Indebted only to God

Read Genesis 23

I think we can all agree that we owe God. A lot. After all, Jesus did give up his rights to reign in heaven as the SON OF GOD and come to DIE for us SINNERS on this comparatively measly earth. And, even though Abraham didn’t know that God was going to send Jesus to save us and that we are forever indebted to God in that way, he still knew that he owed God his faith. God promised him all these great things and yet Abraham couldn’t and didn’t even see half of them it seemed in his lifetime. But Abraham, in response to God’s promises, “owed” God his faith because that’s all that God required of him.

So with that in mind, we come back to the story. Abraham’s beloved wife Sarah has just died and so (obviously) she needs a burial place. Yet, Abraham is still a nomad at this point, so he doesn’t have any land to bury his dead relatives. So he asks the people group that he is living with, the Hittites, if he can buy some land from them to bury his dead. They generously offer to give him their best land. At this point, Abraham could have easily taken them up on that offer and taken from the Hittites their best land. Yet, to do so would have signified that the land didn’t legally or officially belong to Abraham, because it would have a gift. Instead, Abraham insists on paying its full value and “ensure that [he] has full legal title to the burial plot” (ESV study notes). He did not want the Hittites to be able to claim that it was by their generosity that Abraham began settling in that land and eventually inherit the land of Canaan. He wanted all that honor and glory to go to God because it was all God’s promises and not human generosity that was going to make that happen.

So what does that mean for us? Have you been accepting “gifts” from this world and now feeling like you “owe” the world a favor by indulging in its desires? How has God been encouraging you to find your identity in his promises and not the things of this world? Lift up to God the ways that you have been compromising. Maybe you know God’s promises for your life but you have been relying on things of this world to attain that? Your thoughts and circumstances are unique so lift them up to God because He knows. And the amazing thing is He wants you to tell him what’s going on in your life (even though He knows it all already). So whatever you’ve been struggling to trust God with, lift that up to Him. After all, he is the only one who deserves every part of us.