November 3, 2026

GOD’S WORD FOR TODAY:

“Ishmael lived a hundred and thirty-seven years. He breathed his last and died, and he was gathered to his people. His descendants settled in the area from Havilah to Shur, near the eastern border of Egypt, as you go toward Ashur. And they lived in hostility toward all the tribes related to them.” (Genesis 25.17-18)

REFLECTION ON GOD’S WORD:

Unresolved conflict. It spills out in every part of our lives including our relationship with God. It would seem that finding resolution in that conflict between man and God would impact all the other relationships we have. This is the hope of reconciliation which is the ministry of Jesus while He was on earth. It remains the hope of His ministry which He passed on to us through the gift of the Holy Spirit. In truth, the ministry of the Holy Spirit is to remind us daily that the truth and power of reconciliation is upon us, in us and through us. It is the truth because Christ is not simply the Son of God but Word of God that is spoken into the lives of every person. That means we have the power, authority and opportunity to be reconciled. It is a message which dominates the teachings of the Apostle Paul who himself was reconciled to God in Jesus Christ. He certainly did not think he was in conflict with God when he took on the mission of ridding the world of the “Christ-infestation” of all Israel. He believed it was a sacred duty to preserve the place of Judaism as the “religion of the Law of God” for all the world. His persecution of the fledgling Church, those who were gathered as a community of believers in Jesus as the Christ who was proclaimed as the Messiah of God for the world, was a type of holy war. What he did not realize, until he was confronted by the glorified resurrected Jesus, was that he was in conflict with the Word of God believing more in the teaching of the rabbis and elders than the Holy Spirit of God which had spoken to the people of the world through the prophets. We are much the same way, mighty ones of God, believing more in the words of our pundits than of the Holy Spirit. We do not test ourselves against the word of God as revealed in Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. Rather, we test the word of God against our own perceptions and beliefs. This type of thinking puts us into a state of unresolved conflict. However, since the ministry of Jesus Christ in the first century, that conflict has actually been resolved. The problem is not the resolution but our ability to abide by it. This is the message of love which Jesus Himself taught when He called us to heed the greatest commandments not of the Decalogue but of the Great Commandment: You should love the Lord your God with your whole self and the second is like to it- love one another. This is not to say that the Decalogue, The Ten Commandments, are not valid because they are. They are the extension of the Great Commandments in a practical application for everyday life and living. The Great Commandment is the filter through which we truly can understand the Word of God as the Law of life and love in both the Old and New Testaments. The unresolved conflict exists because we are bound more to a “religion of law” than the “religion of relationship.” Separating either out from the love of God for us, especially that which is now ours through Jesus Christ and His gospel truth, creates a conflict. This is the negative consequence of sin.

We see this in the relationship between Ishmael and Isaac. Of course, it isn’t any different than the conflict which existed between Cain and Abel. The lack of understanding between the offerings of both brothers to God is actually born out of the lack of resolution between Adam and God. That lack was not because of what God did but what Adam failed to understand and pass on to his sons. As God would tell Cain after he murdered his brother, “Beware sin is crouching at the door waiting to devour you.” The problem existed between the “law of the land” which highlighted the existence of man with the world and the “law of the Lord” which highlighted the existence of man with God. Our first and most important relationship is that which we have with God. Jesus reconciled that relationship (the message of the story of the Prodigal “Father and Son”) with His life as a teaching, an example and a blessing sealed by the blood of the Lamb of God which He was for us all. Ishmael abided by the “law of the land” where the first born would be recognized as the “head of household.” And while there is truth to that understanding, it is superseded and modified by remembering that it is God who is the true head of household in every venue of life. Paul helped to establish that truth in his teaching to the early Church concerning the community of believers as the “body of Christ” and Christ was “the head of the body.” All relationships are to be viewed through that lens. When Jesus told the disciples “If you have seen Me then you have seen the Father and that should be enough.”

For Ishmael, this was not enough. He certainly was the first born of Abraham according to the “law.” However, he was not the first born of Abraham according to the “promise.” Abraham had promised himself first to God and Sarah. It was this covenant relationship which had set Abraham apart from all others. It was the defining understanding of being in right relationship. Sarah saw this when she demanded Abraham send Hagar and Ishmael away. The bitterness of the lack of resolution to the conflict of “first born,” which obviously Abraham did not invoke, spilled out in the succeeding generations. Would the lesson be learned? Sadly, not by enough people. God kept his promise of making a great people from the descendants of Ishmael. His covenant of that particular blessing was without question. However, the covenant made with Abraham belonged to the first born of Abraham and Sarah as one made from “first love.” We hear this message again in the Book of Revelation when the glorified and resurrected Christ spoke through the Elder John to the Church of Ephesus. Jesus said He had this against them that “they had abandoned their first love.” (Revelation 2.4) The spillover of this lack of resolution shows up in the warring tribes of Ishmael which exists to this day and now envelopes the hostility toward the descendants of Isaac (by blood and by faith which includes the Church and all those who will support Israel.) But, has Israel forsaken its first love, too, denying its existence of promise via the “blood sacrifice” of the Lamb of God at Moriah and at Golgotha?

Mighty ones of God, we see this kind of problem in our own nations today wherever you live. Are all of our relationships filtered through the promise of God to be reconciled to our first love which was bliss in the Garden? Are we abiding by the Law of Love which serves the will of God and the good of others or by “the law of the land” which serves the will of humankind and the good of self first? If we cannot see this truth, then we are simply living out the lie that was introduced in the Garden and as a cancer spread across the face of the earth. We must resolve this conflict, mighty ones and be reconciled to God so that all our relationships will be made new and blessed with goodness.

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.