The Lord's Blessing

 DEVOTION

GENESIS

THE LORD'S BLESSING

Gen 26:7-15

7 When the men of that place asked him about his wife, he said, "She is my sister," because he was afraid to say, "She is my wife." He thought, "The men of this place might kill me on account of Rebekah, because she is beautiful." 8 When Isaac had been there a long time, Abimelech king of the Philistines looked down from a window and saw Isaac caressing his wife Rebekah. 9 So Abimelech summoned Isaac and said, "She is really your wife! Why did you say, 'She is my sister'?" Isaac answered him, "Because I thought I might lose my life on account of her." 10 Then Abimelech said, "What is this you have done to us? One of the men might well have slept with your wife, and you would have brought guilt upon us." 11 So Abimelech gave orders to all the people: "Anyone who molests this man or his wife shall surely be put to death." 12 Isaac planted crops in that land and the same year reaped a hundredfold, because the LORD blessed him. 13 The man became rich, and his wealth continued to grow until he became very wealthy. 14 He had so many flocks and herds and servants that the Philistines envied him. 15 So all the wells that his father's servants had dug in the time of his father Abraham, the Philistines stopped up, filling them with earth.

NIV

We could focus on the idea of "Like father, like son." But that is not a truth we would want to learn as a life lesson, other than not to repeat our ancestors' mistakes. That could translate into not living by the traditions our former believers established or following the traditions of their ancestors because, somewhere, some established them because of their culture, but they may not have been altogether biblical. However, our story today is about Isaac receiving a hundredfold harvest because the LORD blessed him. Jesus taught about receiving hundred times more, or in that parable about the sowing of the seed, the word of God, when planted in the good soil, produced a crop multiplying thirty, sixty, even a hundred times. However, that too would be due only to the Lord's blessings. How could we expect to increase in any way, physically, emotionally, but especially spiritually, on our own, or without the Lord's blessing? We may never attain the material wealth, as Isaac did, but we surely will be spiritually wealthy because the Lord blessed us.  However, that does not mean the Lord will not bless us materially, providing all our needs. Although that might be true for some in our culture, the content of that material blessing could differ across cultures. When the Philistines stopped up the wells that Abraham's servant had dug, it could apply, in some sense, to a lesson we should ponder. There will always be those who would want to stop up the well of God's truth, filling it in with dirt- that could be false teaching, or false doctrine, traditions rather than truth, or maybe even attitudes that become actions, like unforgiveness, jealousy, envy, pride, or even gossip. There is a fountain flowing deep and wide, or, in another way, there is a fountain flowing with our Savior's blood. Let us never allow anything to stop it. The Lord blesses us hundredfold.