Good News for the Other Guy

It’s hard to read the stories of God’s amazing miracles and not wonder, “Where’s mine?” A lot of us feel less like Abraham and more like his servant – the one who never saw the action. But his story of connecting Isaac and Rebekah is a powerful reminder that when we only look for God in the miraculous, we miss God at work in the mundane.

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We Can Be Held Responsible

We like to think we’re not responsible for anyone but ourselves. But God has called us to be priests – we represent God to the world. That has real stakes when we do it badly, as Abraham found out when he lied to Abimelech about the identity of his wife, Sarah. How do we find grace when we’ve failed to represent God to the world well?

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The Stranger God

Why do strangers make us so uncomfortable? Abraham’s strange encounter with God in Genesis 18 offers a picture of hospitality that’s radical and challengings: our hospitality is an act of worship. God often comes to us as a stranger because we have something to learn from these strangers. How can we learn to worship through our welcome?

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The Longest Walk

Change is always scary. No matter how dysfunctional our ‘normal’ is, it still feels like home to us. But God loves us too much to leave us in our sin and pain. Jesus invites us to go somewhere new with him. But to do that, we have to leave. We see a model of faithful leaving in the story of Abram’s call. He left without a plan… only a promise of God’s presence.

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