September 22, 2026

GOD’S WORD FOR TODAY:

“Then Abraham prayed to God. God healed Abimelek, his wife and his female slaves so they could have children again, for the Lord had kept all the women in Abimelek’s household from conceiving because of Abraham’s wife Sarah.

Now the Lord was gracious to Sarah as he had said. The Lord did for Sarah what He had promised. Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the very time God had promised him.”(Genesis 20.17-18; 21.1-2)

REFLECTION ON GOD’S WORD:

As if it wasn’t clear enough, God cements His reality as Sovereign Lord by fulfilling His promise to Sarah. Such an act of God also reminded Abraham that he served a mighty God who was gracious and righteous. Mighty ones, this story of Abraham, Sarah and the soon to be born Isaac is told in such a way to inform us of God’s care for His creation. God had created Adam and Eve to be helpmates and co-workers in His Kingdom on earth. He also was true to them and through them to complete and make sure His design for life was not just for the moment but for all eternity. A part of that design necessitated that there be a next generation. He did not create they, them, to exist as the only humans on the face of the earth. In reading past the story of Eden and stepping into the world because of their transgression, there is a presented argument that there were other people who lived beyond the veil of Eden. The particulars of their existence are never called into question. This does not mean that their presence was an assumed fact. What it means is that such knowledge was not debated and accepted as fact. Cain was marked and protected by God against such people as well as the descendants of his parents through Seth who may have never known Cain as anything more than a story of tragedy. The point of this being that God never intended for Adam and Eve to be alone, alone except for Him. He gave them the charge to be fruitful and multiply though it would come with a price. Such a price Mary, the mother of Jesus, was told she would face in her own life as “a sword will pierce your heart, too.” (Luke 2.35) For Adam and Eve, it would come with Abel being killed by Cain and then Cain being sent out of their presence forever. That day, they lost both their sons. What hope did they have for a future except that God blessed them with Seth. His birth, if we remember, was the beginning of a people “who called upon the name of the Lord.” (Genesis 4.26b)

So it was in their old age that God blessed Abraham and Sarah with the promised future through their own son, Isaac. The introduction of his birth is proceeded by the restoration of Abimelek and the women of his household to the fulfillment of God’s design for them as male and female to bring children into the world. I wonder if Abimelek would ever tell this story to his offspring of how they would not exist apart from the prayer of Abraham to the God whom Abraham served. There was nothing he could have done to overcome their inability to have children. Would he change the way he looked at life? While we never hear of him professing a belief in God that would become his “religion” as God was the “religion” of the descendants of Abraham who were called to be in and maintain a right relationship (that is, righteousness) with God and with one another, I can’t help but imagine that it changed him. All we can do is bear witness to the truth as we know it and see it and believe then that others will come to know it and see it, too, as the righteousness of God. In His righteousness, God made it possible for them to bear children. Without His intervention, and Abraham’s repentance which was the function of his intercessory prayer for Abimelek, there would have been no more generations of Abimelek. So, it was equally true for Sarah and Abraham. Without God’s intervention in their lives, even in their advanced years, Isaac would not have been born and God’s promise would have been proven a lie. Along with that lie would come the lack of reason to believe in God’s existence at all.

So, is there a truth in this story, mighty ones of God, as we consider how God has made it possible for us to be the bearers of a new generation. Without His intervention through Jesus the Christ, son of Mary, what hope would we have but our “threescore and ten”? Death would be the end of our story as dust would return to dust. Life on this planet would be the only world we would know and those who followed after us would have no hope for life beyond the grave which God has promised. We can put this reasoning into place spiritually based on the teaching of Jesus to Nicodemus. Jesus said, “You must be born again not of water but of the spirit if you are to truly see the Kingdom of God.” (John 3.3) And indeed, we believe this as we experience the joy of salvation coming into full force with those who will experience the power of God and believe, be baptized (representing birth by water as from the womb) and anointed (signifying the baptism of the Holy Spirit as on the Day of Pentecost when the Church movement was born.) It is there that we are able to better understand the call of Christ in our lives to “be in the world but not of it” for the Kingdom of God is in the midst of us. God is sovereign over it all. His will be done either for us or against us. Professed or not, Abimelek, it is true. The same, mighty ones of God, can be said for all of us. So profess and believe!

TODAYS’ 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 endeavor, but as righteous works of faith, hope and love in Jesus’ name. AMEN.