While re-reading Paul’s letter to the Romans two weeks ago, a certain passage caught my attention and inspired me the idea of this posting. It was Romans 9:7-9:
“…Not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but "Through Isaac shall your offspring be named." This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring. For this is what the promise said: "About this time next year I will return, and Sarah shall have a son."”
To which we can add Galatians 3:7, “…It is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham.”
God had promised Abraham an heir who would come out of his loins and had also told him that his offspring would be as many as the stars in the sky (Genesis 15:4-5). After waiting “in vain” to see Sarah’s tummy grow bigger, he decided to follow his wife’s “wise” advice and help God fulfil His promise (Genesis 16:1-4). Forgetting that His thoughts and ways are light years away from ours (Isaiah 55:9), they re-interpreted the Lord’s words. Sarah told him: “He said you would have a son of your own; an heir that would come forth from your very bowels; but not mine. I can no longer have a child and Hagar is the closest woman to me among those of your household. I think God surely meant you should have that child with her. It’s tough; but since it is the best thing to do to wash away your shame. Go to her so that your name will not be wiped off forever.” The rest is history…
So, Abraham had two sons: one by the slave, Ishmael, and one by his legitimate wife, Isaac. Now Galatians 4:23-24 tells us that, “the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through promise. Now this may be interpreted allegorically: these women are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery; she is Hagar.”
Thus, Isaac alone was counted as Abraham’s offspring because he was born through the promise God had made to his father ; while Ishmael was not counted in because he was born according to the flesh. Romans 9 teaches us that the children of the flesh are not children of God. It’s terrible because it’s a bit as if God would say: “I did not ask you to have this child; you decided to have it on your own so deal with him, he is not my business.” The Bible even goes further and adds that Ishmael was born for slavery.
Even though all this should make us think twice and consider God’s purpose before having children, generally speaking, each time we decide to use our ingenuity to help the Lord’s promises to pass, what we produce is always for slavery, because born of the flesh and will never count on the day when God will put everyone’s deeds to the test. Indeed, the Bible tells us that “the son of the slave woman shall not inherit with the son of the free woman.” (Galatians 4:30b). So, these works will never “inherit” the stamp or approbation of God.
We all want to leave our imprint in the world and to achieve that, we often throw ourselves into all sorts of projects in the hope that they will survive us and continue to speak for us after our death. But the Bible warns that “no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw-- each one's work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.” (1Corinthians 3:11-15).
Therefore, it's not just about multiplying works (for our glory), but about multiplying works that remain; works that can be counted as our posterity (like Isaac); works born out of faith and God’s promises because built on the foundation of Christ: works of the Spirit. They are those of gold, silver or precious stones. The others will be consumed and we would have laboured and sweated in vain. Indeed, the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption (Galatians 6:8a). Corruption is synonymous with rot, disintegration, degradation… in short, it alludes to that which is ephemeral and cannot subsist.
14 years passed between the birth of Ishmael and that of Isaac (Genesis 16:16-17:1). In other words, in trying to play God we put ourselves at risk of provoking a great delay in the fulfilment of what He had promised to us. And still, we should even count ourselves lucky if things are simply delayed because, as we saw in the last two postings, the real danger is actually to never see their materialization.
This topic could have been an excellent suite to the posting ‘‘Beware, danger!’’; but I decided to treat it as a separate posting in order to make it deeper. The Bible says that the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other; and it therefore exhorts us to walk by the Spirit in order not to gratify the desires of the flesh (Galatians 5:17,16). Therefore, let us make sure that having started in the Spirit in January, we continue in the Spirit so that by December 2011, we may obtain all that the Lord had promised to us at the beginning of the year. Let us particularly avoid helping God to succeed: He is neither slow nor unable. He is the Master of the times and circumstances and the Lord God Almighty. We can trust Him.
Sow to the Spirit, reap from the Spirit and God bless you.
Have an excellent week!
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