Things you must know…

Things you really must know about God and yourself!

Many people have a love/hate relationship with the Old Testament. There are great stories of faith, God’s salvation and deeply moving Psalms mixed in with blood-bath wars, Temple sacrifices and strong punishments from God.

How do you get a handle on the Old Testament?!

The Old Testament lays the groundwork for God’s plan to save all humanity. People have become ignorant of what God is really like and make up their own set of beliefs (religion) according to what they would like to think about the God they have never met. But only God can reveal what He is truly like.

In the Old Testament God begins to reveal to a select group of people called Israel who He is. God creates this nation out of two ordinary people, Abraham and Sarah, who are just as ignorant of what God is really like as the rest of us. God then proceeds to reveal himself to them and the nation that comes from them.

In the process of discovering what God is like they begin to discover what they are like. You never know how messed up you are until you meet a truly good person! This is the Old Testament story.

God revealed himself to the people of Israel without being asked to. As a result the people of Israel learnt that God was in charge and was not at their beck and call. Genesis 12:1-4

God revealed to the people of Israel that He is faithful all the time. As a result this also revealed how fickle and unreliable they were (read the book of Judges or Moses in the wilderness for 40 years).

God revealed to the people of Israel that He is holy and pure. As a result the people discovered that their society was always mixed up in sin with every passing generation. Their catastrophic failures led to well deserved judgement followed by repentance and reconciliation with God.

God revealed to the people of Israel that He forgives sins. So the people learnt they were precious despite their failures. Isaiah 1:14-20

God revealed to the people of Israel His Laws for creating a just society. This revealed to the people of Israel that no matter how good the Laws were and how educated they were, they weren’t able to live justly. Micah 6:8

In today’s reading we see that God reveals himself by binding himself to a Covenant. God wanted to show people that He is faithful to whatever He promises. God reassured them that when he said he would deliver something then they should learn to relax and know that it will come to pass no matter what things may look like. In the case of Abraham and Sarah it looked unlikely that they would bear a child in their 80’s but God’s promise was enough for Abraham.

4 Then the word of the LORD came to Abram … 5 He took him outside and said, “Look up at the heavens and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”
6 Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness. Genesis 15

When God revealed that He delights to reassure us through rock solid Covenants, he also revealed to us how he likes us to respond- with simple trust (faith) like Abram.

The Old Testament set the scene for Jesus. Until Jesus came all they could see was how wonderful God was and how flawed and sinful they were. Jesus came to change us from the inside out so that we would develop more of the loving character of God. But that can only happen when you first see that you need saving from yourself.

The Old Testament holds this accrued wisdom gathered from encounters with God over 2000 years. Jesus fulfils it. That is why he speaks of a new Covenant sealed in the blood of the Cross. God loves giving you rock solid promises that can never be broken.

May you dare to rediscover the stories of the Old Testament that reveal the agony and the ecstasy of being human in the presence of the living God.

Shalom,
Graeme