Don't Substitute God's Best

God is patient when our hearts cling to something less than his plan and purpose.

Genesis 17:1-2  When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to him and said, “I am El-Shaddai—‘God Almighty.’ Serve me faithfully and live a blameless life.  2  I will make a covenant with you, by which I will guarantee to give you countless descendants.”

Genesis 17:15-19  Then God said to Abraham, “Regarding Sarai, your wife—her name will no longer be Sarai. From now on her name will be Sarah.  16  And I will bless her and give you a son from her! Yes, I will bless her richly, and she will become the mother of many nations. Kings of nations will be among her descendants.”

17  Then Abraham bowed down to the ground, but he laughed to himself in disbelief. “How could I become a father at the age of 100?” he thought. “And how can Sarah have a baby when she is ninety years old?”

18 So Abraham said to God, “May Ishmael live under your special blessing!” 19 But God replied, “No—Sarah, your wife, will give birth to a son for you. You will name him Isaac, and I will confirm my covenant with him and his descendants as an everlasting covenant.

---

The journey of faith that Abram and Sarai have been on ever since they left home in Ur has been a gradual revelation of who God is and what he expects of them. Earlier we saw that God revealed himself as his shield and great reward that is far better than any protection or provider that this world has to offer.

In today's scripture God reveals a new name for himself to encourage Abram and Sarai to keep on believing in the promises that still don't seem to be coming true. God wants Abram to know him as "God Almighty" that has the power to come through with his promises despite the circumstances and the delays.

God shows his power and sovereignty by giving Abram and Sarai new names. We should remember that the one that gives out the names is exerting power over the one that is being named. We see this principle when Adam names all of the animals and we also see it happen when the Babylonians gave the names Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to three of the Hebrews that they captured.

Almighty, sovereign God is still in control and the promises are still on the way despite the fact that Abram already has a son and he is very fond of him, Abram is okay with Ismael being the fulfillment of the promise, but God has bigger and better plans and he won't accept a substitute.

Ishmael represented man’s effort to fulfill the promise of a son, Abram didn't know that the son that God planned to miraculously give him would be the beginning of the lineage that would lead to the promised son that we call Jesus.

We are so willing to help God out and come up with something that isn't what God intended, something inferior, something that we can figure out instead of waiting for the miracle.

This point is so well stated in the Expositor's Bible Commentary for Genesis chapter 17:

Full of life and interest in everything, daily getting deeper into the affections of Abram, who allowed and could not but allow his own life to revolve very much around the dashing, attractive lad. So that the reminder that he was not the promised heir was not entirely welcome.

We are familiar with this state of mind. We wish God would leave us alone. We have found a very attractive substitute for what He promises, and we resent being reminded that our substitute is not, after all, the veritable, eternal, best possession. It satisfies our taste, our intellect, our ambition; it sets us on a level with other men and gives us a place in the world; but now and again we feel a void it does not fill.

We have attained comfortable circumstances, success in our profession, our life has in it that which attracts applause and sheds a brilliance over it; and we do not like being told that this is not all. Our feeling is Oh, that this might do! that this might be accepted as perfect attainment! it satisfies me (all but a little bit); might it not satisfy God?

Why summon me again away from domestic happiness, intellectual enjoyment, agreeable occupations, to what really seems so unattainable as perfect fellowship with God in the fulfillment of His promise? Why spend all my life in waiting and seeking for high spiritual things when I have so much with which I can be moderately satisfied?

For our complaint often is not that God gives so little but that He offers too much, more than we care to have; that He never will let us be content with anything short of what perfectly fulfills His perfect love and purpose.

We have a perspective that Abram didn't have, he didn't have the panorama view that we have from Genesis to Revelation, God's plan and purpose make no sense to Abram but God is patient with him.

We love to be in control and we love to help God out when things look difficult but God reminds us that he is El-Shaddai, the God Almighty, he is more than enough to come through with the best even when we are satisfied with far less.

Thank you God for being so patient with us when our affections and desires are not your own.

RELATED ARTICLES

God Wants The Best For Us (faithgateway.com)

My Promised Future

Waiting for the promised son and the promised land.

Genesis 15:6 And Abram believed the LORD, and the LORD counted him as righteous because of his faith.

---

God has been at work in Abram's life but, as we saw in the previous post, even though Abram experienced great success in life it wasn't enough to keep him from fear and discouragement. Abram needed to put his focus back on the promises so God came to remind him that he is Abram's shield and reward.

It was naturally easy for Abram to doubt, so far God seems to be doing nothing to come through on his promises for land or for a son, Abram is in a rush to get to the fulfillment of the promise.

God knows that Abram, just like all of us, one of the reasons we get discouraged so easily is because we live by the clock and we try to get God to do the same. The world makes promises to us and they make good on the promises the same day or within a minute but God doesn't usually work that way, he doesn't care about same day delivery or minute rice.

The Promised Son Is Delayed

God assures Abram that the promise for a son is still good but the doubts keep growing as the biological clock keeps ticking. Maybe God isn't paying attention to the details, he might not realize that Sarah is already infertile, God needs to do something before Abram is also unable to reproduce.

Soon the anxious couple will decide to give God some help to make God's plans come to pass. (Genesis 16:1-2) They had a promise from God but they still felt the desperation and disappointment that most childless couples feel. They couldn't see that God was waiting until there was no way that they could produce a child on their own so that he would get the glory for a miracle baby.

The Promised Land Is Delayed

If Abram thought he had to wait too long for the promised son to become a reality that was nothing compared to the amount of time that would pass before the promised land would become a reality. There are so many things that must happen before God allows Abram's descendants to take the land so God gave Abram a glimpse of the long range plan so that he could have peace despite the fact that he couldn't see an progress being made.

God uses a dramatic ceremony that was common in that time to help ease Abram's doubts. Typically, both covenant partners would walk between the pieces of the sacrificed animal but this time God was obligating himself to fulfill his promise without any requirements from Abram.

Genesis 17:6,18-19 I will make you extremely fruitful. Your descendants will become many nations, and kings will be among them!

18 So Abraham said to God, “May Ishmael live under your special blessing!” 19 But God replied, “No—Sarah, your wife, will give birth to a son for you. You will name him Isaac, and I will confirm my covenant with him and his descendants as an everlasting covenant.

The delay continued and God would come to assure Abram that his promise was still good. (Genesis 17:1-22) Abram didn't know that we don't graduate from the school of faith until God takes us home and he didn't have any idea that he would be in a best selling book as an example for us.

Abram's journey of faith shows me that it is okay to have doubts and questions when it looks like God isn't doing anything that he promised. We need to realize that most of God's people didn't get to see a lot of progress in the fulfillment of God's promises.

Abram's journey of faith shows me that God's promises are received by grace without works. I am saved not by making promises to God but by the promises of God that he made to me. God didn't accept the son born to Abram through works, the son that God accepted was the promised son that came through a miracle pregnancy, the impossible son that would later become the sacrificed son. (Genesis 22:1-19)

God's people didn't realize that the promised son and the promised land was a preview of something much bigger and better. God only partially fulfilled his promises through the Jewish people, they didn't know about the new promise that would come, they didn't realize the promises would be expanded to every nation, tribe and tongue from around the world.

Philippians 3:20 But we are citizens of heaven, where the Lord Jesus Christ lives. And we are eagerly waiting for him to return as our Savior.

God's people are still waiting for the ultimate fulfillment of the promised son and the promised land. The promised son came once to pay the penalty for our sin so that when he returns we will be able to enjoy the promised land with him for eternity.

The world will make promises to you and a lot of the time they will come through on those promises right away but we need to be patient enough to wait for the best promises. We need to be careful to not be content with these temporary promises and miss the eternal joy that God's promises bring.

When God Is Late

There isn't anything that God can't do, so why isn't he doing something?

John 11:1-6   A man named Lazarus was sick. He lived in Bethany with his sisters, Mary and Martha. 2 This is the Mary who later poured the expensive perfume on the Lord’s feet and wiped them with her hair. Her brother, Lazarus, was sick. 3 So the two sisters sent a message to Jesus telling him, “Lord, your dear friend is very sick.”

4 But when Jesus heard about it he said, “Lazarus’s sickness will not end in death. No, it happened for the glory of God so that the Son of God will receive glory from this.” 5 So although Jesus loved Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, 6 he stayed where he was for the next two days.

---

An urgent message comes to Jesus from his friends Mary and Martha. Their brother, whom Jesus loves, is deathly ill and they are pretty sure that Jesus will want to help him out but Jesus has a bigger plan than they could have known about.

Instead of rushing off to perform a miracle in person Jesus tells his disciples that there is a reason that Lazarus is suffering, he allows Lazarus to endure the pain and misery that led to his death, and not just Lazarus, his sisters would take care of him until be breathed his last breathe and they would deal with the emotions of losing their brother. Jesus tells his disciples that this family is suffering for God's glory and then he stays right where he is.

John 11:12-15 The disciples said, “Lord, if he is sleeping, he will soon get better!” 13 They thought Jesus meant Lazarus was simply sleeping, but Jesus meant Lazarus had died. 14 So he told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead. 15 And for your sakes, I’m glad I wasn’t there, for now you will really believe. Come, let’s go see him.”

A lot of people were not happy with Jesus and his choices, the disciples didn't like the idea that Jesus finally wanted to go to Bethany because not too long ago a crowd wanted to stone him, Mary and Martha blamed Jesus for the emotional distress of caring for their dying brother, the sorrow of seeing him die and having a funeral.

Sometimes we aren't very pleased with God or sometimes the way that he is working in our lives makes no sense to us. It seems that our request get ignored just like the messengers that were sent to tell Jesus about Lazarus.

John 11:40-44 Jesus responded, “Didn’t I tell you that you would see God’s glory if you believe?” 41 So they rolled the stone aside. Then Jesus looked up to heaven and said, “Father, thank you for hearing me. 42 You always hear me, but I said it out loud for the sake of all these people standing here, so that they will believe you sent me.” 43 Then Jesus shouted, “Lazarus, come out!” 44 And the dead man came out, his hands and feet bound in graveclothes, his face wrapped in a headcloth. Jesus told them, “Unwrap him and let him go!”

What we need to realize is that it's not all about us but rather it is all about God, like Mary and Martha, we will say, "God, if you loved me, you would do this." But God says, "I want to do something bigger." Jesus may have sounded insensitive when he said that he was glad that he wasn't there to help but Jesus had a bigger and better plan; he was probably thinking , "wait until you see this."

The reason for the delay? The reason for the prayer before the miracle? Both of them were for us so that we would see God's glory.

We are heirs of God's glory!

Romans 8:17-18  And since we are His children, we are His heirs. In fact, together with Christ we are heirs of God's glory. But if we are to share His glory, we must also share His suffering.  18  Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory He will reveal to us later.  

We can't see the big picture from our point of view. The waiting didn't make any sense to Abraham as he was waiting for a son, it didn't make sense to God's children as they waited for Pharaoh to give in, and it didn't make any sense to them as they circled Jericho for a week before they attacked.

God's delays prove to be for our benefit, they help to increase our faith, they change our perspective towards heaven and they allow us to see God at work in a bigger way.

Psalms 121:2-4  My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth!  3  He will not let you stumble; the One who watches over you will not slumber.  4  Indeed, He who watches over Israel never slumbers or sleeps. 1 Peter 5:6-7  So humble yourselves under the mighty power of God, and at the right time He will lift you up in honor.  7  Give all your worries and cares to God, for He cares about you.

God has proven himself to be faithful and when he can't see him at work or we don't have a clue what he is doing we know that we have every reason to trust him and his promises.

Inspired by an Andy Stanley podcast: When God, Part Three - When God Is Late

Quietly Waiting

We don't like to wait and we usually aren't quiet about it.

Psalm 130:5-6  I wait for Yahweh; I wait and put my hope in His word. 6 I wait for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning — more than watchmen for the morning

Lamentations 3:26  It is good to wait quietly for deliverance from the Lord.

Micah 7:7  But I will look to the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation. My God will hear me.

Psalm 37:7  Be silent before the Lord and wait expectantly for Him

---

Waiting, we don't like it, we don't like to take a number, we want to be served immediately. It is really the most basic form of selfishness, we want to be served and we want it now, I don't deserve to wait. We become unhappy customers real quick and we will probably make some noise about it certainly somebody else needs to hear that I am waiting

We take the same attitude with God, we want service now, fix my problem, answer my prayer, get rid of my pain. Again, we become unhappy customers. Problem is, God isn't running a business in the free enterprise system and your immediate satisfaction isn't a concern.

God's word tells us that it is good to wait and it is good to do it quietly and with anticipation, expecting him to answer us in his timing. We forget that God isn't a slave to our calendar, he has a plan and purpose that was  created long ago and he made his plans with much greater wisdom than we have to make our plans.

Help me Lord to wait on you quietly. 

Waiting For The Lord

It can be a lonely experience.

Ezekiel 16:1-2  Then another message came to me from the LORD: "Son of man, confront Jerusalem with her detestable sins.  

Ezekiel 20:1-3  On August 14, during the seventh year of King Jehoiachin's captivity, some of the leaders of Israel came to request a message from the LORD. They sat down in front of me to wait for his reply.

Then this message came to me from the LORD: "Son of man, tell the leaders of Israel, 'This is what the Sovereign LORD says: How dare you come to ask me for a message? As surely as I live, says the Sovereign LORD, I will tell you nothing!'

Psalms 27:14  Wait patiently for the LORD. Be brave and courageous. Yes, wait patiently for the LORD.

---

It is a hurry up world that we live in, gotta go there, now it's time to be somewhere else. We want everything in an instant, everything from food to new toys to money.

King David stressed in the Psalms that he spent time with God every day. He would pray and meditate and sing praises and then he brought his request to the Lord. It is so good for me to spend time in God's word each day, meditating on what he is telling me through his word, praying and building up our relationship.

It is good to wait for the Lord but, as the nation of Israel found out, it isn't good to wait on him if your relationship with him isn't what it should be. If we are being disobedient children then you can wait all day long and the Lord isn't going to be a part of it. As the Lord told Israel through the prophet Ezekiel "How dare you come to ask me for a message? As surely as I live, says the Sovereign LORD, I will tell you nothing!"

Sometimes David waited for the Lord and he was very lonely, the Lord didn't show up. When we read through Psalms and we find David's relationship with God wasn't good because of David's sin then that's when David is crying out to God for him to come back to him. God doesn't reestablish their relationship until David confesses his sin and through repentance God does come back to a close relationship with David.

I will wait for the Lord each day and if I have broken my relationship with him I will not expect him to be close to me until I have confessed my sin.

Help me to always maintain a good relationship with you Lord. I want to be able to spend time each day waiting for you and relying on your strength and wisdom.