{"id":4085,"date":"2022-07-07T06:57:33","date_gmt":"2022-07-07T11:57:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nazareneblogs.org\/pastorscott\/?p=4085"},"modified":"2022-07-07T06:57:33","modified_gmt":"2022-07-07T11:57:33","slug":"devotional-on-genesis-23","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/devotional-on-genesis-23\/","title":{"rendered":"Devotional on Genesis"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure style=\"width: 1600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-ppJ538QRk5s\/XMd_OsIuhgI\/AAAAAAAA6-I\/DcnWJ90oIwIki1jQF4nWtL4buIIJzoVkACKgBGAs\/s1600\/P8208997.JPG\" width=\"1600\" height=\"1200\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">2013 &#8211; Shenandoah National Park, VA &#8211; Skyline Drive<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>What God knows<br \/>\nGenesis 22: Now I know&#8230;<br \/>\nJehovah gives Abraham the most difficult task possible. The old man is to follow the example of the pagans of the area and offer his son as a sacrifice. As unbelievable as it is Abraham never doubts that this is God\u2019s command and acts in painful obedience. If the Lord doesn\u2019t stop him when he does, well, we&#8217;d probably have another Old Testament resurrection story. It\u2019s at this point that the Almighty says something that gives us an amazing insight into the attributes of God. Three words: \u201cNow I know\u2026.\u201d Those aren\u2019t big words for me to say about myself \u2013 there are many \u201cnow I know\u201d moments in my life. But for God to say it \u2013 wow! In these words I get a glimpse of what it means for God to have created human beings with genuinely free will. At the Creation he made us, at the same time, like himself and \u201cother\u201d than himself. At certain times and at some levels, even our Creator is unsure of what we&#8217;ll do. Understand this: God is never at a loss as to what to do in response to what we do. In this case, the Lord has a preferred action for Abraham and he comes through with flying colors. Still (and I know I can\u2019t prove this) I\u2019m convinced that the Lord has already considered what he will do and how he will do it if Abraham\u2019s performance is somewhat less than stellar. In this case we have the very best result possible because Abraham fully cooperates with the Lord God.<br \/>\nTake away: Sometimes the best way to partner with God in what he\u2019s doing in this world is to listen carefully to his voice and then act in obedience even if we don\u2019t understand it all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What God knows Genesis 22: Now I know&#8230; Jehovah gives Abraham the most difficult task possible. The old man is to follow the example of the pagans of the area and offer his son as a sacrifice. As unbelievable as it is Abraham never doubts that this is God\u2019s command and acts in painful obedience. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1497,7],"tags":[127,340,772,1108],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4085"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4085"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4085\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13720,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4085\/revisions\/13720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}