And you thought your boss was bad? Try being Abraham and having God ask you to sacrifice your son! Fortunately, Abraham passed:

“Lay down your knife,” the angel said. “Do not hurt the boy in any way, for now I know that you truly fear God. You have not withheld even your beloved son from me.” Genesis 22:12

Abraham finds a ram to sacrifice and we find that even in the hardest of times, with faith, God will provide for us:

Abraham named the place “The Lord Will Provide.” This name has now become a proverb: “On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.” Genesis 22:14
This is what the Lord says: Because you have obeyed me and have not withheld even your beloved son, I swear by my own self that I will bless you richly. Genesis 22:16-17

Thanks to Abraham, we know that God will provide for us when we give ourselves to him. Who can argue with that? Even in the most difficult times (and really, will we ever have it as bad as this example?) we can know that God will make sure that we survive. Read on…

NEXT: Exodus 13:17-14:31

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Things get out of control with the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, so God decides to destroy the cities. Abraham asks for God’s mercy on the innocent people and we see his great mercy:

And the Lord replied, “If I find fifty innocent people in Sodom, I will spare the entire city for their sake.” Genesis 18:26

But there is only four, Job and his family. God’s two angels get him out of harm’s way and he is safe, showing that he will spare those of faith:

But God had listened to Abraham’s request and kept Lot safe, removing him from the disaster that engulfed the cities on the plain. Genesis 19:29

Because his wife looked back, she became a pillar of salt. Total faith was needed and she hesitated. Wild stuff. Now that is a powerful God. Read on…

NEXT: Genesis 22:1-19 

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The Tower of Babel. I have to be honest here, lately I have been skipping the footnotes of the Every Man’s Bible because I want to have my own interpretation of the read, but I had to check in with them this time. So, my thanks to the editors for their assistance on this post.

The humans land in a new place and begin planning a great tower as a testament to their own power, not to the power of God. In seeing this, God gives them different languages to confuse them and the project does not take off. As the footnotes say, this type of pride is always destructive.

But, while I see the lesson here, I also see God’s master plan. He created us all to be different and unique. Plus, the earth is huge place for humans and different languages are needed for different types of people and the geography in which they live. We would never match the great power of God, even if we did speak one language. So why not make people ready for all the places there would go next? Just another thought about the passage. Read on…

NEXT: Genesis 18:16-19:29 

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Today’s read is yet another story that we have known since Sunday School. But, again, it is a bit more raw than we had it then. The reason that God sent the flood that Noah built the ark for was because the people that he had created had gotten out of hand with evil. So the question arises, why would God create people that would get evil?

I am no scholar, but I do know that God has a plan and this serves to teach us a couple of lessons. One, we need to see what evil is. If we don’t see it or hear about it, then how do we identify it? Two, God needed to demonstrate his great power and we need to know about that too. If God created everything to perfection, then we would just take it for granted.

In this passage, I found see the power of God. Not just a demonstration of his power over the elements, but also of his great love for us:

I have placed my rainbow in the clouds. It is the sign of my permanent promise to you all the earth. When I send clouds over the earth, the rainbow will be seen in the clouds, and I will remember my covenant with you and everything that lives. Never again will there be a flood that destroys all life. Genesis 9:13-15

So now when I see the rainbow, I know it is because God loves me. Cool. Read on…

NEXT: Genesis 11:1-8

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Like many people, I have known this story for years since learning it in Sunday School. And I pretty much have always believed that this was a test from God for Adam and Eve. But, I have finally figured out after studying the Bible as I should (it took me long enough) that everything is a part of God’s plan, including this passage of Eve’s giving into temptation.

If God hadn’t performed this controlled instance of sin, it would have happened eventually. So we get the first example of temptation and sin to show us that it will always be there for us. It’s all a part of what makes us different and life exciting. Most importantly, it gives us our purpose: to live the best that we can and help those around us that have fallen. It’s a struggle to fight those temptations, but together we can do it.

So, it took me long enough to figure that one out. What can I say, I’m an idiot. But, I am figuring it out. Read on…

NEXT: Genesis 6:1-9:17

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God does truly work in mysterious ways. Friday night I had the privileged of going to the Chris Tomlin/Matt Redman/Louie Giglio show. I preface this post with that statement because it changed the way that I viewed this read. Regardless of your level of faith, just about everybody is familiar with the beginning of the Bible:

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Genesis 1:1

We really take this for granted. Ordinarily, I would read it like, “Yep, got it. Day 1, heaven and earth. Day 2, sky and water. Check. Day 3, land and seas. Right. Etc. etc…”

But stop and think of the enormity of this power! With six days of work, God creates EVERYTHING! From million light years away, galaxies far, far away (I couldn’t resist), down to the earthworms and the sea creatures at the furthest depths of the ocean, God made it all.

Now, think about what we accomplish in a work week. We do a lot brokering deals, managing people, building things, whatever it is that you might do for a career or hobby, but this is puny compared to what God did in just 6 days!

To conclude, I am not writing this to make you or me feel insignificant. Quite the contrary. How great is it that we have a God with this power and that we may have him on our side. He is there for us every minute of every day. Now that is awesome! Isn’t that worth sharing? Get dangerous and tell a friend. Read on…

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