01/06/2025
My morning reading today led me to contemplate the way I worship and how I treat that worship in conjunction with waiting, and work. I was reminded that it is important, and true, that there is but one God and I am equally convinced that our faith should lead us to a singularity of worship and life as well.
“From there he moved to the hill country on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. And there he built an altar to the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord.”
Genesis 12:8 ESV
Abram pitched his tent between two cities. The city of Bethel and the city of Ai. Bethel represents godliness, and in Hebrew it actually means "house of God", while Ai is a Canaanite royal city and represents worldliness. In his earlier times there seems to be a duplicity to how Abram sees his relationship with God and living in the world. Later in the next chapter he even gives up his wife (pretending she is his sister) to the Pharaoh of Egypt, This is yet another act of duplicity.
So, in pitching his tent between these two cities he is demonstrating his religious confusion, and even constructs an altar there where he proceeds to worship God between them. Here, after having already ordered his wife to pretend that she is his sister, and the Pharaoh has taken her for his own wife, God steps in.
“And the Lord plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai Abram's wife. And Pharaoh called Abram, and said, What is this that thou hast done unto me? why didst thou not tell me that she was thy wife? Why saidst thou, She is my sister? so I might have taken her to me to wife: now therefore behold thy wife, take her, and go thy way.”
Genesis 12:17-19 KJV
We see that at this point in his life Abram is a conflicted man and has not found that worshipping God and living his life are meant to be one in the same. However, that realization will come soon enough as he gains in understanding and eventually becomes Abraham. Here though, we see that Abram is struggling to put these pieces together.
As I thought of Abram's predicament, I could see times in my own life where I struggled to form a singular approach to God. My worship, waiting, and working were separate, and I didn't realize that they were each a part of my one faith.
It is so easy to go to church on Sunday; picking up God at the door and returning Him to His keeping place when we leave. It is easy to fill our time of waiting on spiritual guidance with our own ideas and neglect to wait on God to tell us what we should do. It is easy to work in our earthly lives without concern for how God views our actions; or to fill our lives with works that we view as checkmarks on a scorecard as we struggle for admission to heaven. We do this as if faith were a punch card that promised "get nine haircuts and the tenth one is free." But none of these things are right, and separately, they make us like Abram in Egypt... conflicted and falling short.
When we learn that worshipping God is life, that we are meant to wait on God, and our daily work should be holy, then we are on the right track. Every moment of every day should be filled with God's presence in our lives, and the quiet times of waiting should be spent waiting on Him; but something that seems hardest for us to learn is that we can't earn our way into heaven... this comes only by grace, and that flows to us through Jesus Christ.
“For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age,”
Titus 2:11-12 ESV
“for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,”
Romans 3:23-24 ESV
“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John bore witness about him, and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’”) For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”
John 1:14-17 ESV
All of these things, our worship, our waiting, and how we work through life, are all pieces and parts of our one faith. We might try to separate them, but they can't be... it is like separating the hydrogen from the oxygen in a molecule of water (H2O). Oh, we can physically do that, but in so doing we no longer have water, we only have hydrogen, and oxygen, and they are two entirely different substances.
So, how are we proceeding when it comes to our own lives of faith? Are we still attempting to live (abide) among the pieces like Abram did, or have we come to the realization of Abraham that only together do they lead us to water? Only together do they lead us to Jesus Christ, and to the eternal grace that flows from God through Him? Are we still trying to live God’s commandments one at a time, or have we reached the true realization that they are meant to be joined together with all of life to make a single whole. Is our belief in one God, abiding in one Jesus Christ, to form one view of God’s divinity in us, and to make one life that we call our own?
“For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth—as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”— yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist. However, not all possess this knowledge. But some, through former association with idols, eat food as really offered to an idol, and their conscience, being weak, is defiled.”
1 Corinthians 8:5-7 ESV
Prayer:
Father, thank you for the life that you breathed into me. Lord God, help me to bring all the aspects of my life under control and present them together as one to you. Let who I am, how I behave, and the way I worship you, be singular and undivided. Let my physical and spiritual life be righteous and holy as I treat it as a single unified offering to you through faith. Lord, forgive me the times when I have separated my life into components in an attempt to reign over them myself. Thank you, Father, for leading me to the understanding that you are more than just a piece of me... you are all of me, from being to soul, and from prayer to the acceptance of Jesus as my savior. You are one God, and I am one soul in your hand... all of me. Holy, Holy, Holy, are you my God who abides in me and I in you. Holy are you who brings me together with You, Jesus, your Holy Spirit, and your Word, to be one. Hear this my prayer Father, and make my eyes see how my life is made one in you, and by you. Praised be your name now and forevermore as all the glory that is who I am in you is yours for all eternity. And all the saints said together… Amen!
“Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, then you too will abide in the Son and in the Father. And this is the promise that he made to us—eternal life.”
1 John 2:24-25 ESV
“Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works.”
John 14:10 ESV
“Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.”
John 15:4 ESV
Rich Forbes