Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Gatekeepers/ Fatherhood

Then the Angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time out of heaven, and said: “By Myself I have sworn, says the Lord, because you have done this thing, and have not withheld your son, your only son — blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies. In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.”
Genesis 22:15-18

Why have you despised the commandment of the Lord, to do evil in His sight? You have killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword; you have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with the sword of the people of Ammon. Now therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised Me, and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.’ Thus says the Lord : ‘Behold, I will raise up adversity against you from your own house; and I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this sun. For you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel, before the sun.’ ”
II Samuel 12:9-12

This weekend I attended an Encounter Weekend workshop. In one of the sessions the speaker spotlighted Abraham's willingness and obedience to God  even to sacrifice his son, Isaac, the angel of the Lord stopping Abraham's hand as he began the downstroke to kill his beloved son, against King David's sin of adultery with Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah, and subsequent murder of Uriah, and all the adversity, intrigue, rape, perversion, near overthrow of his kingdom by his son, Absalom, (who's very name meant "Father of Peace"), death, darkness and a kingdom ultimately divided and conquered.
Abraham's descendants were blessed because of his faithfulness, but David's descendants paid a heavy price because of his shortsightedness, even though David was forgiven.
I began to reflect on my (our) personal responsibility as a father(s) to be a gatekeeper and guardian both of my (our) current generation(s) and those to follow. My (our) sins would be visited on my (our) descendants to the third and fourth generations and possibly even to the tenth generation, but so will my (our)obedience..."obedience is better than sacrifice..." 1Sam 15:22.
In the light of such impact my actions are guided by viewing the big picture. choosing today to obey God and unleash supernatural long reaching blessings on our families, those who follow us, who in turn will be empowered to obey the Lord, becoming gatekeepers, and in turn, setting up a supernatural chain reaction of blessings not curses.

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