Genesis 18:1-15 --- "not too hard for almighty love"
Genesis 18:1 > "the LORD appeared to" Abraham.
Genesis 18:2 > But it says Abraham was visited by "three men".
Genesis 18:2-8 > Abraham has Sarah and a young man prepare food for them, and "they ate." I understand that the three "men" were two angels and Jesus. But, even though Jesus and the two angels are supernatural, "they ate" physical food. This can show that our God is personally involved in His physical creation, all the time . . . not distant like Greek and other mythological gods can be distant and only the subject of theory and objects of practices, without personal relating with them. "God made His creation, and He is totally involved with it; so how much more He desires to be relating and sharing personally with us His children!!"
Genesis 18:9-13 > The LORD tells Abraham that Sarah "shall have a son." The LORD speaks personally with His people, with each of us, along with how His word reaches all of us together. In our thoughts, He can be communicating with us, by having us think what He has us think (c: "Sarah had passed the age of childbearing" > Sarah heard the LORD say she would have a boy, and "Sarah laughed within herself".
Genesis 18:14 > In answer to her doubt, the LORD said, "Is there anything too hard for the LORD?"
By the way, I notice how the LORD Himself answered to Sarah and her doubt. Jesus is not conceited; He actually answers to us!! - - even though He is so superior to us. Also, Jesus actually answered to those snobby Pharisees. But we ourselves can give the silent treatment to ones who question us and do not go along with us being so great like we want people to think. Yes, I still can just "dump" people who don't treat me like I expect; so I need to be more caring for each person, including having hope for God to have wrong people doing better . . . but not only so they do better with me, but most of all for the sake of us being with You, LORD. It is not "too hard" > yes, it is not too hard for You to change people to be Your way with You in Your love.
So - - God told Sarah that it is not too hard for God to have a lady become pregnant after she is past childbearing age. And this can be a representation of how it would not be too hard for God to have a tomb give birth, in a way, to Jesus being resurrected from the dead. Jesus does say the scriptures "are they which testify of Me," in John 5:39. So, I can see that God miraculously having Sarah's womb bring forth Isaac could be a poetic representation of how God would have that tomb bring forth Jesus resurrected (c: Jesus says the early scriptures testify of Him, and this could be one of many of God's mysterious ways of talking about Jesus by means of the "Old Testament" (c:
And while we were "dead in trespasses and sins" (Ephesians 2:1) . . . yes, inside of us was a dead place . . . like a tomb > without Jesus, we were in true reality love-dead. Oh, we can talk about how we so loved different people, but in sin we were not alive in God's love. So, now, then, we might still be able to fool ourselves into thinking something is "love" when it is not in God's love. We need to be able to tell the difference between what is really God's love and what is not His way of character of His love, and His way of relating in love.
I "guess" we need to talk about this, now, right away, since this is so more important than teaching ideas and doctrine. Surely I must gain more and learn more about this, myself; so I'm offering here what I can, now >
One thing I think of is how in false loving we can be loving someone because of what we hope to use the person to get for our own selves; we can be "in love with" not really the person, but in love with what we want to use the person to get. I am learning that God's love has me first love the person, without any hope or intention of getting something from that person in order to stay with him or her. "And I will very gladly spend and be spent for your souls; though the more abundantly I love you, the less I am loved." (2 Corinthians 12:15)
But God's loving is not only some distant and unconditional theoretical thing, but with our Jesus family people, I am finding, we get more and more intimate . . . with more and more people becoming very dear and special to us. Plus I would say we have certain very special relationships . . . including romance, perhaps. In loving someone "special" to me, I am discovering how I need to understand that I'm not perfect and so I "probably" don't really know the person I am "loving". Even with a Christian lady, for example, I "might" be attracted not really by her character but by how she tones her voice, laughs, looks at me, and treats me, speaks the word kindly and with wisdom; while I am busy and dizzy with reacting to her behavior, I can be missing who she really is, deeper, so I am not appreciating a real Jesus lady like I need to. So, in committing myself to loving a "special" companion or any of us who all are special to Jesus, I understand I need to trust You, God, to have me get to know someone the way You really want, and this is so I can do each person the loving good that really is needed by each person, not just trying to use anyone.
And I find that as I get into really loving my Jesus family people, I do not expect them to treat me how I want, for attention and praise and approval, but I more and more am grateful appreciating each moment I have with each person. With a wonderfully loving lady, discussing buying blueberries in the supermarket can be a more intimate and sensitive and special moment to remember, than spending hours with what this world's movies and certain couples and body flashers have been training us to look for in "romance".
But . . . even with a Jesus person who is feeding me real example of love . . . I need to get to know someone > and I need to be committed that, if and when I discover wrong things about that person, I do not allow the wrong things to decide if I continue with the person or not. But God decides and guides. Jesus kept His twelve apostles, though they could turn on Him by fighting about who was the greatest, and they could tell people to keep children away from Jesus; they could be anti-Christ, yes, but He did not give up on them. But He did not go along with them, either, in order to keep them with Him. He knew all that is was possible with our Father to do with His disciples.
In Jesus, we become able to love > "with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love," (Ephesians 4:2) > I am ready with "longsuffering", for however I discover how my Jesus love companions can be wrong, instead of being ready with weakness so I can be hurt and give up on them and give up on love. Be ready with forgiveness > "'And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses.'" (Mark 11:25) "swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath" (in James 1:19) "without complaining and disputing" (Philippians 2:14-16).
But yes, even though I may not get into obvious arguments, still within me my passions can be fighting against how I need to be in love. In me, I still can be messed-with by not only "romantic" lusts but critical-spirit ego passions of anger and wanting to control people. So, we need to be stronger in love almighty. My wrong passions are more predatory . . . for using someone, or criticizing someone; but others have dominating and dictatorial passions for pleasures of food and pets and TV, etc., alcohol, drugs > these, too, fight against how we need to be loving people first, not using them, not requiring they give us things we expect in order to stay with us. "Anyone staying with us can be feeding on our example which God is able to use to make them the same way." So, yes, be the example of Christ > "nor as being lords over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock." (1 Peter 5:3)
It is not too hard for our God to form His own Son Jesus in us, like in us we are a womb and Jesus has been conceived in us and now is growing in us . . . where before there was the death of sin which once made us love-dead without Jesus > "But she who lives in pleasure is dead while she lives." (1 Timothy 5:6) So, one does not have to be predatory, to be love-dead; "just" being about pleasure can destroy a person from love. "And we can have love idols." We can pick and choose who we love, who is good enough for us to love; but "if you love those who love you, what reward have you?" Jesus does warn us, in Matthew 5:46.
continued in next post >
Genesis 18:1 > "the LORD appeared to" Abraham.
Genesis 18:2 > But it says Abraham was visited by "three men".
Genesis 18:2-8 > Abraham has Sarah and a young man prepare food for them, and "they ate." I understand that the three "men" were two angels and Jesus. But, even though Jesus and the two angels are supernatural, "they ate" physical food. This can show that our God is personally involved in His physical creation, all the time . . . not distant like Greek and other mythological gods can be distant and only the subject of theory and objects of practices, without personal relating with them. "God made His creation, and He is totally involved with it; so how much more He desires to be relating and sharing personally with us His children!!"
Genesis 18:9-13 > The LORD tells Abraham that Sarah "shall have a son." The LORD speaks personally with His people, with each of us, along with how His word reaches all of us together. In our thoughts, He can be communicating with us, by having us think what He has us think (c: "Sarah had passed the age of childbearing" > Sarah heard the LORD say she would have a boy, and "Sarah laughed within herself".
Genesis 18:14 > In answer to her doubt, the LORD said, "Is there anything too hard for the LORD?"
By the way, I notice how the LORD Himself answered to Sarah and her doubt. Jesus is not conceited; He actually answers to us!! - - even though He is so superior to us. Also, Jesus actually answered to those snobby Pharisees. But we ourselves can give the silent treatment to ones who question us and do not go along with us being so great like we want people to think. Yes, I still can just "dump" people who don't treat me like I expect; so I need to be more caring for each person, including having hope for God to have wrong people doing better . . . but not only so they do better with me, but most of all for the sake of us being with You, LORD. It is not "too hard" > yes, it is not too hard for You to change people to be Your way with You in Your love.
So - - God told Sarah that it is not too hard for God to have a lady become pregnant after she is past childbearing age. And this can be a representation of how it would not be too hard for God to have a tomb give birth, in a way, to Jesus being resurrected from the dead. Jesus does say the scriptures "are they which testify of Me," in John 5:39. So, I can see that God miraculously having Sarah's womb bring forth Isaac could be a poetic representation of how God would have that tomb bring forth Jesus resurrected (c: Jesus says the early scriptures testify of Him, and this could be one of many of God's mysterious ways of talking about Jesus by means of the "Old Testament" (c:
And while we were "dead in trespasses and sins" (Ephesians 2:1) . . . yes, inside of us was a dead place . . . like a tomb > without Jesus, we were in true reality love-dead. Oh, we can talk about how we so loved different people, but in sin we were not alive in God's love. So, now, then, we might still be able to fool ourselves into thinking something is "love" when it is not in God's love. We need to be able to tell the difference between what is really God's love and what is not His way of character of His love, and His way of relating in love.
I "guess" we need to talk about this, now, right away, since this is so more important than teaching ideas and doctrine. Surely I must gain more and learn more about this, myself; so I'm offering here what I can, now >
One thing I think of is how in false loving we can be loving someone because of what we hope to use the person to get for our own selves; we can be "in love with" not really the person, but in love with what we want to use the person to get. I am learning that God's love has me first love the person, without any hope or intention of getting something from that person in order to stay with him or her. "And I will very gladly spend and be spent for your souls; though the more abundantly I love you, the less I am loved." (2 Corinthians 12:15)
But God's loving is not only some distant and unconditional theoretical thing, but with our Jesus family people, I am finding, we get more and more intimate . . . with more and more people becoming very dear and special to us. Plus I would say we have certain very special relationships . . . including romance, perhaps. In loving someone "special" to me, I am discovering how I need to understand that I'm not perfect and so I "probably" don't really know the person I am "loving". Even with a Christian lady, for example, I "might" be attracted not really by her character but by how she tones her voice, laughs, looks at me, and treats me, speaks the word kindly and with wisdom; while I am busy and dizzy with reacting to her behavior, I can be missing who she really is, deeper, so I am not appreciating a real Jesus lady like I need to. So, in committing myself to loving a "special" companion or any of us who all are special to Jesus, I understand I need to trust You, God, to have me get to know someone the way You really want, and this is so I can do each person the loving good that really is needed by each person, not just trying to use anyone.
And I find that as I get into really loving my Jesus family people, I do not expect them to treat me how I want, for attention and praise and approval, but I more and more am grateful appreciating each moment I have with each person. With a wonderfully loving lady, discussing buying blueberries in the supermarket can be a more intimate and sensitive and special moment to remember, than spending hours with what this world's movies and certain couples and body flashers have been training us to look for in "romance".
But . . . even with a Jesus person who is feeding me real example of love . . . I need to get to know someone > and I need to be committed that, if and when I discover wrong things about that person, I do not allow the wrong things to decide if I continue with the person or not. But God decides and guides. Jesus kept His twelve apostles, though they could turn on Him by fighting about who was the greatest, and they could tell people to keep children away from Jesus; they could be anti-Christ, yes, but He did not give up on them. But He did not go along with them, either, in order to keep them with Him. He knew all that is was possible with our Father to do with His disciples.
In Jesus, we become able to love > "with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love," (Ephesians 4:2) > I am ready with "longsuffering", for however I discover how my Jesus love companions can be wrong, instead of being ready with weakness so I can be hurt and give up on them and give up on love. Be ready with forgiveness > "'And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses.'" (Mark 11:25) "swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath" (in James 1:19) "without complaining and disputing" (Philippians 2:14-16).
But yes, even though I may not get into obvious arguments, still within me my passions can be fighting against how I need to be in love. In me, I still can be messed-with by not only "romantic" lusts but critical-spirit ego passions of anger and wanting to control people. So, we need to be stronger in love almighty. My wrong passions are more predatory . . . for using someone, or criticizing someone; but others have dominating and dictatorial passions for pleasures of food and pets and TV, etc., alcohol, drugs > these, too, fight against how we need to be loving people first, not using them, not requiring they give us things we expect in order to stay with us. "Anyone staying with us can be feeding on our example which God is able to use to make them the same way." So, yes, be the example of Christ > "nor as being lords over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock." (1 Peter 5:3)
It is not too hard for our God to form His own Son Jesus in us, like in us we are a womb and Jesus has been conceived in us and now is growing in us . . . where before there was the death of sin which once made us love-dead without Jesus > "But she who lives in pleasure is dead while she lives." (1 Timothy 5:6) So, one does not have to be predatory, to be love-dead; "just" being about pleasure can destroy a person from love. "And we can have love idols." We can pick and choose who we love, who is good enough for us to love; but "if you love those who love you, what reward have you?" Jesus does warn us, in Matthew 5:46.
continued in next post >