The Seducing God
He said, “O Lord God, how may I know that I will possess it?” Genesis 15:8 NASB
How may I know– God comes to you. You didn’t ask Him to come. He just shows up. He asks you to do something; something pretty startling. “Leave this place, the place of your family and friends, of safety, culture and expectations. Go to a place I will show you.”
“Ah, okay. Where is that?”
“Not your concern. Just go.” Of course, lek lekh isn’t quite this shallow. As we investigate the depth of the “command,” we discover that Abram isn’t asked just to physically remove himself from his current location. Lek lekh is also about an inward journey, a movement into himself so that he may be transformed into someone else. Perhaps that’s why God cannot tell him in advance where he is going because where he is going cannot be known in advance. It will take the entire journey, the trials and tribulations, for Abram to reach the end of lek lekh. And along the way, it seems that God finds it necessary to seduce Abram in order to keep him motivated.
First, a promise. “You will be a great nation.” The seduction of reputation, legacy, fame. And a blessing. A curse on enemies. In a word, divine protection. Tantalizing. But also, the land. In Abram’s world, land is currency. God promises land, not simply to Abram but to all his descendants. Permanent wealth. Perhaps spiritual righteousness was not at the top of Abram’s priorities when he left Ur.
Then there’s that little interlude in Egypt. God comes through for Abram. He walks away with livestock, silver, gold and slaves. Of course, there’s some family dissention with the wife (and later the nephew), but it certainly appears that God’s promise is coming true. In fact, God reiterates the promise, significantly enlarging its scope, after Lot’s departure. “As far as you can see,” is the size of the territory now.
Then God demonstrates His protection in the defeat of the five kings. Wealth, power, protection, reputation, legacy. What more could a man want?
But time has a way of wearing down past declarations of future rewards. No child. All the promises don’t mean much when the looming probability of termination grows. “For what does a man get in all his labor and in his striving with which he labors under the sun?” Nothing. God seduces Abram with promises of a great future, and then that future evaporates in the desert heat of years of waiting. Now Abram asks. No, he complains! “How am I supposed to go on with this journey when it is quite apparent that You aren’t fulfilling Your commitment? Is all this just so You can hand it over to someone else?” Abram is done with the seductions. “Put up or shut up,” he says to the Lord. Maybe you’re standing there with Abram. God drew you along this path with promises. Then the world happened. It didn’t go the way you expected. For a long time you’ve kept moving forward, but now, now it’s just too much. “Show me the money.” The seduction is done.
But the journey into yourself isn’t, and since the promises were only seductions necessary to get you going, they won’t help you now. Now that you’re reaching the end of these seductions, it’s time to recognize that they were never God’s intended goal at all. They were only the by-products of the journey to the center, the way into the dark caverns of self where God arranges for transformation. Oh, and by the way, transformation hurts!
“How may I know that I will possess it?” asks Abram. The answer comes much, much later. “Do not stretch out your hand against the lad, and do nothing to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.”
You won’t know the answer to your complaint until you sacrifice all those seductions.
Topical Index: seduction, know, Akedah, Genesis 15:8
Hello good day to all, this is a portrait of the Believers walk. Are we not all children of Abraham. Believer or not, Isaac or Esau? It is left to weather we see through the seductions and just have faith in God and trust him in All Things. I usually see things, I don’t claim to be a Visionary or anything like that but here I see a very big man on the top of the stairs calling to a little man at the bottom of the stairs and he is calling through a cone. The big man is saying come up here, little man says there are no stairs, big man says doesn’t matter….. We are to follow the voice of the Lord.
The law of life for earth and heaven is the law of self-sacrificing love. From the Lamb “slain before the foundation of the world” to Mount Moriah and its willing victims, this law is made manifest. What we have been given is not for us, but for others.
Learning to let go the gifts; to pass on the legacy; to lose our lives in service to others; to raise the knife to slay the yetzer hara; to ever lay the present on the altar as a down payment on the future; is what we all must learn to do as subjects of the kingdom of self-renouncing love, for love IS the willing ever-renouncing of the self.
If the King can do it – can “empty Himself” – so must we.
I call this an ITP – Individualized Training Plan, sadly, we don’t control how it goes and when and how the learning happens!
Well Skip you’ve gone and done it again you are rocking the boat and at the same time blowing me out of the doldrums into the fast currents of make a choice. Sink or swim trouble is I don’t know how to swim, never have never will Can somebody throw me a rope but not to long lest I hang myself. So here I am in the valley of decision and I do not know which way to go. I long to hear His voice say this is the way walk in it, but nothing only silence and all the family agrees on one thing do this !!! I know my limitations, so I cast the lots and what do I get, …. now I hear Him say you choose, No that is not what I wanted to hear I asked you Father what do I do and He says again it’s your choice , but You are not listening Father what do You want me to do??? Again He says choose, problem is I really don’t like the choices… does anyone can anyone help me understand comprehend get stabilized in this journey into this dark cave??? I mean it I need HELP S O S
Baruch, if I may, this is always the time I find I have to brutally honest. What EXACTLY are your perceived choices? Lay them all out. Also, describe your problem in every aspect, for in that description you will find the answer. So many times the choices we think we are facing are being subconsciously limited because we don’t want to either face something essential or we are trying to limit them so as to juggle a poor choice that we still ‘want’ so as to ‘make’ it the ‘better’ one. Complete honesty about the problem returns us to the true choices. The guide to the answer IS the problem. Problems provide the guide. We were created to solve them through our choices. The choice will be clear when the problem is being squarely faced. The problem can be faced when we bring to it enough faith that whatever the right choice is, we will be willing to choose it. Without that faith, the problem cannot be faced or the answer ‘found’. Ask for faith FIRST; faith to face anything and obedience to embrace what must be done, and you will see the ram in the thicket.
Laurita Yes you may that is why I asked
baruch, please consider also that ‘faith’ is a verb hebraically. To ‘faith’ (fathe – long ‘a’) requires action on the part of the one “faith-ing”. I encourage you to read James 1:22-25 with this in mind. Notes in my Bible from teachings by a multi-lingual (ancient languages) pastor several years ago have me reading Gal 2:16 thus: “knowing that a man is not made (passively) righteous-ified by the works of the law but by [the] faith of Messiah Yeshua (his faith in what Yah said, to lay down his life), even we have believed (fathed?) into Messiah Yeshua, that we might be made (passively) righteous-ified from the faith of Messiah and not out of the works of the law…”
Thank you Leslee thank you Laurita thank you family…..
It is not brutal it is consered compassion
Baruch, one of our girls in church in her accent always prays, “Lord, thank you for your love-a-rope!” The Lord has His rope of love that HE extends out to us. Yes, it sometimes comes in the 9th hour, but it comes. Sometimes at these times, the Lord has just wanted me to rest, rest from striving.
The other day in church one of our little one year old is moving quickly towards 2!!! She’s starting to go mobile during the service which everyone loves at times so we can pick her up, hold yer and give her some kisses. We love her. When she gets a little rambunctious, her dad walks up to get her and hold her and give her that little tug that that is enough. At first she has a grunt, “Mmmm”. Then she starts writhing in his arms, pulling away like a fish out of water. Then she sees that her dad is stronger and its not going to work and she stops resisting, all while she is grunting and frustrated.
We all laugh, I think for several reasons: she’s adorable and we love her, its funny her little personality and the grunting, and probably mostly, we all see ourselves in her at different times in our life! I pray the Lord brings you to comfort and rest in HIs wonderful embrace.
Our faith’s journey of self-realization is a lifetime
of encountering blockades that are mostly made
from our own misconceptions.
As we blast them away one by one, our vision gets
clearer and clearer. Perhaps the major moment happens
when we finally accept His offer to ‘take His yoke and learn
from Him.” He goes on to tell us if and when we take that faith
step, we will “find rest for our souls.”
True, the journey will continue, but what a huge relief it is to have
made the connection and realize He’s been with us all along, and as
we learn to decrease and allow Him to increase, He’ll go before us to
make our path’s straight.
Whew!
People still follow the seduction even after they get to a point in their lives where they realize it is not very meaningful. A crisis is an opportunity to make a change, but many people just keep following the same old path. There is either arrogance or pride or denial going on. I’ve experienced several crises in my life. I would seek God for a while, but then I would buy into the seduction again. You have to be amazed at Abraham’s faith.
I like what you wrote. God seduces us[draws us in] by His promises, His Word. He is the living word, so we are seduced by Him. I heatedly follow after Him. Where is He going? Where is He taking me? I’m not told, but I am promised that He will never leave me or forsake me. He will always be there…no matter what! Psalm 139 gives us such a beautiful picture of God’s presence with us. Awesome picture.
Your last sentence got me…
“ You won’t know the answer to your complaint until you sacrifice all those seductions”. Isn’t this where the real struggle lies?! Isn’t this where we get stuck? We try to sacrifice anything else other than what he is requiring! I am reminded of a passage in First Samuel 15:22….. to obey is better than sacrifice …. we can be stuck there for years and God keeps bringing us back. One thing God is and that is determined ! Time belongs to Him.
Shalom!
I won’t name you all one by one ,,,and it seems no comment no request no insight experience cry for help is complete until each of us have a part of community = speaking up + offering a prayer Skips proptings are just that until one of us offerers a word a psalm , “when you come together let each one.”.. Thank you all !!!! I need you , you need you, we need we,… Worthy is the Lamb Worthy is the Lamb Worthy is the Lamb …..Baruch Atah YHWH
I think God wants our heart. He wants our total devotion.
Deceived by the serpent…seduced by God. Oh, how I yearn for that time when “I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known”, and I am no longer in exile.
Skip, you almost make it sound as if YHWH is a used car salesman using shady bait and switch tactics to scam an unsuspecting rube from Ur with promises of the flesh and ego that are limited to reputation, legacy, fame, wealth and protection. If these simple motivational seductions were sufficient to woo Abraham shouldn’t they be for us as well, given we too are the sons of Abraham (by grafting)? Why doesn’t Yeshua use these tactics to entice us into His service in the Kingdom of Abraham’s God? Instead He speaks to us on an eternal, not temporal plane and His promises are on a spiritual level, not mere physical enticements in this earthly realm.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have EVERLASTING LIFE ” (John 3:16)
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find REST FOR YOUR SOULS.” (Matthew 11:28-29)
“And I give unto them ETERNAL LIFE; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand”. (John 10:28)
“Nay, in all these things we are MORE THAN CONQUERORS through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord”. (Romans 8:37-39)
“Peace I leave with you, MY PEACE I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” (John 14:27)
But, if this spirtual approach seems too far removed from the present physical reality and one needs some assurance of help on this earthly plane even there Yeshua ups the ante:
“(For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of ALL THESE THINGS. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and ALL THESE THINGS shall be added unto you.” (Matthew 6:33)
“And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name’s sake, shall receive an HUNDREDFOLD, and shall inherit everlasting life.” (Matthew 19:29)
“But my God shall supply ALL YOUR NEED according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:19)
“Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching ANY THING that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven.” (Matthew 18:19)
“If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask WHAT YE WILL, and it shall be done unto you.” (John 15:7)
So while the Jews may pray every morning: “Thank you for making me a Jew and not a Gentile” I will thank Him for making me a Gentile grafted into the cultivated Olive tree through Yeshua. Why? Hebrews 8:6 makes it clear:
“But now hath He obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also He is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises.”
Are you certain that those things you held as values were not part of the reason you decided to follow? Do you really think that God doesn’t entice us with promises based on our deepest desires? He is a God who only COMMANDS without promise of reward? Did you follow because you were compelled or because you found something valuable in the offer? And did it always turn out the way you expected?
Just thinking outside the box, you know.
It is his yoke that brought us to where we are today covenant it’s true he sought us he saw me I was not seeking him yet now the fire within me though it be so dimly lit it is lit perhaps I’ve done so much with so very little for so very long at this 11th hour For all of us in the community that he’s raising the bar again or so it seems seek ye first please brothers please sisters pray for us the spirit is willing but my flesh is of no profit yet how can I be precious to him why me why not me I don’t like this complicated life
Someone said a couple comments ago about the loneliness of this life five years and two moves down and up the West Coast have brought us only more loneliness this fellowship that we have with you with Skip with all of you making your contributions giving of your life experiences has been the only refreshment encouragement late hope help compassion this is the only place at today’s word where we found truth in flesh and blood the other day someone commented about a Facebook page where we might get to know each other a little bit more at least put a face on all the wisdom and insight that has been given I would so much appreciate that Today’s word really is living water in a very barren desert thank you Skip shalom shalom shalom
In the Job dialogues we read of how our aspirations and ideas form our dreams. When then read that God visits us in our dreams to warn us against our plans… Then we read learn to read the Lord for in doing this we will find wisdom… And His words will be like a lamp a light that guides our ways and protects us in the covenant of enclosure neither forward nor retreating but live here and now.
Then many years later Solomon and David reiterate these words through guidance and Psalms. Can we say we understand this basic concept. Relationship with God is an honest and true relationship with ourselves… And others will automatically be part of that relationship..
And God changed these individuals livescwhen they started praying for others… No not asking God to do. But being God’s response to the situation. Shalom all
Baruch beautiful humble testimony. You got me thinking and reflecting on my covenant-less lifestyle…
Seeker you draw me out to the light to examine where I stand…Not asking God to do but being Gods answer response in the situation relationship with God is and honest and true relationship with ourselves I guess if I don’t know myself I don’t fully know gone ??????? Thank you Seger don’t stop now …
Not gone but GOD
Thank you Baruch Ruby. Rereading my post I noticed all the errors I made. Learn to fear the Lord… How much small mistakes we make conveying our little work of light. I wonder how awful we will reflect on ourselves when we actual lift the bushel so that the light can shine…. Maybe too scared of what we notice about ourselves. It must be for this reason that all we can really do is be an example unto others. While God enscribes as He plans and guides us…
I do not believe Yah “seduced” Abram, I think Abram’s perception of reality was just not accurate. At the school we learn about refraction and distortion. Classic example is looking at an object(like a pen) through water; the pen “looks” broken (our reality) but it is not.
The same distortion happens in our minds, the concept is called “Cognitive Distortions”. Those are thoughts that cause us to perceive reality inaccurately, specially during difficult circumstances, these distorted thoughts can contribute to an overall negative outlook on the world and a depressive or anxious mental state.
I wonder if Abram was perceiving G-d’s plan through a glass of water. How much he did thinking that the pen was broken when it was not…Just a thought.
Personally, I am not a big fan of the whole cognitive behavioral therapy school of thought. It doesn’t really address the trauma or situation causing the depression or anxiety. Kind of like the cart before the horse. Avivah Zornberg suggests in her Black Sun Moses and Job talk (YouTube)that Abraham’s father tried to kill him. Based on midrash I believe. So was it really God telling him to sacrifice his son or was Abraham attempting to work out his own trauma. She states he was in some sort of trance during the Akedah so that when the angel first spoke to him he didn’t hear her. The second time, he came to…He woke up. Fascinating.
It would be great having a family therapy session between Abram, Sarah and Isaac with Yah being the therapist and Yashua the facilitator. What was advised, counseled and what each one understood… Maybe one day I may ask them ;-)) In the meantime I try to read the word without augmented/distorted ideas.
Yes you have it Luz seduced? , well there are several words we could use I sure KNOW most of the time my perception of Real is skewed it is so often just skewed we look through a glass dimly , the concept of C D is only a way to describe for communication purpose and I don’t do “school” And you Meg
did not finish (hit the wrong button ) the depression I KNOW the anxiety I KNOW It only manifest when I am drawn into walk into of my own free will those places where the striping away of flesh and fleshly habits “attempting to work out his own trauma”…