Abraham "Blessed are the Peace makers"

"Blessed are the peacemakers" True.  True.
Abraham was the perfect example of a peacemaker.....he allowed Lot everything....all the cards. Lot took it all and ran....to the lushest spot. Abraham gave Lot first choice; putting Lot first above himself although he was the elder. He allowed for the probability that the land he would receive would be "less than" Lot's. For the sake of the family he was willing to do that! By doing this he became the peace maker in the family, and in this situation.....which already had experienced some turmoil.
I also found it interesting that after Lot was was gone............God came to Abraham and said...."Ok you are going to get it all" Blessed are the peacemakers....literally! I also thought it interesting that God told Abraham to " Go, and walk through the length and breadth of the land...." There are constant references in the Bible to walking......Enoch, Jesus, God in the garden, etc. etc. (Guess I had better head out for a walk.) He doesn't just  "tell" Abraham.....Abraham goes out and physically "feels" the land. "Feels" his blessing. I like that thought of "feeling" God;s blessings.

Our own lives reflected on the Bible's pages....

One thought I've been having as I have been going through this study.....I am wondering if we can't apply the entire Bible to each of our lives......deeper than the literal verses...like "go and sin no more". I understand  that, I am just wondering if there isn't something about each and every story that reflects out own lives. For example, Eve taking the apple...I search my soul to say what would I have done? I think I probably would have taken the apple also. Or, am I any different from Cain? If my brother was showing me up; and I got extremely angry and through I could get away with it would I do any differently?Haven't I already been there in my anger?  When God sent him into the world to roam, and he was scared....would I have done any differently than to plead for some special, egocentric consideration? 

In my reading I am trying to take this particular lens that somehow the Bible is also able to parallel not only my life but the lives of each and every one of us. 

Bless us Father as you continue to make revelations through your word!

Built and called

New International Version
and where he had first built an altar. There Abram called on the name of the LORD.Gen 13:4

"Isaac built an altar there and called on the name of the LORD. There he pitched his tent, and there his servants dug a well."
Abram built and called on the name of the Lord. So did his son, and his son after him. In Abram in may have been to offer thankfulness to God for protection on the journey, or out of Egypt. It also may have been simply to renew his praise to God at a place where God appeared to him.
Don't you wish God would appear to you? Maybe we need to build and call.


Lord, teach us to build that which is pleasing to you.....and then to call on you for praise and blessings!

adam and Golgotha

To Adam are ascribed Ps. v., xix., xxiv., and xcii. (Midr. Teh. v. 3; Gen. R. xxii., end; Pesiḳ. R. xlvi.; see Bacher, "Ag. Pal. Amor." ii. 337 et seq.). His body, made an object of worship by some semi-pagan Melchisedician sect, according to the Christian Book of Adam, was shown in Talmudic times at Hebron, in the cave of Machpelah (B. B. 58a, Gen. R. lviii.), while Christian tradition placed it in Golgotha near Jerusalem (Origen, tract 35 in Matt., and article Golgotha). It is a beautiful and certainly an original idea of the rabbis that "Adam was created from the dust of the place where the sanctuary was to rise for the atonement of all human sin," so that sin should never be a permanent or inherent part of man's nature (Gen. R. xiv., Yer. Naz. vii. 56b). The corresponding Christian legend of Golgotha was formed after the Jewish one.(http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/758-adam)

God is a God or order and reasoning....so with that I believe that the Christian  tradition makes full sense.....It makes sense that man was made out of the very earth where Christ would come for redemption. We may not know all God's ways.....but that doesn't mean they know make sense. It is a beautiful picture of the redemption that the very dust from which we comes is a picture of the glory and redemption to come. Amen!

"I will see it and remember"

Genesis 9:8-17

New International Version (NIV)

8 Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him: 9 “I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you 10 and with every living creature that was with you—the birds, the livestock and all the wild animals, all those that came out of the ark with you—every living creature on earth. 11 I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be destroyed by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.”
12 And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: 13 I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. 14 Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, 15 I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life.16 Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.”

17 So God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant I have established between me and all life on the earth.”

Two things struck me with this particular passage....the first, was that God made this covenant with ALL livings things....not just the people. I thought that was very interesting....God is still caring for His creation. He loves all the animals/birds/insects He created.

The second thing I noted was that this covenant doesn't depend on me or the people of the earth remembering this promise...no matter what God remembers it. Whenever the rainbow appears He will see it and remember it.....it's not dependent on me, He's got it handled.

Torah

Ok I admit this is a jump out of my sequence of following the Bible....but aI found this quote on the Torah and loved it so I am posting simply as a place to store it.




"This explains the teaching of our sages that when G‑d spoke the Ten Commandments at Sinai, His voice had no echo. For an echo is normally created when a sound meets with a substance that resists it. The Torah has no such echo. Every object in the universe is saturated by its message. There is nothing off which it could ricochet. For the Torah is not an imposed reality, but the very DNA of the world."(Chabad.org)