I take up compassion and surrender my excuses. I stand against injustice and commit to live out simple acts of God's love. I refuse to do nothing. This is my resolve. I AM THE LOVE REVOLUTION.
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Jesus, I plead Your blood over my sins and the sins of my nation. God, end abortion and send revival to America. Amen.
I read the first 22 chapters of Genesis to get a little ahead in the schedule... Tomorrow's going to be crazy with school and work and all.
Anyways, I think the best that was in the part that I was supposed to read according to the schedule was creation. It never fails to amaze me how God mad so much and so well. Even though I've read the first chapters several times, I always get something new out of it. This time I realised, how easy it was for Eve to take the fruit and to give it to Adam. It wasn't like the snake had put hours of effort into turning her head, but in fact she only had to hear one short statement about the tree and she was ready to go... And on the other hand, God din't try to stop her from doing it, He let her have her free will and do what she wants to. That's one of the most awesome things about God in my opinion.
What I found a little challenging and confusing was the part with Cain and Abel. Why do you think He didn't like what Cain offered Him? Had He even told them what to offer, and on the other hand, what else could Cain have done?
Hmm, what else? Yeah, right. I think that when you get to Abraham the story in itsekf gets really interesting, and it just goes on.. I got really into it while reading from chapter 17 on... Such a shame I got to the stop early for a change. I guess I'm not making too much sense anymore - it's half ten pm and I've been abroad all day. I guess I should go sleep soon. Have a good time reading everyone, and good night!
__________________ Rom.6:20-23 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
What I found a little challenging and confusing was the part with Cain and Abel. Why do you think He didn't like what Cain offered Him? Had He even told them what to offer, and on the other hand, what else could Cain have done?
From what it says, it seems like Cain offered God just a very typical piece of fruit, while Abel offered God the best offering of his entire flock. When the Lord says to Cain, "If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door..." I think what that suggests is that Cain could have given a much better offering to the Lord, but Cain didn't want to give anything good up so he just offered God a very regular, average item, while Abel offered Him the best offering he could provide. That's my read of it at least.
__________________ Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live.
"This is my prayer in the desert. When all that's within me feels dry. This is my prayer in my hunger and need, my God is the God who provides. This is my prayer in the fire. In weakness or trial or pain. There is a faith proved in more worth then gold, so refine me Lord through the flame!" Hillsong United - Desert song
Man were created last, after everything else was done. When I read it I was reminded of that man was set to rule over all the earth and living things. Verse 28 "God blessed them and said, "Have many children and grow in number. Fill the earth and be its master. Rule over the fish in the sea and over the birds in the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.""
But be it's master, doesn't that mean take care of it and treat it well?
I don't know where I stand where it comes to global warming and so on but we're cut down rainforrests and by doing that we endanger animals who lives there and no where else. I don't know where I'm going with this.. it just got me thinking that's all..
Ch 4:
When it comes to Kain and Abel.. yes it can be seen as God favoured Abel and maybe He did. And I'm sure Kain felt useless and that God didn't care at all, but if that were true, why did God even care to ask why He was mad? Why would He care to put a mark on Abel to protect him and revenge him seven (!!) times if He didn't care???
Something that spoke to me was the verse that Kev also pointed out:
Verse 6-7: The Lord asked Cain, "Why are you angry? Why do you look so unhappy? If you do things well, I will accept you, but if you do not do them well, sin is ready to attack you. Sin wants you, but you must rule over it."
In the Swedish translation is says: You shall rule over it. That to me made me feel hope. I don't know how many times I've stumbled, been tempted and fallen, and felt like a big failure because of it. But here God says, you must rule over it. (or You shall rule over it). I then thought, I can rule over it. It is possible.
Ch 16:
Another thing that made me think.. was Sarai's reaction when Hagar became pregnant. She was the one "gave" Hagar to Abram so that she could have a child through Hagar. But then Hagar started to look down on Sarai, who's reaction is to get mad at her husband. It was her doing, not his! (Please no typical women response!!)
For me it's another reason for sex to just be between husband and wife. (And yes I know the times where different back then.)
~Nilla
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Another thing that made me think.. was Sarai's reaction when Hagar became pregnant. She was the one "gave" Hagar to Abram so that she could have a child through Hagar. But then Hagar started to look down on Sarai, who's reaction is to get mad at her husband. It was her doing, not his! (Please no typical women response!!)
~Nilla
This is my honest opinoin. I have been known to be wrong in the past but here is my thoughts on the matter -
Sarai thought she had the right answer to the problem. After all, she knew her hisands pain as well as her own intinately. So she went full steam ahead into making this plan for Abram.
Now I want to point 2 things on the side - (1) Abram was the one that was guaranteed a son and a legacy. God had made covenant with him about him having descendants. (2) Abram agreed to this.
So here we have yet again a woman tempting a man to do something he knows he shouldn't (refelction of Adam and Eve). Abram like Adam had the initial relationship with God. I read a book recently that asked where was Adam in the garden when Eve was tempted and why did he easily give in to her sin as well. But that is a side note....
Anyway even though what Sarai was legal in her actions at the time, the sin was really in not trusting what God could do. She took God out of the equation in the hope that 1 + 1 = 2 . Unfortunately she realised she now had 1 + 1 = 3. Abram wanted to have nothing to do with the situation. He had done his part and it was up to Sarai to make it work. At this point she really should have asked God for help but instead she continued to mistreat her servant forcing her to run away.
The main point is that Sarai learnt a very hard lesson for all of us. When we turn our backs in God promises or try to create the promises ourselves we end up in a position we may never have wanted to be in. If Sarai had waited for God to fulfil His promise we would not have this story. Second, that people are complicated. We have a lot of emotions - was Sarai jealous? Yes I think so. Was she guilty of sin? Yes I think so. Was she angry? Yes, most probably with God for not answering her prayers and that she had to resort to this. And there was only one person she could really be angry because she manifested everything that Sarai was feeling right then and there - Hagar. We all like to have a scapegoat for our feelings.
On the other side I don't think that Hagar made it easy for Sarai. But that is another story...
I
What I found a little challenging and confusing was the part with Cain and Abel. Why do you think He didn't like what Cain offered Him? Had He even told them what to offer, and on the other hand, what else could Cain have done?
I think that the passage explains that Abel brought the best to God in an offering and Cain just brought what he wanted. Abel thought about his offering before God. He set it aside knowing that the Lord was God and deserved the best. Abel gave the Lord what he wanted and enjoyed giving it to the Lord.
On the other hand, Cain just brought some left overs. He didn't give God his best. He didn't even really think about it. He gave what he thought he had to give.
God doesn't want what is left over. He doesn't want the little bits we don't want in our lives. I know that I am guilt of giving the least of what I have to the Lord and expecting God to lavish His love on me.
So here we are in this story. God tells Cain exactly what he needs to do - change your attitude otherwise sin will take over. We all know what it is like to have a poor atttitude to somthing - we care little for, give it little thought and time. And it is our poor attitude that leads us into doing other things such as a poor attitude to school work leads to not going to school leads to finding other things to do leads to doing things that may not be good.... It is a slippery slope and I think in this passage if we see God as more of the Father that He is we realise that He was just disappointed and give Cain some guidance. So Cain's report card had a D and Abel's had an A. God was saying you too can get an A if you fix your attitude, learn your lesson and try harder.
If Cain had taken his Father's advice it would be all good. But he didn't. Instead of learning a lesson, he killed the classmate to fix his grades. He thought if there was no one to compete against then he would go to the top of the class. It didn't work.
finished todays reading (i spaced it out through the day - half this afternoon and half tonight ) and one thing that struck me as very interesting was Melchizadek(sp?) He was the King and priest of the Lord in Sodom and he was supposed to be a shadow or type of Christ because his story has no beginning and it has no end. but it also struck me as interesting that you have this Godly king ruling over an area that was so filled with sin that it had to be destroyed. The comparison between that king and the Lord in that regard just struck me as so obvious, i'm not sure why i missed it before our King and high priest rules over a sinfilled world that already once paid the judgment for its sin (in the flood) and will one day have to be destroyed (2 Peter 3:12)
Eve, i think you're dead on about Sarai. God promised Abram several times before she made that decision that Abram's descendants would be so numerous that they would be like the stars in the sky or the dust of the earth, yet she doubted those promises. It wasn't just some half-hearted "oh yeah you'll have a kid - count on it!" promise either. They made a strict and binding covenant with the sacrifice of animals - back in those days that sort of covenant was so binding that if one person broke the covenant they would be killed. She and Abram both knew that if God failed to make good on His promise, that He would have been as good as dead to them. it would have been worse than betraying their trust in Him, it was unthinkable. And still she chose to doubt and find her own way of making God do good on her promise. That came with consequences she should have seen coming but i believe her pride and her pain clouded her ability to see all that.
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L'Eternel est ma force
Le sujet de mes louanges
C'est Lui qui m'a sauvé
Je Le célébrerai
-Luc Dumont
Last edited by little_tigress; 14th September 2009 at 11:43 PM.
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