Living Right despite the trouble

Gen 17:1  And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the LORD appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect.

What I am about to share with you is something I have personally experienced and still experience. I wish I could tell you that I did all the right things in the midst of my trouble but I can’t. Let me not get ahead of myself here.

Here we see God come and talk to Abraham in a time of crisis in his life. To understand the verse above let me give a bit of background information.

God in chapter fifteen had made Abraham a powerful promise. That He would make his descendants like the sand on the sea shore in terms of their number. this promise to Abraham was when he had no son at all. so strong was God’s promise that he demonstrated it by an act of covenant. God walked in between the pieces of a torn animal. What does that mean you may ask? In the Hebrew culture if someone made you a promise and wanted to show you that he would definitely keep it, he would need to go through the middle of an animal that has been torn or cut in two.  The significance of that was that if I fail to honour what I said to you, let me end up like these animals. Torn, divided and dead, now that is strong stuff! It’s a serious issue but it gave the other person the assurance that the one that said it, would come through. That instead of not keeping my promise to you, I’ll rather die! That was the kind of promise made to Abraham.

Friend, before we continue, do you know that’s the kind of promise God made to you! Yes, you! The bible says he has exalted his word above his name. God will rather lose a reputation than not honour his word. If you believe God’s word, I challenge you to hold on to it because he is so committed to it that He even sent his son to die to keep your hope alive and the bible says in Rom_8:32 He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? That’s strong! He is saying if I allowed my Son to die for you, I can give you every other thing along with him.

As strong as this promise was and as powerful as it was, Abraham was still Abram in chapter sixteen. The promise had not come to pass even in this chapter we are looking at.

Has God promised you something so strongly that you believed with all your heart but years later you have not seen the fulfilment? This has made a lot of people when they listen to the pastor preaching they doubt and say ‘I have heard that before’. ‘That’s what the last preacher said and I gave all my money’, don’t deceive me into believing a lie!  So they close up their hearts to God’s word and believe it does not work.

As bad as the scene painted above may be, the more painful one is what happened in chapter sixteen of Genesis. God made a promise in 15 and then in 16 because the promise had not come to pass, Abraham and his wife decided to help God! The agreed for Abraham to sleep with the house help in order to have the promised child! 

Now that’s very strange. For a woman to agree to that arrangement she must have lost all hope. Completely given up! She has concluded am going to die in this condition. I would have wanted to sit on my high horse and say why would Sarah do that? See the mistake she made, look at all the trouble we have with the descendants of that illicit affair and you will easily blame her and her husband, but try as I might I have to confess to you, I am not the best person to condemn her action or that of her husband. 

I have been there too and I can confess to you, I did not do any better than they did! I tried to help God move things along, I tried to borrow to come out of debt, and I got tired of being the only one around who does not have a fiancée that I entered into a wrong relationship. I also got impatient and messed up. I acted too quickly and reached a wrong conclusion. I have made the same mistakes as they did so I can’t condemn them.  

Can you relate to what I am talking about? Have you always made the right choices? Have you always lived life in such a way that you always pleased God?  You know we like passing the blame to others but Christianity makes you take some responsibility. Even in Nigeria we are still blaming every past leader for where we are today.

 I have heard Christians who are still blaming Adam and Eve for the evil in the world! They go like ’if they had not; we would not have’......Oh, please !! You can’t change that, work on what you can change. Jesus has come to right the wrong that they did. What are you doing about applying what Christ did in your own life? 

So even though I can’t blame them but I agree that they made a mistake. They should have waited on God but they didn’t. They fell below my expectation of someone that has faith but God still put them in the great hall of fame in Hebrews 11. Oh, Praise God!! They didn’t do right all the time but God still forgave them. Sometimes they messed up but God didn’t give up on them! They made mistakes that outlived them but God still boasted about them. 

Friend, I know you have done things you are not proud of but please note that God still wants to talk to you. He is still interested in walking with you.

Please note that after everything that Abraham and Sarah did in verse 16, God comes to Abraham and says to him, let me paraphrase, I know what you did is not right but get your act together! Let’s start over again. I need you to walk before me and be perfect.

If I was Abraham I might have gotten upset with God here! Why? Well did you notice that God did not address the promise He made that seems to have failed? It was waiting for the fulfilment of the promise that got them into that mess in the first place. They had told their neighbours, shared with friends, bought the baby clothes and Abraham had rewritten his will from Eliezer of Damascus inheriting everything in chapter 15 and yet no baby.

Such a strong promise from God had come and a definite word but nothing to show for it! Still when God shows up He begins by addressing the sin in their lives.

I would shout and say hold on God! Can we talk about how you disappointed me? Can we talk about you walking through those dead animals and telling me you will honour your word? Can I show you where you made that promise to me? I can tell you the pastor you used, the message and the day it was you made that promise. And instead of addressing that, you are asking me to change my ways! No God you need to change. I don’t have any more to give and am at the end of my rope. I have been tithing and it’s not working. Praying but nothing to show and instead of addressing that you are asking me to change my ways! No God you need to change! You need to start keeping some of your promises to me.  You want me to believe you start with this one.

I know some of you cringed on the inside when you read the paragraph above but God already knows what your thoughts are like so he hears it even when you did not voice it out. You are angry at God but religiously quiet.

Abraham may have started feeling that way so God comes to him and the first words out of the mouth of God is ‘I am the Almighty God...’ Am able to do everything, in case you forgot who you are talking to, I am all powerful. You did not create me, I created you! You remember when God answered Job when Job was talking like that?

God asked Job where you were when I created the earth. Oh just read it.

Job 38:1  Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said,

Job 38:2  Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?

Job 38:3  Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me.

Job 38:4  Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding.

He went on and on until Job had to apologise to God and repent. Can a clay say to the potter what are you making? After correcting Job he blessed him with double for his trouble. Let go of that unvoiced anger because God is up to something in your life.

But why is God concerned about how you are living your life and not just about what you are passing through? Why would God start talking to you about living right and not about your problem. Why is it important that you live right with God even when things are not right in your marriage or finances or health or relationship? Psalm 23 explains it so clearly, its starts with the Lord being my shepherd and the fact that when I pass through the valley of shadow of death because he is with me I fear no evil!!

Isaiah puts it more clearly in Isa. 59:

Isa 59:1  Behold, the LORD'S hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear:

Isa 59:2  But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.

God needed to deal with the interference before He could intervene! He needed to deal with sin so that he can act! Abraham was so close to the fulfilment of God’s promise in his life but He had an issue that could hinder it.

Friend is your night so dark that you have lost your way. Come back to Jesus, he has a plan all worked out for you. And if you’re going through things and you’re holding on to your integrity. Please, hold on! The morning is about to break.

I want to honour God even when things are not working out! I’ll sing in the choir even when it seems there’s nothing to sing about in my own life. I want to still believe even when it seems some of what he says has not come to pass in my life. I want to live for Him even when it seems there is no benefit in living for Him. I would like to tell Him he is still faithful even when everything around me says otherwise. I will praise and worship him even... I want to walk before Him and be perfect!

I hope this too is your heart’s desire.

God bless you and keep you till the end.

 The best thing about being down is that you can only go up from here.