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Genesis 12(NIV 2011)
1 The LORD had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.
2 “I will make you into a great nation,
and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
and you will be a blessing.
3 I will bless those who bless you,
and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
will be blessed through you.”
4 So Abram went, as the LORD had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Harran. 5 He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Harran, and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there.
6 Abram traveled through the land as far as the site of the great tree of Moreh at Shechem. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. 7 The LORD appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built an altar there to the LORD, who had appeared to him.
8 From there he went on toward the hills east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. There he built an altar to the LORD and called on the name of the LORD.
9 Then Abram set out and continued toward the Negev.
10 Now there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to live there for a while because the famine was severe. 11 As he was about to enter Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai, “I know what a beautiful woman you are. 12 When the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ Then they will kill me but will let you live. 13 Say you are my sister, so that I will be treated well for your sake and my life will be spared because of you.”
14 When Abram came to Egypt, the Egyptians saw that Sarai was a very beautiful woman. 15 And when Pharaoh’s officials saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh, and she was taken into his palace. 16 He treated Abram well for her sake, and Abram acquired sheep and cattle, male and female donkeys, male and female servants, and camels.
17 But the LORD inflicted serious diseases on Pharaoh and his household because of Abram’s wife Sarai. 18 So Pharaoh summoned Abram. “What have you done to me?” he said. “Why didn’t you tell me she was your wife? 19 Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her to be my wife? Now then, here is your wife. Take her and go!” 20 Then Pharaoh gave orders about Abram to his men, and they sent him on his way, with his wife and everything he had.
Genesis 13
1 So Abram went up from Egypt to the Negev, with his wife and everything he had, and Lot went with him. 2 Abram had become very wealthy in livestock and in silver and gold.
3 From the Negev he went from place to place until he came to Bethel, to the place between Bethel and Ai where his tent had been earlier 4 and where he had first built an altar. There Abram called on the name of the LORD.
5 Now Lot, who was moving about with Abram, also had flocks and herds and tents. 6 But the land could not support them while they stayed together, for their possessions were so great that they were not able to stay together. 7 And quarreling arose between Abram’s herders and Lot’s. The Canaanites and Perizzites were also living in the land at that time.
8 So Abram said to Lot, “Let’s not have any quarreling between you and me, or between your herders and mine, for we are close relatives. 9 Is not the whole land before you? Let’s part company. If you go to the left, I’ll go to the right; if you go to the right, I’ll go to the left.”
10 Lot looked around and saw that the whole plain of the Jordan toward Zoar was well watered, like the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt. (This was before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.) 11 So Lot chose for himself the whole plain of the Jordan and set out toward the east. The two men parted company: 12 Abram lived in the land of Canaan, while Lot lived among the cities of the plain and pitched his tents near Sodom. 13 Now the people of Sodom were wicked and were sinning greatly against the LORD.
14 The LORD said to Abram after Lot had parted from him, “Look around from where you are, to the north and south, to the east and west. 15 All the land that you see I will give to you and your offspring forever. 16 I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth, so that if anyone could count the dust, then your offspring could be counted. 17 Go, walk through the length and breadth of the land, for I am giving it to you.”
18 So Abram went to live near the great trees of Mamre at Hebron, where he pitched his tents. There he built an altar to the LORD.
Reflection:
From these chapters God called his chosen one, Abram to leave his own homeland to go to a foreign land. Abram promptly responded to that call and never looked back. We see that God begins to teach him what living in this new life and calling means. We see the first incident with Sarai being given over for Abram’s benefit, and also the time for Abram to separate from Lot. Abram trusted in the Lord’s promise to provide and every moment is punctuated by Abram’s offering on each altar he built for God. There is clarity of calling from the Sovereign One and a simple, direct response by the one who is called.
Response:
Leaving everything that is very familiar and comfortable is never easy. It’s even harder not to look back, especially if it was seemingly good to begin with. And yet the promises given by the One who invites us to go is far greater and more wonderful than anything else that we could ever have in places we once called home. Let’s pray that our calling as followers, be refreshed and be clear in our minds and hearts today. Let’s ask that we will be open to say “yes” to the Lord once more and to look ahead to all of his promises. Let’s praise our Lord who calls on his people, today!
Muslim Woman’s Op-Ed in USA Today Asks Government to Dictate Theology
A muslim woman, upset by gender discrimination in US mosques, asks the government to force houses of worship to abandon different gender roles for men and women. In Islamic houses of worship, men and women are separated in different rooms or by a partition, for prayers. Asra Nomani, the writer, claims that this makes [mosques] “true men’s clubs.” However, the 1stAmendment guarantees religious freedom against government intrusion into how they operate. Disappointingly, she refers to the Supreme Court decision against Bob Jones University in 1982, which set a dangerous precedent for the freedom of all religions in America to operate freely without government-mandated “gender equality.” For an in-depth explanation, see:
http://www.albertmohler.com/2011/07/12/ever-heard-of-the-first-amendment-an-argument-to-watch/
Spiritual Sickness
A man who rejects all notions of exclusivity goes on a rampage against God (he even reaches out to criticize muslims for believing only muslims are saved, although he spends most of his effort attacking Christianity). He denies the atoning death of Jesus Christ, he denies His divinity, He denies that the Bible is God’s authority, and even denies that the early Church thought Jesus was any more than “a simple and plain person.” Sadly, he is the head of Mercer University. Biblical Christians are encouraged to avoid his false teachings.
Transformers Voice Actor Hears the Gospel
Ray Comfort prayed for “divine encounters,” and was surprised to be moved up to First Class by a flight attendant, whereafter he met and spoke at length with one of the lead voice actors for Transformers, and also spoke with one of the Jonas Brothers and promised to send him a CD entitled “Hell’s Best-Kept Secret.” Mark Ryan is the voice actor for Bumblebee in at least one of the movies and a video game, as well as being the voice of Jetfire in the 2ndmovie and Ironhide in one of the video games. Other works include The Prestige and Charlie’s Angels.
Missouri Flood Creates Scale Model of Badlands Landscape
This is from the levee that the Army Corps of Engineers had to open to relieve the flood earlier this spring. This adds to the contemporary examples, most notably Mt. St. Helens in Washington State, that show that large amounts of rock can be cut, and sediment can be piled up, in a short amount of time, by catastrophic water action.
High Rate of Mutations Accumulating Each Generation in Humans
The fact that 60 to 200 new mutations are “irrevocably added each generation,” indicates that in a short span of (geologic) time, humans would cease to be biologically viable due to the fact that an organism can only tolerate a certain amount of mutations before the species reaches what is called “error catastrophe.”
Can Melanin Survive Without Degrading for 120 million years?
The original melanin in feathers of an extinct bird that is dated at 120 Ga has been confirmed to be part of the original sample of Confuciusornis sanctus.
Correction: while original melanin has been found in fossils dated too old for conventional decay to leave any remaining organic compounds, this particular example is of copper remains in a distribution that shows where eumelanin originally was located. Whether original eumelanin was found in this fossil was left unsaid by any source that I was able to investigate.
Conservatives Fire Back Against Hasty Conclusions by Liberal Media over Anders Breivik
The following links contain rebukes of the over-eager attempt by liberal media outlets such as the New York Times to paint Breivik as “right-wing, fundamentalist Christian,” etc.
Ann Coulter
Daniel Greenfield
Prof. Phyllis Chesler
Front Page
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Image thanks to the Telegraph!
Divided government strikes again: Senate and House split on Republican debt ceiling bill.
Worldly advice – global lessons for the US on debt crises.
Title IX or Title NIX-ed?
The answer to the question on everyone’s mind – what happens when the Glee kids graduate?!
Would adopt this little “Kitler“?
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