The Story and our part in it. You can find out more about my church at SAF.church. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed it, tell a friend. If you didn’t, send me an email and let me know how better to reach out to those around you. Until next week, may God richly bless you as you venture into His story each day.

The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved. In accordance with the requirements for FTC full disclosure, I may have affiliate relationships with some or all of the producers of the items mentioned in this post who may provide a small commission to me when purchased through this site.

God builds a nation (Genesis 12-35), September 11, 2017

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Welcome back to our study of “The Story,” God story of His plan to bring us back to Him. Last week we talked about the Garden of Eden, why we are no longer in it, the curse of evil we all inherited because of Adam and Eve’s decision to disobey, and God’s working to redeem us – to bring us back into fellowship with Him. The story of the Garden is the first of five major movements in God’s word, His story. Today we begin the second movement, the birth of the nation of Israel.

Bible Reading Plan – www.Bible-Reading.com – or Genesis chapters 12-35

When I was a kid, I’ll have to admit I wasn’t the most athletic person in my community. I was always the geek. Loved reading and science and math. I enjoyed learning more than running around outside getting all hot and sweaty. So one of the things I remember about that time of my life are the games we had to play in school in which someone was made the captain of each side and those captains began to choose their team from all the kids around them. If I wasn’t the last person picked, I was next to last just about every time.

I just wasn’t very good at sports and so I never got picked early. I could write well, debate, take tests of all kinds and perform at the top of the class in those areas. But sports? Not so much.

A strange thing happened on one of those fields one day, though. One of the best players on the field was a friend. On this particular day, he was chosen as the captain of one of the teams. I was at the back of the crowd of kids trying to be as inconspicuous as possible.Trying not to be as embarrassed as usual. I wasn’t paying much attention to what was going on at the front of the crowd because I knew I’d be one of the last one’s whose name was called.

But my friend, the captain that day, made the first pick and he called my name. He had to call it twice, though, because I was in shock. No one picked me first. The other captain called a name and then my friend called the name of the second least likely to be asked to play. Then when he called the third name for his team, it was another geek, least likely to play any kind of sport. And that’s how it went until everyone was picked.

I don’t even remember what the score was at the end of the softball game that day, but I remember being called first when teams were formed. I also remember we didn’t win the game, but all of us on that team played our hearts out for our captain. He broke the cultural traditions and put together the worst team you could imagine.

God’s story, beginning at Genesis 12, tells of the selection of two unlikely people. If we were trying to build a nation, we wouldn’t pick Abram and Sarai. We would probably find the son of some wealthy king and spark a new nation from him. We would probably look at the pedigree of those who applied and like the majority of the world, we would peruse all those resumes to pick the very best couple we could to form this new nation.

But God’s story is a little different. He chooses some of the most unlikely people to carry out His plan so there is no question about His intervention in the story. Abraham and Sarah (God changed their names along the way) were old. She was barren. They had no children. How was a great nation to start from an old couple with no children. He was already well past retirement age when his son Isaac was born. Abraham was 100 and Sarah was 90.

Then about fifteen years later, God tells Abraham to sacrifice his son. The heir to his property. The one who was promised as the means of building a new nation that would bless all the other nations of the world.

These 20 plus chapters in Genesis tell the story of how God chooses the way my friend did that day on the field. There is one really important difference, though. On the softball field, that broken team didn’t play very well. We played hard, but we lost. But when God chooses someone to carry out His work, when we do what He asks, the plan never fails. The plan doesn’t fail because God doesn’t fail. He intends to use men and women like Abraham and Sarah to bless others.

Was Abraham perfect after God chose him? Not by a long shot. That’s one of the things that’s different about His Story. He tells us the good and the bad about the heroes in scripture. God’s story doesn’t hide the disappointment, the disobedience, the sin in the lives of those upon whom His kingdom is built. It’s one of those “tell all” kinds of stories. We see behind the curtain and see all the warts and wrongs and brokenness of those God chooses to do His work.

What that tells me, when I read stories of Abraham and his deceit with Pharaoh or the story of Jacob lying to his father and stealing his brother’s birthright or the story of Judah sleeping with his daughter-in-law, is that God can use all the people the world would never pick. He looks at the back of the crowd at those who are least likely to succeed. He finds those who the world would snub their nose and question why God would think to use “that person.”

God knows what He is doing, though. God works through some of the least likely for two reasons, I think. First, when those least likely carry out His plan and others around see the success of God’s work through the efforts of the least likely to succeed, there can be no question that God is part of the plan. There is just no other way to explain how things work because we cannot see around the bend in the road. We can’t see how everything will work because we live in the lower story of God’s word while He operates in the upper story.

God not only sees what’s ahead, but intervenes to make sure His plans happen as He intends. Second, when we read about people like Judah and Jacob and Abraham and the mistakes they made yet were honored by God when they returned and followed Him, we can understand that God can use you and me too. He can take us with all our warts, all our brokenness, all our failures and turn us into instruments of His love and part of His great plan.

The question is whether we will be part of His plan or fighting against His plan. The choice is ours to make. God won’t force us to follow Him or accept Him as our redeemer. He won’t push us to do something we refuse to do. He will let us choose our own path. But we also suffer the consequences of taking the wrong path. He tells us how best to live. His word gives us instruction on how to get along with others, how to succeed in life. How to treat our children and our spouse. How to find Him and His redemptive power in our lives. But still, God lets us choose. He knows the best path for us and if we will look up and follow Him, He will show us which path to take. But we still get to choose whether we will take it or not.

So here we are at the beginning of the nation of Israel. God made it possible for Abraham to bless the world through his offspring. Abraham decided to accept God’s offer and to follow Him. You can look at the first chapter of the New Testament and discover just how blessed the world is because of Abraham’s faithfulness. Jesus is his descendant. Both Mary and Joseph trace their heritage back to this man who decided to trust God and follow the path He laid out.

So what can you do? Can you change the world for God? No. Neither could Abraham. But God can change the world through you just as He changed the world through Abraham. An unlikely candidate for greatness, but God change that in Abraham. You might think you are an unlikely candidate for greatness. But God can use you to carry out His plans and make all things good as you carry out His purpose in your part of His creation.

So what will it be?

El-Shaddai (Genesis 17:1; Psalms 91:1), June 9, 2017

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Today’s Podcast

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Thanks for joining me today for “A Little Walk with God.” I’m your host Richard Agee.
The name for today, El-Shaddai. It can mean God of the mountains or more commonly translated God Almighty.
Scripture
1. Genesis 17:1; Psalms 91:1
2. When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to him and said, “I am God Almighty; walk before me faithfully and be blameless.
3. Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High

will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.

Devotional
1. El-Shaddai, God Almighty.
2. We hear that term a lot.
  1. We hear the name so often we probably let it just slip off our tongue without really thinking much about it
  2. God Almighty; Almighty God; the all-sufficient one; the one mighty to nourish, satisfy, and supply;
  3. Maybe we should stop and consider just exactly what we’re saying when we characterize God with this title
3. Definition: having complete, unlimited power; omnipotent
4. Synonyms: all-powerful, omnipotent, supreme, preeminent
5. So again, what does that mean to you
  1. He is able to supply your every need
  2. He is able to nourish and satisfy the deep longings of your soul
  3. He is able to defeat your enemies in impossible situations
  4. He is able to bring hope when things seem hopeless
  5. He is able to conquer your greatest fears
  6. He is almighty, all-powerful, omnipotent, nothing can overcome Him
6. El-Shaddai spoke the worlds into place
  1. He holds the power of the stars in His hands
  2. He pushes back the oceans and releases the power of volcanoes
  3. He makes grass grow through rock and makes the soft down on a duck’s belly
  4. He is God Almighty, the all-sufficient one, the one mighty to nourish, satisfy, and supply your need
7. El-Shaddai put the mountains in place and causes them to crumble in the rain
  1. He put the rivers in place and dries them up at his command
  2. He heals when there seems to be no cure
  3. He forgives and removes the burden of guilt from us
8. If El-Shaddai can do all those things, what are you facing that He cannot help you get through? What problem do you struggle with that He cannot help you conquer? Who is attacking you that you cannot overcome? What temptation are you facing that He cannot provide an exit for you?
  1. The answer is simple. He is El-Shaddai, God Almighty. There is nothing beyond His capability because He is almighty, He has complete, unlimited power; omnipotent, supreme, preeminent.
  2. He is able
If you want to learn more about my church, you can find us at SAF.church. If you like the devotional, share it with someone. If you don’t, tell me. I hope you’ll join me again tomorrow for “A Little Walk with God.”

El-Roi (Genesis 16:13), June 8, 2017

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Today’s Podcast

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Thanks for joining me today for “A Little Walk with God.” I’m your host Richard Agee.
Today the name of God we consider is El-Roi, the strong one who sees.
Scripture
1. Genesis 16:13
2. She gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her: “You are the God who sees me,” for she said, “I have now seen the One who sees me.”
Devotional
1. El-Roi, the strong one who sees
2. I expect we have all hit that point in our life at one time or another when we think no one care about us. No one sees our plight. No one would notice if we just disappeared from the face of the earth.
3. Drama of the Old Testament
  1. Unlike the stories of other heroes
  2. Points out the flaws and failures of those we should emulate
  3. Abraham, father of the Israelite nation
  4. Promised a son who and progeny that would be the spark of a nation that was innumerable
  5. At 100 he had no children
4. Sarah gives her maidservant to Abraham in an effort to help God along
  1. Common practice for barren women
  2. Servant acted as surrogate and their child became the heir of the estate
  3. Adopted into the family
  4. Hagar became arrogant and took liberties with Sarah she should not have taken
  5. Sarah drove Hagar and Ishmael away
5. Hagar, though a servant, lived in luxury and wasn’t prepared to survive in the desert
  1. Alone
  2. Lost
  3. Without hope
  4. In despair, resigned to die in the wilderness
6. God, in His strength and power, sees her
  1. God does not abandon her as Abraham did
  2. God sees her despair and hopelessness
  3. God recognizes her need
  4. God intervenes and provides water and food for Hagar and Ismael
7. Important aspect of the story
  1. God doesn’t take Hagar out of her difficult circumstances
  2. He tells her to go back into the situation from which she fled
  3. God puts her back under Sarah’s thumb
  4. Bt with a promise
  5. Ismael will also become a great nation, and he did
If you want to learn more about my church, you can find us at SAF.church. If you like the devotional, share it with someone. If you don’t, tell me. I hope you’ll join me again tomorrow for “A Little Walk with God.”

El-Elyon (Genesis 14:17-20; Isaiah 14:13-14), June 7, 2017

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Today’s Podcast

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Thanks for joining me today for “A Little Walk with God.” I’m your host Richard Agee.
El-Elyon, the Lord most high, nothing compares to Him. Let’s hear more about His name.
Scripture
1. Genesis 14:17-20; Isaiah 14:13-14
2. After Abram returned from defeating Kedorlaomer and the kings allied with him, the king of Sodom came out to meet him in the Valley of Shaveh (that is, the King’s Valley).

Then Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. He was priest of God Most High, and he blessed Abram, saying,

“Blessed be Abram by God Most High,

Creator of heaven and earth.

And praise be to God Most High,

who delivered your enemies into your hand.”

Then Abram gave him a tenth of everything.

1. You said in your heart,

“I will ascend to the heavens;

I will raise my throne

above the stars of God;

I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly,

on the utmost heights of Mount Zaphon.

I will ascend above the tops of the clouds;

I will make myself like the Most High.”

1. 1. Devotional
    1. El-Elyon, the Most High God
      1. Elyon, up, high
      2. el-Elyon, could be translated, the extremely exalted, sovereign, high, God
      3. If there were any other gods, our God would be high above all others, none other would come close
      4. El-Elyon, the God so high none other can compare
    2. In an age of polytheism
      1. Abram recognized and worshiped only El-Elyon
      2. Melchizedek, king of Salem, served as a priest and he too recognized only one God, El-Elyon, God Most High
      3. They both understood nothing could compare to Creator of all things
      4. El-Elyon is the only One worthy of worship
    3. The world tries to convince us otherwise
      1. From the first deception in the garden of eden
      2. Success
      3. Fame
      4. Wealth
      5. Pleasures of life
      6. None can take the place of El-Elyon
    4. Today remember we worship El-Elyon, God Most High, the Extremely Exalted, Sovereign, Most High God. Nothing compares to Him
  2. If you want to learn more about my church, you can find us at SAF.church. If you like the devotional, share it with someone. If you don’t, tell me. I hope you’ll join me again tomorrow for “A Little Walk with God.”

Jehovah – Yahweh (Genesis 2:4), May 28, 2017

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Today’s Podcast

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Thanks for joining me today for “A Little Walk with God.” I’m your host Richard Agee.
Today we look at God’s name Jehovah-Yahweh. They are one and the same, the first a Christian transliteration of the latter.
Scripture
1. Genesis 2:4
2. This is the detailed story of the Eternal God’s singular work in creating all that exists.
Devotional
1. Yahweh, the name God called Himself when Moses asked who he should tell the Israelite sent Him.
  1. Meanings attributed to the name
    1. “He Who Makes That Which Has Been Made”
    2. “He Brings Into Existence Whatever Exists”
    3. other interpretations have been offered by many scholars.
2. Written as a tetragrammaton, four letters YHWH without vowels
  1. Reminder to never say His name because of its sacredness
  2. Later transliterated to Jehovah by Christians
  3. Adonai was the spoken name of God
  4. One of the seven names of God that should never be erased
3. We hear the name Jehovah fairly often, Yahweh not as much, but they are the same
  1. Transliteration on one to the other beginning in ancient Israel
  2. God, the one who makes that which has been made
  3. He is the creator of all things
  4. If it’s been made, He is the one who brought it into existence
  5. We might think we are creative, but Yahweh created the creative mind
  6. Nothing exists without Him
4. Today, think about God’s name, Yahweh.
  1. What does His creative name mean to you?
  2. What has He created for you and in you that you can give thanks and glorify Him for it
  3. What has He brought into your life that you recognize come from Him
  4. Reexamine your life and see how Yahweh has made possible every good thing in your life
5. He who makes that which has been made; He brings into existence whatever exists
  1. Good descriptions of the God we serve
  2. He is the one worthy of our worship
If you want to learn more about my church, you can find us at SAF.church. If you like the devotional, share it with someone. If you don’t, tell me. I hope you’ll join me again tomorrow for “A Little Walk with God.”

Elohim (Genesis 1:1), May 26, 2017

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Today’s Podcast

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Thanks for joining me today for “A Little Walk with God.” I’m your host Richard Agee.
Today we start looking at the names of God. He is called a lot of different things in scripture. We will start looking at what His names mean to us today.
Scripture
1. Genesis 1:1; Psalms 19:1
2. In the beginning, God created everything: the heavens above and the earth below.
3. The celestial realms announce God’s glory;

the skies testify of His hands’ great work.

Devotional
1. The Bible starts with the words we just heard, In the beginning, God created everything.
  1. Elohim is an interesting name for God.
  2. Hebrews used it as singular, but ‘im’ usually makes the word plural
  3. Usually means the God of great power
  4. Can mean God of gods, power of powers
2. Hebrews began their basic understanding of God with this word
  1. God of gods, supersedes anything or anyone we might try to put in His place
  2. Power of powers, Elohim is greater, more powerful than anything or anyone Satan may try to use to defeat us.
  3. God is above all
    1. In strength
    2. In knowledge
    3. In wisdom
    4. In goodness
    5. In grace and mercy
    6. In dealing out justice for those who deserve His wrath
  4. Before anything was, God was there and created it
3. When we think about the name Elohim, we also see the triune God-head encapsulated in the name
  1. The word is plural
  2. Singular when referencing God, the creator
  3. Recognition that God is more than one, but one, three in one, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
  4. Those who wrote the words believed in one God, monotheistic society
  5. Still used the plural name, inspired by God
4. As you think of this first name used by the Hebrews to describe our God, think of what qualifies Him to carry this name
  1. Creator
  2. God of gods
  3. Power of powers
  4. Here before the beginning to put in place all there is, nothing exists apart from His spoken word bringing it into existence
5. Elohim, God of power and might
If you want to learn more about my church, you can find us at SAF.church. If you like the devotional, share it with someone. If you don’t, tell me. I hope you’ll join me again tomorrow for “A Little Walk with God.”