No Joke

DEVOTION

GENESIS

NO JOKE

Gen 17:15-22

15 God also said to Abraham, "As for Sarai your wife, you are no longer to call her Sarai; her name will be Sarah. 16 I will bless her and will surely give you a son by her. I will bless her so that she will be the mother of nations; kings of peoples will come from her." 17 Abraham fell facedown; he laughed and said to himself, "Will a son be born to a man a hundred years old? Will Sarah bear a child at the age of ninety?" 18 And Abraham said to God, "If only Ishmael might live under your blessing!" 19 Then God said, "Yes, but your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will call him Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him. 20 And as for Ishmael, I have heard you: I will surely bless him; I will make him fruitful and will greatly increase his numbers. He will be the father of twelve rulers, and I will make him into a great nation. 21 But my covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to you by this time next year." 22 When he had finished speaking with Abraham, God went up from him.

NIV

And now, the rest of the story, rather the covenant. As God placed within Abram a portion of his name H making Abraham, he now tells him he has done the same with his wife Sarai making her name Sarah. His covenant with Abraham extends to Sarah and God has determined in his covenant that Sarah will bear a son, she will not be barren all her life, in fact her son will have the name Isaac and he will have a covenant, an everlasting covenant with God. Now Abraham is a man of faith, so much so that his faith was credited to him as righteousness. But at hearing these words about he and Sarah having a son at their age, he laughs. His laughter is a form of doubt as we see he now asks God if only he would make that kind of promise about Ishmael. What is interesting in this exchange is that God does not say, “Don’t doubt me!” He does not chastise Abraham for laughing or doubting, instead he affirms what he will do. “No problem, I will bless Ishmael too”. “But my covenant I will establish with Isaac”. Do we ever laugh when God speaks to us about something he is going to do in our lives that in the natural is totally impossible? Do we think if we do have even a little doubt that we lack faith? Peter heard those very words, when he was walking on the water and began to sink.

Matt 14:31

31 Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. "You of little faith," he said, "why did you doubt ?" 

NIV

Matt 21:21-22

21 Jesus replied, "I tell you the truth, if you have faith and do not doubt , not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and it will be done. 22 If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer." 

NIV

These are not the only teachings about having faith and not doubting, not laughing inside about what God will do in our lives that is above the natural, but rather in the supernatural. For Abraham and Sarah, being one hundred and ninety years old respectively, the birth of Isaac would be a supernatural event. This is God at work. But he assured Abraham. When God speaks to our heart about a supernatural event he is going to bring about, even though we might express a little doubt, he assures us this is the way it is going to be. Yes, it is true we should not have any doubts whatsoever when it comes to God. The problem is, that when we doubt about something, perhaps we have not heard from God, but are acting on our own instincts. We need to hear from God. Although Jesus did teach us that if we have faith, we can do things within the supernatural realm. Surely we can ask without doubt we will receive. Yet we also must not forget that we cannot ask with wrong motives.

James 4:2-3

You do not have, because you do not ask God. 3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.

NIV

Abraham’s request, although made because of doubt, was not with a wrong motive. He had a son, Ishmael, and he wanted God to not leave him out of a blessing. He wanted his son Ishmael to have the blessings of God in his life too. His request was not for his own personal pleasure or gain. This too is how we should live. We need to have that measure of faith God has given to us, and have  no doubts in our mind about what he is doing in our lives, but at the same time, not just asking for him to give us everything so we can have everything we want. Life is greater than that. He had a divine purpose for Isaac and he has a divine purpose for us. When we are living for his divine purpose we can have no doubt, he who began a good work in us will complete it.

Phil 1:3-6

3 I thank my God every time I remember you. 4 In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy 5 because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, 6 being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

NIV

Yes, God has established a covenant, an everlasting covenant with us, in Christ Jesus. Because we are in Christ, we have the right to be called sons of God. This means we already have the greatest blessing on our lives as we could possibly ever have. But also it means we can come to him, with confidence, which is the opposite of doubt. When we hear from God, we can live assured with confidence this, whatever it is, will happen. No laughing. No joke.