July 17, 2026:

GOD’S WORD FOR TODAY:

“Now Lot, who was moving about with Abram, also had flocks and herds and tents. But the land could not support them while they stayed together, for their possessions were so great that they were not able to stay together. And quarreling arose between Abram’s herders and Lot’s. The Canaanites and Perizzites were also living in the land at that time.” (Genesis 13.5-6; 7)

TODAY’S REFLECTION ON GOD’S WORD:

The cross shows us that Jesus is the center of our lives: not in death but in life. In death, He is not there because in life He maintains His walk and talk with God the Father. Good advice for us. It would be good advice for Abram and Lot, too, if only….

I need to reflect on this a moment before moving on. When I offered the above statement, I did not sufficiently clarify. I spoke of the cross “post-crucifixion.” The cross does show us that Jesus is the center of our lives in death and in life. The gift of our salvation is impossible to give if Jesus did not give us His life. By a similar token, the gift of our salvation is impossible to receive if we do not give our lives to Him. There are several supporting verses for this but Paul’s word to the faith community in Philippi is a good one: “For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” At the cross, Paul said in Romans 6.6, “Our old self died with Him.” His death became our death because He was the only sacrifice sufficient to make our salvation real. But death alone is not life nor salvation. Whenever the people came to the Temple to offer sacrifices, God saw in their heart and soul and mind that they had lost the affection for the meaning and purpose of the sacrifice. It was not a magic solution that erased the past so they could move forward to sin again. The sacrifice was to be offered with the full awareness of their sin and that only God could truly forgive, truly redeem and truly reconcile. As we learned from several deliverance stories such as “The Expulsion from Eden” and “Life after the Flood,” life was not going to be easy. God also showed in those stories that life was not going to be impossible. Where do you think we get the reasoning of the scripture recording the teaching of Jesus, “What is impossible for humankind is possible with God“? (Luke 18.27) Not only would it be possible to have life eternal and abundant only with God, it was possible only because of God. It was because of His sacrifice on their/our behalf that we have the only opportunity that exists to receive eternal life that is filled with peace and joy and love. There is no other way! So, Jesus died that we might live with Him forever. We must recognize that we must die, too, to live with Him forever. So, it is at the cross we see the reality of death and its necessity to die to self and live for Him which is our gain. What is that gain but “life.” So, I focused on the “post-crucifixion” cross that was empty of both life and death. It bore the life, the sacrificial life, of Jesus as the Christ. It wasn’t just Jesus as a man as many presumed or wanted to assume. Jesus died on the cross as the Christ, the Suffering Servant (as Isaiah would identify the Messiah) and the Son of God. He was alive when He took on the cross. If He was not alive, He could not die. But He had already died in His resolve the night before when in the Garden He faced that temptation of delivering Himself from the moment and rejected it prayerfully saying, “Not My will but Yours be done.” Jesus surrendered Himself to God sacrificially as we are called to do as well. There is no proxy for us. We must die to self in order to gain the life that matters most. For most all of us, this is a daily event. We quarrel with ourselves about who has the greatest right to the space we inhabit “on earth as it will be in Heaven.” That phrase is filled with meaning as Jesus included it in “how to pray” which was the disciples’ question. They had to die to the old way of praying. It wasn’t about words and traditions, as many would think, it was fully intended to take hold of the mind, the imagination, the spirit of intention as the vitality of one’s prayer. It was a call to live on earth as we desire to live in Heaven. By whatever measure or means we may conceive of life in heaven from golden streets and an emerald city or vast green pastures where the flock of our family graze in praise, the intent should be the content of our life on earth. Thus, when I mentioned the cross shows us that Jesus is the center of our lives not in death but in life, it is because Jesus moves from life to life through death. He surrendered heaven to come to earth to show us on earth how to live in Heaven. He surrendered His life on earth to go to Heaven (casting Himself upon the mercy and promise of God) so that we might known how to live on earth with Heaven in mind. Jesus stayed centered. He, as Steven Covey coined, “kept the main thing the main thing.”

In today’s verse, we see what was the environment which surrounded the centeredness of Abram and Lot. When they focused on trusting God’s lead and staying on track and on target they prospered in flocks, herds and tents. They prospered in abundant abundance. They were overflowing with abundance. As I mentioned yesterday, they were so abundant that there became a distance between them. They lost sight of what was “the main thing.” Now did Lot lose sight of Abram? Did Abram lose sight of Lot? Did they lose sight of God and began to take on more of the credit that the responsibility? It was probably all of that and nothing more. But in the story and element was added, two in fact. Conflict arose among the herders of both Abram’s and Lot’s flocks and herds. They became territorial as to which belonged to who. In the old West of this country, it would have sounded like accusations of cattle rustling! The herders either were reflecting their masters’ viewpoint and presence of “ownership” or they were adopting more authority than was given. We hear of an influencing factor, too. That factor was the presence of Canaanites and Peruzzites. This means that there was more to the feeling of crowdedness than just the prosperity of Abram and Lot. There may have been some pushback because the natural resources needed to supply the abundant abundance was putting the people already living there at risk. Or it could have meant that the abundancy was so great, it exceeded the ability of Abram and Lot’s human resources to manage the flocks. To answer that manpower question, the locals were brought in to assist. With those “outside” the Abram experience of God now included “in the fold,” the more likely it was that their culture and religion and opinions were brought in as well. They would become the fly in the ointment, so to speak. The vision of mission and purpose was being clouded by the infusion of unholy thinking and actions. Mighty ones of God, this is a condition that has existed from the beginning. Who is going to influence who and how and for what purpose. What is the mission and purpose of our lives as believers of God in Jesus Christ? Are we not to go into all the world and shepherd and steward in such a way to promote the true owner of all the flocks? We are often seen as negative influencers and a threat to the accepted (not so much acceptable) way of life. And vice-versa, in our desire to be “all things to all people” (a concept which cannot be falsely understood as through the lense of entitlement and accommodation) we cannot simply allow the “stranger in our midst” to negatively influence us to believe something other than what we know is right and true. We must keep our focus on “the main thing as the main thing” and everything else we say and do must reflect it and support it… or else….

TODAY’S PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING:

Father, in these days we are finding the need to believe even more than ever before. We all have known trouble, some in greater ways than others, but You are offering us the assurance that we will not be consumed by it forever. Regardless of the “time” we are in and the “time” we have been given, we ask for Your Holy Spirit which Jesus asked You to share with us, to lead and guide and direct us in the paths we should go. Teach us what we still need to learn. Empower us to put that learning into action. Bless our actions not as a works righteousness but as righteous works of faith, hope and love in Jesus’ name. AMEN.