Sight Unseen

A series on meeting God – Abraham
(Click on the link below to read the verses.)
Genesis 12:1-9; Genesis 15:1-21 

[We all have a story about how we met God. Some are more miraculous than others, but none more amazing than the mere fact that the Living God, our Creator, reached out to bring us into relationship with him. In this series, we will be looking at how people in the Bible met God, and what that means to you today.]

  

As a junior in high school, I planned to go into geological engineering. When I told Mr. Clark, our guidance counselor, he immediately said, “You need to go to Michigan Tech in Houghton”.

 

I didn’t know anything about Tech. Things like their average annual snowfall was 250 inches; or that there were 10 guys for every girl; or that it was about a nine-hour drive to the middle of nowhere. All I knew was that Mr. Clark recommended it; so, I went to Tech… sight unseen. Abram did the same thing!

 

Abram was born in Ur of the Chaldeans in Mesopotamia. He lived there with his father, Terah - who worshiped the moon god, his wife Sarai - who was barren and his nephew Lot – whose father had died.

 

While in Mesopotamia, the Lord appeared to Abram telling him to leave his home and his people, and to go to the land that the Lord would show him. Based solely on the word of the Lord, Abram uprooted his life to go there… sight unseen.

 

Abram took with him Terah, Sarai and Lot. However, on the way they settled in Harran, a city also known for worshipping the moon god. Although we don’t know why they settled there, you could speculate that it had to do with Terah. Because when he died Abram once again set out for the land the Lord would show him.

 

Despite Sarai being barren, the Lord made this startling promise to Abram.

 

² “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you;
I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.       NIV              Genesis 12

 

At the age of seventy-five, Abram arrived in Canaan with his wife Sarai and his nephew Lot, along with all their possessions and people that they had acquired in Harran. But they weren’t alone. The Canaanites lived there.

 

Even though Abram was old, Sarai was still barren, and the Canaanites were there, the Lord again appeared to Abram and promised that he would give Abram’s descendants the land. Therefore, he built an altar to the Lord.

 

However, over the following decade, Abram experienced many adversities, not the least of which was that he still had no children. Afraid and discouraged, the Lord appeared to Abram again. This time, Abram complained about being childless.

 

⁵ Then the Lord took Abram outside and said to him, “Look up into the sky and count the stars if you can. That’s how many descendants you will have!”

⁶ And Abram believed the Lord, and the Lord counted him as righteous because of his faith.  NLT   Genesis 15

 

Based on God’s word and promise, Abram went to the ends of the earth… sight unseen. The Lord had made a covenant with Abram that he would fulfill his promise. The Lord also made a new covenant with you and me. A covenant to forgive our sins and restore us to him.

 

²⁰ After supper Jesus took another cup of wine and said, “This cup is the new covenant between God and his people—an agreement confirmed with my blood, which is poured out as a sacrifice for you.  NLT   Luke 22

 

Copyright 2025 Joseph B Williams

Feel free to share this blog with others.

www.lifelinebasketball.blogspot.com

 

A Living Temple

A Lenten series on Mountaintop Moments
– King Solomon on Mount Moriah
(Click on the link below to read the verses.)
2 Chronicles 5:2-6:11 

[In this Lenten series, we will be looking at Mountaintop Moments. These mountains are more than just geographical features. They symbolize divine encounters and moments of revelation, faith and transformation. In other words, meeting God on the mountain top.]

 

The Lord promised Abraham that he would have as many descendants as there were stars in the sky. And yet, after waiting twenty-five years for Sara to have a child, the Lord told him, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and sacrifice him”.

 

Early the next morning, Abraham started his three-day journey to take Isaac to the mountain that the Lord would show him. Once there, he built an altar and bound Isaac. But when he raised his knife, the Lord provided a ram as a substitutionary sacrifice. The name of the mountain was Moriah.

 

Over 1000 years later, Solomon, the king of Israel, had a temple built for the Lord on Mount Moriah. He used the finest materials – cedar, gold, silver, bronze and precious stones. It was constructed by the most skilled craftsmen. The ornamentation was intricate. Gold overlay was everywhere. It was magnificent!

 

Once completed, Solomon planned a dedication that would be rivaled by none. He waited eleven months for just the right time - the Festival of Tabernacles. Then he summoned “the elders of Israel, all the heads of the tribes and the chiefs of Israelite families”.

 

The Levites, who were musicians, played cymbals, harps and lyres. They were accompanied by 120 priests sounding trumpets. All the people joined in singing and praising the Lord, “He is good! His faithful love endures forever!” To honor the Lord, so many sheep and cattle were sacrificed that they couldn’t keep count.

 

Finally, the priests took the Ark of the Covenant into the Most Holy Place. Then as they withdrew from there, the room filled with smoke. So much so that they couldn’t continue their service.

 

¹ Then Solomon prayed, “O Lord, you have said that you would live in a thick cloud of darkness. ² Now I have built a glorious Temple for you, a place where you can live forever!”        NLT

 

However, the story of Mount Moriah is much more than a substitutionary ram saving the life of Isaac. Or Solomon’s magnificent temple built for the God of Israel to reside forever. It’s the story of the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, who changed everything.

 

Almost 1000 years after Solomon built his temple, Jesus taught and healed in Herod’s temple… also built on Mount Moriah. 

But his sacrifice will save not just one but all who have faith and follow him. And his home doesn’t depend on a physical building because now he lives in our hearts, a living temple. Paul put it like this.

 

^16b For we are the temple of the living God. As God said:

“I will live in them
    and walk among them.
I will be their God,
    and they will be my people.     NLT   2 Corinthians 6

 

Copyright 2025 Joseph B Williams

Feel free to share this blog with others.

www.lifelinebasketball.blogspot.com

 

 

Who’s Holding Your Football?

A series on the story of redemption – Part II
The story of Abraham – #2
(Click on the link below to read the verses.)
Genesis 22 

[Everybody has a story. Even God has one. His is a story about love and redemption and faithfulness. In this series we are going to take a closer look at God’s story through the lives of the people that He touched. How their story became His story of redemption. And how your story is also a part of it.] 

 

There’s a famous Charlie Brown cartoon strip where Lucy promises to hold a football for Charlie Brown while he kicks it. However, every time that he approaches the ball, she pulls it away. The result is that Charlie Brown falls flat on his back.

 

Sometimes life feels just like that. We put our trust in someone and just when we need them the most, they pull the ball away so that we fall flat on our back. It especially hurts when we keep trusting the person and they keep betraying our trust.

 

Abraham may have felt like that. The Lord called him to leave his home and go to a land where he had never been. He had no idea what would happen once he arrived. But he uprooted his wife, family, servants and livestock by faith in the Lord’s promise.

 

¹ The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.

² “I will make you into a great nation,
    and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
    and you will be a blessing.        Genesis 12    NIV

 

However, after they arrived there was a famine in the land. Because of this Abraham moved again, this time to Egypt. There were plenty of fields for his livestock to graze, but there was one problem. Sarah was beautiful and Abraham feared for his life. So, he told her to lie and say that she was his sister.

 

Abraham faced many other trials during his journey to the new land. Not the least of which was when he got impatient with the Lord to fulfill His promise to give him a child. Unwilling to wait any longer, Abraham took Sarah’s Egyptian servant as his wife. Did Abraham feel the football being pulled away again?

 

Twenty-five years after Abraham initially moved to Canaan, Sarah finally became pregnant. Their son was a child of the promise. Sarah was thrilled and named him Isaac, which means “he laughs”. But once again the football was pulled away.

 

² Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.”                  NIV

 

It took Abraham three days of walking to reach the location where he was to sacrifice his son. Just as he raised the knife, the Lord provided a ram to take the place of Isaac.

 

¹³ Then Abraham looked up and saw a ram caught by its horns in a thicket. So, he took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering in place of his son. ¹⁴ Abraham named the place Yahweh-Yireh (which means “the Lord will provide”). To this day, people still use that name as a proverb: “On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.”         NLT

 

Finally, the football wasn’t pulled away. The Lord was faithful and provided a substitution for the sacrifice. In the same way, he has provided a substitution of his only son whom he loved as a sacrifice to take our place.

 

⁹ God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. ¹⁰ This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.           1 John 4                  NLT

 

Who’s holding your football – Lucy or Yahweh-Yireh?

 

Copyright 2024 Joseph B Williams

www.lifelinebasketball.blogspot.com

 

 

 

Too Good to be True

A series on the story of redemption – Part II
The story of Abraham
(Click on the link below to read the verses.)
Genesis 12:1-9 

[Everybody has a story. Even God has one. His is a story about love and redemption and faithfulness. In this series we are going to take a closer look at God’s story through the lives of the people that He touched. How their story became His story of redemption. And how your story is also a part of it.]

  

There have been several times when my wife and I have been suckered by a sales pitch for a travel program that sounded too good to be true. Each time, after several hours of high-pressure sales, we would leave exhausted from the experience and promising to never do it again.

 

As a young man, my Dad told me that if something sounds too good to be true, then it probably is. Our experience confirms that my Dad knew what he was talking about. However, there is a story where it’s not true. Consider Abraham.

 

¹ The Lord had said to Abram, “Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land that I will show you. ² I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others. ³ I will bless those who bless you and curse those who treat you with contempt. All the families on earth will be blessed through you.”         NLT

 

Later the Lord reaffirmed his promise when he told Abraham to look into the sky. 

“Your descendants will be as many as the stars above… The only problem is that your wife can’t get pregnant. And look here. This is the land that I’m giving your descendants... The only problem is that the land is already inhabited.”

 

Problems or opportunities? Either way it sounds too good to be true!

 

But Abraham followed the Lord’s call to a land he had never seen. Even though it seemed impossible, he believed the Lord’s promise of descendants. For sure there were times of doubt; times when he and Sarah would try to take things into their own hands. But for the most part, Abraham trusted the Lord.

 

⁶ And Abram believed the Lord, and the Lord counted him as righteous because of his faith.        NLT          Genesis 15

 

Although Abraham didn’t know all the details, the Lord had a plan. It was a plan to provide a way for His creation to return to a relationship with Him. It was an impossible plan of redemption that would span generations over thousands of years.

 

And the Lord’s plan comes with a cost. The cost was for the Lord to sacrifice His one and only son who He loved. Only then is it possible for us to personally know our Heavenly Father, who loves us and longs to be in relationship with us.

 

⁹ God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. ¹⁰ This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.           NLT   1 John 4

 

The Lord’s promise to Abraham sounded too good to be true. Even His plan of redemption sounds so impossible that it can’t be true. But it is. Abraham gave us the blueprint for righteousness… faith. Jesus is the person to put our faith in.

 

²⁹ And now that you belong to Christ, you are the true children of Abraham. You are his heirs, and God’s promise to Abraham belongs to you.             NLT           Galatians 3                                                       

 Copyright 2024 Joseph B Williams

www.lifelinebasketball.blogspot.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Promise

Genesis 24:1-9

 

 

There comes a time in every person’s life when they look back to see what they have accomplished; how they got to where they are today; how they will be remembered.

 

This past week I turned 65, so these are the thoughts that came to my mind. Ultimately, it has to do with how has God worked in my life, and how has He used me in the lives of others. In the final analysis, all that matters is what is eternal.

 

In the passage today, it states that “Abraham was now very old”. He had just buried his wife who had born their only child Isaac. He was living in a land that belonged to others. In fact, he had to buy a field with a cave in order to bury his wife. He was a foreigner; an alien in the land. He was alone with his son and his faithful long time servant.

 

So it was natural for Abraham to look back on his life and remember the promise that the Lord had made to him. When Abraham was a young man God had called him to a life of faith with these words from Genesis 12:

 

“The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s

household to the land I will show you. ² “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. ³ I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”

 

Abraham believed in God’s promise and faithfulness. He wanted to make sure that the Lord’s promise continued through his son Isaac. So Isaac was very much a continuance of that promise from God to Abraham... as are we.

 

Therefore, as I look back on 65 years of living, I can see how God has been faithful; how He has always been at work in my life; how He has always been with me; how He has always loved and forgiven me. He has kept His promise.

 

I hope and pray that you can see God at work in your life as well, and that His promise and faithfulness are evident to you.