Acadia National Park

A series on God’s calling: Abraham
 (Click on the link below to read the verses.)
Genesis 12:1-5 

[Traditionally we think of someone who has received “God’s call on their life” as being a missionary or pastor or some other paid ministry position. But God has called all of us into ministry. And there’s not just one way that He does it. In this series, we will look at how God called people in the Bible to ministry, and what that means to us.]

  

Recently my wife and I took a trip to New Hampshire to visit some friends who had moved there last year. Since we’d never been to Maine, and they lived right on the border, we took a side trip to Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park.

 

When we told friends at home about our plans to go to Acadia, we received lots of advice and even tour books. We learned what sights to see, where to park, what restaurants to eat at and most importantly, where to eat lobster. Since we’d never been there, it was all very helpful.

 

Leading up to Abram’s calling from God, the “people of the world” had settled in Babylonia. In their pride and arrogance, they decided to build a city and then a tower to demonstrate how great they were. In order to stop them, God scattered the people by confusing their language.

 

Once again, the Lord needed someone to save humanity from themselves; to restore the world to him. He chose Abram.

 

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.      NLT

 

Abram didn’t know anything about the land that the Lord had called him to. He’d never been there. Making his decision even more difficult was the fact that he would have to leave his home and everything that made his life stable. But he obeyed.

 

⁴ So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Harran.   NIV

 

We’re not told how long it took or what kind of adversity Abram might have faced during the journey. We don’t know if he had second thoughts about continuing the trip. Only that he obeyed God and eventually arrived.

 

⁵ He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Harran, and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there. NIV

 

Unlike my trip to Acadia National Park, Abram had no idea where to go or what to expect. Yet, by faith, he went. And it was his faith that the Lord counted him as righteous. Abram listened when the Lord spoke; he acted; and he completed God’s call when he arrived in Canaan.

 

His call was a seismic shift in how God works. Because now God’s strategy was to work through one man and his descendants to a specific location. God’s promise that “all peoples on earth will be blessed through you”, is the beginning of his redemptive plan to restore all humanity to a personal relationship with him.

 

God’s covenant with Abram included land, descendants, and blessings. But its ultimate fulfillment came in the person of Christ, the Messiah.

 

¹⁶ The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. Scripture does not say “and to seeds,” meaning many people, but “and to your seed,” meaning one person, who is Christ.           NIV    Galatians 3

 

Copyright 2025 Joseph B Williams

Feel free to share this blog with others.

www.lifelinebasketball.blogspot.com

 

 

 

Victim or Villain?

A series on the story of redemption – Part II
The story of Esau
(Click on the link below to read the verses.)
Genesis 25:19-34;27:1-40 

[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.]

  

Have you ever been a victim? It’s happened to my wife and me a couple of times when someone broke into our home. There’s nothing worse than the feeling you get to pull into your driveway and see a stranger in your upstairs bedroom window.

 

As a victim you feel violated and helpless. You feel like someone has taken advantage of you; like you’ve been used. You want to retaliate; to make them pay; to exact justice. An eye for an eye.

 

At first blush, Esau appears to be the villain in his story. After all, he’s impulsive and vindictive. This led him to vow to kill his brother Jacob after their father died. It also resulted in him marrying a Canaanite woman who was the daughter of Isaac’s stepsibling rival, just to spite his parents.

 

But it’s also possible that Esau could be the victim. After all, when he was at his most vulnerable point of being tired and hungry, Jacob took full advantage of him by trading a bowl of stew for his birthright. Later, his mother orchestrated a plan to steal Isaac’s blessing from Esau. Who could blame Esau for reacting the way he did.

 

Victim or villain? 

You could probably argue both labels for Esau. However, Scripture casts him as a villain. In Malachi, the Lord clearly said that he rejected Esau and that his descendants were a wicked people. To confirm this, the prophecy of Obadiah is all about the judgement of Edom, the descendants of Esau.

 

So… what made Esau the villain?

 

In the ancient Near East, a birthright was the legal and social standard for an inheritance. In Hebrew law, the firstborn son actually received a double portion of inheritance and would assume leadership of the family – money and power.

 

For Esau’s family, the birthright also included the covenant of the God of Abraham and Isaac. This meant being the beneficiary of the promise of having countless descendants and the Promised Land. Primarily though, it was about redemption and relationship with God. By rejecting his birthright, Esau was rejecting God.

 

The author of Hebrews encouraged believers to be holy, to watch after each other and to “See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many”. Then he gave this warning.

 

¹⁶ Make sure that no one is immoral or godless like Esau, who traded his birthright as the firstborn son for a single meal. ¹⁷ You know that afterward, when he wanted his father’s blessing, he was rejected. It was too late for repentance, even though he begged with bitter tears.   Hebrews 12   NLT

 

Like Esau, we have a birthright. But unlike Esau, it can’t be traded.

 

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.            Galatians 3   NLT

 

Copyright 2024 Joseph B Williams

www.lifelinebasketball.blogspot.com

 

 

 

A 1000 Piece Jigsaw Puzzle

A series on the story of redemption – Part II
The story of Rebekah
(Click on the link below to read the verses.)
Genesis 25:19-34; 27:1-40 

[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.]

  

I hate puzzles. It doesn’t matter what kind it is… crossword, Wordle, Rubik’s Cube, Sudoku or jigsaw. However, recently I found myself addicted to working on a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle of Spartan Stadium, where Michigan State plays football.

 

My strategy was to look for a scene that was identifiable and try to complete that section of the puzzle… piece by piece. Have you ever sorted through 1000 puzzle pieces that all seem to look alike? It can be tedious and frustrating! But when one of the pieces actually fits, you want to celebrate!

 

Life is like a puzzle. We have to problem solve all the time. If trying one way doesn’t work, then try another. Figure it out. Make it work. Take control. Do whatever you need to do in order to solve your problem. At least, that’s what Rebekah thought.

 

Rebekah was the wife of Isaac. Following their marriage, she was unable to conceive for twenty years. Finally, after Isaac pleaded with the Lord, she became pregnant. But during her pregnancy the babies jostled each other within her. When she asked the Lord why, his answer was unsettling.

 

²³ And the Lord told her, “The sons in your womb will become two nations. From the very beginning, the two nations will be rivals. One nation will be stronger than the other; and your older son will serve your younger son.”    Genesis 25    NLT

 

Because of this, Rebekah was aware that the Lord’s plan to carry his covenant down through the generations involved Jacob, but not Esau. Many years later, she most likely learned about Esau trading his birthright for a meal. Knowledge is power.

 

When Isaac was old and frail, Rebekah overheard him tell Esau that he was going to give him his blessing. But the Lord had said that Jacob would carry the covenant. Plus, he was Rebekah’s favorite.

 

It would have been an easy step for her to think that she needed to take things into her own hands. With that thought in mind, she devised a plan to trick Isaac into blessing Jacob. More so than Jacob, Rebekah was the master manipulator.

 

But the Lord is sovereign, loving and faithful. His plans are fulfilled despite sinful people. In Romans 9, Paul wrote about God’s sovereignty. As an example, he used the story of Rebekah giving birth to Esau and Jacob.

 

¹¹ But before they were born, before they had done anything good or bad, she received a message from God. (This message shows that God chooses people according to his own purposes; ^12a he calls people, but not according to their good or bad works.)        NLT

 

The Lord is a master puzzler. That is, he knows exactly where each piece of the puzzle goes. He knows how to make 1000 unique pieces fit perfectly for the picture to look proper. We may not understand it while he’s putting the puzzle together. But he is God, and we are not.

 

²⁰ But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?” ²¹ Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?            NIV

 

Copyright 2024 Joseph B Williams

www.lifelinebasketball.blogspot.com

 

 

 

Life is Messy

A series on the story of redemption – Part II
The story of Isaac
(Click on the link below to read the verses.)
Genesis 25:19-34; 27:1-40 

[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.]

  

Life can be messy sometimes. Things happen. Life happens. People happen. That’s the real problem… people! If it wasn’t for people, life would be so much better; much less messy. But people are here to stay with the result being that life is messy.

 

Isaac started off so promising. He was a child of the Lord’s promise. The fulfillment of the covenant between the Lord and Abraham. He was the hope and dream for Sarah. Isaac was the golden child. Even when it came to finding a wife for him, Abraham went to great lengths to make sure that she believed in the same God.

 

But then, life got messy. Rebekah was unable to have children, so Isaac pleaded with the Lord to give her a child. His prayer was answered when she became pregnant with twins. But the two children struggled within her womb, so she asked the Lord why? His answer was unsettling.

 

²³ And the Lord told her, “The sons in your womb will become two nations. From the very beginning, the two nations will be rivals. One nation will be stronger than the other; and your older son will serve your younger son.”    Genesis 25    NLT

 

The first sign of a problem happened when Esau came home from the wilderness. At the time, Jacob was preparing some stew. Famished and exhausted, Esau demanded that Jacob give him some.

 

Seeing a great opportunity, Jacob shrewdly negotiated the best deal ever when he asked for, and received, Esau’s birthright as the first-born son. This means that Jacob would receive a double portion of the inheritance, plus the position and authority of Abraham. All of this for a bowl of stew.

 

Esau was Isaac’s favorite and Jacob was Rebekah’s. These dynamics came bubbling to the surface when Isaac was old and ready to give Esau his blessing. Overhearing this, Rebekah put a plan into action so that Jacob could steal the blessing. The plan worked to perfection. Assuming that it was Esau, Isaac gave Jacob this blessing.

 

²⁹ May nations serve you
    and peoples bow down to you.
Be lord over your brothers,
    and may the sons of your mother bow down to you.
May those who curse you be cursed
    and those who bless you be blessed.”              Genesis 27    NIV

 

Needless to say, this led to bad blood between Esau and Jacob. Even to the point that Esau planned to kill Jacob once Isaac died. Learning of Esau’s plans, Rebekah once again manipulated the situation to send Jacob away with the birthright and the promise of the Lord’s covenant.

 

Life was messy for Isaac, even though he had a sincere faith in the Lord. There were times when the Lord spoke to him, affirming the covenant of his father Abraham. Isaac embraced this covenant and passed it along to Jacob.

 

This is a very messy chapter in God’s plan of redemption. You’d think he could have found some better people to fulfill his plan. But the Lord is sovereign. And in his sovereignty, he used ordinary sinful people to carry his message of redemption through the generations.

 

Life is messy, and the Lord still uses messy people to continue his plan of redemption.

 

Copyright 2024 Joseph B Williams

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

 

 

 

I Love it When a Plan Comes Together

Ephesians 1:11-14

(Use the link below to read the verses.)

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ephesians%201%3A11-14&version=NIV;GNT;NLT

  

I love watching a plan come to fruition. There’s a feeling of accomplishment; of satisfaction; of victory. It’s exciting!

 

What gets you excited? The beginning of football season? Watching your children succeed? Helping someone accomplish their goals? Selling an account to a customer? Leading someone to faith in Christ?

 

What excited Paul was seeing the big picture of God’s plan of evangelism. He presented the Ephesian church with a vision of how God’s plan was being fulfilled through them. In fact, the Bible is a living history of God’s plan. The amazing thing is that He uses imperfect people to accomplish His perfect plan.

 

¹¹ All things are done according to God's plan and decision; and God chose us to be his own people in union with Christ because of his own purpose, based on what he had decided from the very beginning.   GNT

 

To be honest, I don’t know how this verse works exactly. After all, how can God’s plan include a still born; a school shooting; cancer; an addiction; or other catastrophic circumstances? How can a loving God allow evil, injustice and extreme poverty in His plan? I don’t have the answer.

 

What I can tell you is that God does love you, He has a plan for your life and He is always at work to fulfill that plan. And when He does that, it’s time to get excited.

 

And when you believed in Christ, he identified you as his own by giving you the Holy Spirit, whom he promised long ago. ¹⁴ The Spirit is God’s guarantee that he will give us the inheritance he promised and that he has purchased us to be his own people. He did this so we would praise and glorify him.            NLT

 

This is how God grows His Kingdome, one person at a time. His Spirit moves your heart, your mind, your soul. His Spirit brought you into His plan, moves you forward through it and guarantees you the final outcome.

 

Therefore, if He has put something into your heart to do; don’t ignore it. That’s God’s Spirit at work in your life to build His Kingdom; to fulfill His plan. So take the first step. Then you too can say, “I love it when a plan comes together”.

 

 

 

YOU are the Messenger

(3^rd in a series on Lent)

Malachi 2:17-3:5

 (Use the link below to read the verses.)

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Malachi%202%3A17-3%3A5&version=NIV;GNT

 

 

Texting is the high tech version of passing a note in school. Back in the day, girls would pass notes to each other during class. No doubt they had their secret tactics to make sure the teacher never observed their covert operations. After all, these notes contained highly sensitive information; not meant for all to see.

 

Malachi, which means “my messenger”, didn’t text messages; nor did he pass notes. But he was God’s messenger to the remnant of the Jews that had returned to Jerusalem. The Jews had once again fallen into sin. To bring them hope of change, of purpose and of redemption, God spoke these words through Malachi:

 

The Lord Almighty answers, “I will send my messenger to prepare the way for

me. Then the Lord you are looking for will suddenly come to his Temple. The messenger you long to see will come and proclaim my covenant.”        GNT

 

The Bible is the story of God’s plan of redemption. From the Old Testament to the New, God has been preparing for the redemption of Israel, and for the redemption of all who would receive Him. In the above verse, Malachi prophesied about John the Baptist, who would prepare the way for Jesus, the Messiah.

 

Throughout the Bible, there were many messengers who prepared the way of the Lord. The same is true in our individual lives. There have been people, places and

circumstances that God has used as messengers to prepare the way for the Lord to touch our hearts and change our lives; in a word, to bring redemption.

 

In the spirit of the Lenten season, which is a time for reflection and preparation for Easter; who have the messengers been in your life? Who has been preparing the way of the Lord for you? Who has spoken God’s word into your heart?

 

And because the Good News is not personal information to be kept to ourselves, like a

secret note being passed in class, to whom has God brought into your life for you to be a messenger; for you to help prepare the way of the Lord?

 

 

(If God has spoken to you through this devotional, please feel free to share it with others.)

http://lifelinebasketball.blogspot.com/

 

Who is Jalen Watts-Jackson?

2 Thessalonians 3:1-5

 

If you Google “Jalen Watts-Jackson”, you will find pages upon pages of links. In case you don’t know, he is the Michigan State player who scored the improbable winning touchdown on a blocked punt with ten seconds left in the game against their in-state rival Michigan.

 

Immediately following the game there was a firestorm of social and traditional media activity showing the play. Since then, it has appeared on social media, You Tube, ABC’s Good Morning America, Fox News, local news and too many others to list. Word of this play, and Jalen Watts-Jackson, spread like wildfire.

 

In today’s passage, Paul wrote to the Thessalonians asking them: “Finally, dear brothers, as I come to the end of this letter, I ask you to pray for us. Pray first that the Lord’s message will spread rapidly and triumph wherever it goes, winning converts

everywhere as it did when it came to you.”

 

At the time, things were moving fast for Paul, so he asks the Thessalonians to pray for the rapid spread of the Gospel. Not just the spread of the Gospel, but the “rapid spread”. The same prayer can be requested for us today.

 

Consider Jalen Watts-Jackson for instance. He was injured during that final play last Saturday. He couldn’t even celebrate he was in so much pain. In fact, he both dislocated and broke his hip requiring season ending surgery the next day. His platform is sports and here is what he posted on Instagram following his surgery:

 

 

 

Your platform may not allow you to spread the Gospel nationally, but there are individuals that know you and will listen to you because of who you are; the kind of person you are; how you handle adversity; how you live your life; how you treat others.

 

The question then becomes, how will you handle your platform? Will you pray for the rapid spread of the Gospel and act when opportunity knocks?

 

 

 

 

The choice is yours.