Tag: #jehovah-jireh

Shabbat Shalom: What In God’s Name—Jehovah Jireh (Provider) Part II

On By Dawn MinottIn Prose, Shabbat Shalom10 Comments 
Click👆to listen to audio of this post

Shabbat Shalom. This is part 2 of Jehovah Jireh. Part I is available here👈. Let’s get right into it.

… Abraham called the name of the place, The-Lord-Will-Provide; as it is said to this day, “In the Mount of the Lord it shall be provided.”

Genesis 22:14 NKJV

In part 1 we focused on the first part of Abraham’s declaration of this name of God—The Lord Will Provide, which in Hebrew is Jehovah Jireh. This post will be about the second part of the verse—“in the Mount of the Lord it shall be provided”—looking at which “mount” and what is the “it” to be provided.

As I’ve been doing with these explorations of God’s names, we’ll start with the backstory and apply relevance to our lives in the now.

This backstory of the “it” goes way back to the beginning!

You see, long before God made the covenant with Abraham, he first made it with Eve and Adam. God created humans with free will and the ability to use that free will to have a relationship with Him. When Eve and Adam succumbed to the devil’s temptation and deception, they went against what God commanded. In other words, they sinned as sin is the transgression of God’s law. (1 John 3:4) And that severed their relationship with God.

In fact, their very first act was to hide, to separate themselves from God. And God’s very first act was to seek. And He’s been on a seeking or grace mission ever since.

God covenanted with Eve and Adam that theirs and all humanity’s relationship with Him would be restored, bringing them again into harmony with divine will to enable them to obey God’s law. So He gave them this promise of grace which was also a direct rebuke to the devil while also putting the devil on notice.

This was God’s promise:

I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

Genesis 3:15

Time won’t allow for an in-depth review of this verse, but suffice it to say it was the Bible’s first mention of the covenant of grace that promised a Savior to enable humans to obey God’s law. And that the ratification would be through a sacrifice thus pointing to Jesus Christ who was to come in the fullness of time. In the interim a sacrificial system was put in place as a substitute.

Now we get to Abraham. By the time Abraham was born, just over 2,000 years later, what was started by Eve and Adam had proliferated widely and sin had taken over the hearts of the people so much so they had mostly forgotten the ways and law of God.

Abraham’s dad, for example, had forgotten the command to worship no other gods and was steeped in idolatry. But not Abraham. Abraham revered God. Unlike Eve and Adam who hid from God, when God called Abraham his response was: “Here I am”! (Genesis 22:1)

How did Abraham stay faithful to a God he’d not seen his father worship?

Back then, the ways of God—his laws/commandments—were passed on from one generation to the other through their oral traditions. So it’s quite plausible that Abraham heard some things. The point is, we don’t know what knowledge he had about the true God. But, what we do know is when God spoke to him about the promise of a Savior, in faith, Abraham believed.

In fact, Jesus Himself confirmed this. Jesus said,

… Abraham rejoiced as he looked forward to my coming. He saw it and was glad.

John 8:56

What Jesus was saying was this: when God interrupted the sacrifice of Isaac on Mount Moriah and provided a substitute ram, Abraham saw not only a provision for the immediate sacrifice but through faith he saw all the way to the provision of the ultimate sacrifice through Jesus.

So when Abraham followed his declaration of “Jehovah Jireh” with “in the Mount of the Lord it shall be provided”, he was referring to Golgotha—the place where Jesus was crucified, which many scholars believe to be the same as Moriah. And the “it” he referred to was the redemption from sin through the sacrificial gift of Jesus.

From “Old” to “New” Covenant

Now, let’s look specifically at this covenant that God made with Abraham. First, it’s important to point out that it was actually a renewal of the covenant first made to Eve and Adam. And what is that? The “it”—the redemption of all humanity through a Savior on condition of obedience through faith in Christ. This was the covenant renewed to Abraham, with a promise, and he accepted by faith that the Savior to fulfill or ratify the covenant would come through his lineage.

The actual wording of the promise to Abraham is this:

… in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.

Genesis‬ ‭12:3‬ ‭KJV

Or as Adam Clarke expounded: “In thy posterity, in the Messiah, who shall spring from thee, shall all families of the earth be blessed”. We also saw that in last week’s post in the lineage litany.

When Jesus died He ratified the covenant and so it’s referred to as “new” but in essence it’s always been the “it”—the plan for bringing humanity back in relationship with God or into harmony with the divine will enabling them to obey God’s law.

God’s law has always been the basis of this covenant because without it there could be no sin.

I could go on and on because there’s so much to say; but let me wrap this up with three application points.

Application Point I: We hide, God seeks.

The theme of the everlasting promise told throughout the ages and that will continue to the end of time is this: God is on a ceaseless quest to draw your heart and mine back to Him. So much so God, as the Son, came to earth to die in order to redeem estranged sinners and to bring us back into an authentic personal relationship with Himself. I am so happy I accepted His call.

Is He calling you? If you are hiding God is seeking—He wants to be in relationship with you.

Application Point II: Don’t get it twisted, the blessing is not the promise.

The promise of the covenant renewed to Abraham came with blessings: land, a place to live, a son and numerous offspring. However, Abraham knew to distinguish between the blessing (his son) and the promise (God’s Son, our Savior). He was willing to give up his blessing in order to gain the promise and not just for himself but for “all families of the earth”. That includes you and I.

Are we holding on so tightly to something or someone God blessed us with when He wants to give us so much more if we let go—the promise, HIMSELF?!

Application Point III: In covenantal matters with God, a child of God can always expect reciprocity.

In the last post I described the promises between God and His children as conditional based on a sequence of “if-then” actions. Though the covenant was ratified on Calvary through Jesus, the aim of the covenant is eternal—that “ALL families of the earth be blessed”. God is immutable. He says what He means and means what He says. So “all families” means all—those from Adam’s days, those from Abraham’s days, those today and those to come.

And, the “if-then” actions also remain—God initiates with a promise, IF we accept and obey His commandments, statutes, and laws, THEN He fulfills. And, we see this with Abraham. Of Abraham God said, he “obeyed My voice, and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes, and My laws”. (Genesis 26:5) This will be the same measure for those who choose to accept the grace covenant and be God’s children.

Why? Because the covenant made between God and His people (first to Adam and Eve and renewed through Abraham) was based on a relationship of commitment and obedience.

Shabbat Shalom

We see that God reveals Himself as provider of both our physical and spiritual needs. He meets the physical needs of all humanity—as the Bible puts it, giving sunshine and rain to all regardless of their disposition toward God. (Matthew 5:45). Through the death of Jesus, He’s also made provision to meet the spiritual needs of all, but that must be a matter of choice on our part.

Personally, I cannot comprehend how Jesus could leave His sovereign position on the eternal throne of Deity to come to earth and die in order to redeem me. It’s mind boggling, to say the least. So I live in gratitude everyday because of this grace-gift.

You’ll recall last post I said Abraham’s call to sacrifice his son made me cringe. Yes, at the surface level the story is indeed cringe-worthy. But, when you go deeper, it’s a beautiful foreshadowing story of past-present-future colliding as I shared through an epic poem in a previous post: The Sacrifice.👈

May you come to know and choose the God who provides now and in the future for all your needs including the redemption from sin.

This is part of a series of posts, “What in God’s Name”, exploring the 7 redemptive names of God. See you next week for Jehovah Tsidkenu—the God who is our Righteousness.

You may find the overview of the series in this post where it all started👈

2022 ©DeeMin All rights reserved

Thank you for journeying along. First time to the site? Welcome! Feel free to “like” or drop a comment, I love hearing from you.

You may start here👈 and for more subscribe to the blog here👈

In creative solidarity, Dee

Shabbat Shalom: What In God’s Name—Jehovah-Jireh (Provider) Part I with audio

On By Dawn MinottIn Prose, Shabbat Shalom9 Comments 
Click👆to listen to audio of this post

Shabbat Shalom. Welcome to the third in the series on the 7 redemptive names of God—Jehovah-Jireh, the God who provides.

The first time we come across this name of God is in the story of Abraham as he carried out a rather strange command from God. At the end of that experience,

… Abraham called the name of the place, The-Lord-Will-Provide; as it is said to this day, “In the Mount of the Lord it shall be provided.”

Genesis 22:14 NKJV

There is much to unpack from this verse. So, for today’s post I’ll focus on the first part of the verse: “Abraham called the name of the place, The-Lord-Will-Provide”. And, next week we’ll look at the other part: “In the Mount of the Lord it shall be provided.”

Let’s go back, back to the backstory.

Here we see Abraham and Sarah well on in years, in their nineties to be exact and far beyond childbearing. Yet this is when the promised son, Isaac, was born. But before Isaac there was another son, Ishmael, borne to Abraham via Hagar, Sarah’s servant.

As inevitably happens when there is a “love” triangle, tension arose between Hagar and Sarah. Feeling unloved and mistreated, Hagar ran away. [The saga unfolds in Genesis 16.]

Pregnant and alone in the desert, feeling invisible, deserted and believing no one cared, that’s when a messenger from God comes to Hagar. He instructs her to return to Sarah, but not before assuring her that her descendants will be numerous. She was so buoyed up and overjoyed at the proclamation, this was her response:

“She gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her: ‘You are the God who sees me,’ for she said, ‘I have now seen the One who sees me.’” That is why the well was called Beer Lahai Roi”. [Beer Lahai Roi means well of the Living One who sees me.]

Genesis 16:13-14

She returns to Sarah and there bore her son.

Thirteen years passed by and Sarah finally becomes pregnant and she gives birth to Isaac—the long awaited blessing of a son from whom “a great nation” would come. However, some thirteen or so years after the child was born God made a most unusual request of Abraham—he’s to sacrifice Isaac! What in God’s name!? God requesting a human sacrifice?!

I must admit, this is one of the stories in the Bible that causes me to cringe so much so it’s forced me to seek an understanding of it’s symbolic and foreshadowing qualities. (I’ll delve into that next week.)

No doubt the request was one that raised varying contradictions within Abraham on different fronts. Theologically—the sacrifice of humans was against what he knew of God. Relationally—he had to hide it from Sarah. And we know the negative effects of secrets on a marriage, don’t we?! Socially—with the death of his only heir, his bloodline would cease to exist and his social status would plummet. Emotionally—his faith contradicted his affections. His faith led him to believe God would resurrect Isaac (Hebrews 11: 17-19). But, no doubt the emotional toll was high because he actually went through all the actions to sacrifice his son to the point of raising the knife before God stopped him and provided a substitute in the form of a ram.

Going through this odyssey and its last-minute dramatic intercession by God, led Abraham to memorialize the place, Mount Moriah, with a symbolic name—The-Lord-Will-Provide from which is translated Jehovah-Jireh.

There are three points that stood out for me in the examination of this name of God that I’d like to share with you.

ONE: What we often deem as “mistakes” can be a part of God’s means to provide.
  • The root of Jireh is “to see”. The first time we see that name of God, “El Roi”, is with Hagar. (Genesis 16:13)
  • However, when compounded with Jehovah, Jireh means “to provide”.
  • So the name Jehovah Jireh connects both Hagar’s and Abraham’s experiences and encounters with God.
  • God not only sees us in the current state of our experiences, but into the future and He provides for both our immediate and future needs. For that’s what the verb “will” connotes—it is present and future tense.
TWO: Our act of letting go releases not only God’s provision, but enables God to know experientially how we feel about Him.
  • When God saw that Abraham would obey Him, even to the point of giving up what he held dearest, his only son, then God provided. You see, it’s an if-then relationship which God always initiates. He makes a request, if we comply then He will act, and His action is always a blessing.
  • After Abraham acted, God said something that is striking: “now I know that you fear me” (Genesis 22:12). It begs the question, if God knows all things, why did He say “now I know” after Abraham acted?
  • One of my favorite Bible teachers, Dr Tony Evans in his book, The Power of God’s Names, gave me a new insight into this verse. While God knows all things—actual and potential—He doesn’t necessarily know everything experientially. In essence, God was saying to Abraham, now I have experienced that you revere Me.
  • This is why the Bible says God inhabits our praise. According to Strong’s Concordance, inhabits is from the Hebraic word yashab, which means to “sit”, “remain”, or “dwell.” Think about it, the omnipresent God who can be everywhere at the same time sits/remains/dwells in a moment of time in order to experience our praise. From our praise it’s as if He responds with: now I know experientially that you love and adore Me, I will in turn reveal more of myself to you.
And, THREE: When God requests us to do something, delayed obedience and action is as good as disobedience. But when we obey, He blesses us abundantly above what we can even imagine.
  • When God spoke to Abraham about Isaac he obeyed and acted right away. God blessed him abundantly above just a promised son but that from his lineage the ultimate promised Son, Jesus Christ, would come.
  • How do we know this? Well, right after this traumatic and dramatic experience of the almost sacrifice, the Bible record goes straight into what reads like an anticlimax—it outlines Abraham’s lineage. “And … begat …” till we get to “And Bethuel begat Rebekah….” (Genesis‬ ‭22:23‬ ‭KJV‬‬).
  • And who’s Rebecca? She would become the beloved wife of Isaac.
  • And the lineage litany continues: “Abraham begat Isaac; and Isaac begat …” till we get to “And Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.” (Matthew‬ ‭1:16‬ ‭KJV‬‬) Not an anticlimax after all uh?!
Shabbat Shalom

May you come to know and experience Jehovah Jireh—the God who sees us, and uses what may seem like a mistake to bless us. Jehovah Jireh—the God who provides in the immediacy of our needs and those in the future. Jehovah Jireh—the God who enters into our experiences so much so He came as human to live the human experience from conception to birth to death.

Is it possible that our needs aren’t fully met because we are holding on so tightly to the small stuff (a son, in the case of Abraham) when God wants to bless us with the huge stuff (like a whole nation from which salvation to the entire world would come)?!

It’s depicted so fittingly in this cartoon. A little girl holds on to a tiny teddy bear which she clearly loves and can’t imagine parting with it while God is cajoling her to trust Him and let it go for He has something better in store. Do you think she did? Would you?

God is asking us: would you trust Me enough to surrender, to let go off of it/her/him/them/whatever so I may provide what you really need?!

The lyrics of one of my all-time favorite songs, aptly entitled “Jireh” (by Elevation Worship and Maverick City Music) is too perfectly aligned not to share it here. Enjoy!

See you next week for Part II of Jehovah Jireh, the God who provides. 

2022 ©DeeMin All rights reserved

Thank you for journeying along. First time to the site? Welcome! Feel free to “like” or drop a comment, I love hearing from you.

You may start here👈 and for more subscribe to the blog here👈

In creative solidarity, Dee