Topic: Don’t Settle For Less [TREM Devotional 15 April 2019]
“And Abraham said unto God, O that Ishmael might live before thee!”Genesis 17:18 KJV
When God spoke to Abraham in Genesis chapter 12, He told him to come out of his kindred to a place that He would show him. Abraham was about 75 years then. Abraham and Sarah waited for twenty-four years and nothing happened. But the Word of God had gone forth. When you read that chapter of the Bible, it is so easy to think Abraham started that way, he never started that way. Abraham did not believe throughout. Hagar produced Ishmael because Abraham tried to help God. He doubted God. That was why he went into Hagar. He agreed with his wife and Ishmael was born against the will of God.
When you read further, when God kept on promising him, he said to God, ‘don’t worry about the promise, let Ishmael live.’ Many of us are content with a second-class miracle, other than what God has ordained for us. We are content with mediocrity. I have never seen the righteous forsaken. The seed of the righteous will never beg bread. Please don’t accept just anything. Every good and perfect gift is from above, from the Father of lights in whom there is no variableness, neither any shadow of turning. Our God is a good God. He wants to bless you. The blessings of God make rich and He does not add any sorrow.
Ishmael was born, and Abraham said ‘let Ishmael live.’ But God said ‘Ishmael is not the promise, send him away.’ Some of us have to send some things away. It may look as if nothing is going to happen but out of that nothing, something will spring forth. After Ishmael was born, for thirteen years God never spoke to Abraham again. May you never put yourself where God cannot reach you. When God no longer speaks to you, you are finished. But when he speaks to you, no matter how bad or low you are, then there is hope for you.
Further Reading: Genesis 12:1-4; Genesis 17:15-22
Daily Bible Reading: Morning- 1 Samuel 27-29; Evening- Luke 13:1-22
Written by Dr. Mike Okonkwo; Is the Presiding Bishop of The Redeemed Evangelical Mission (TREM); a versatile man of God with over 30 years of dedicated service unto the Lord.
