Text: Genesis 12:10-20; 13:1
Memory text:
“Now there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to dwell there, for the famine was severe in the land.”
Genesis 12:10 NKJV
Sometimes ago, we went to the store where we keep spare and reusable scraps at our construction site to discover that it was completely empty. We had no idea when this theft took place. Obviously, they were stolen, not at once or in bulk, but gradually over a period of time and in pieces. For a long time before then, no one went into the store nor paid attention to the gradual disappearance of the items.
People don’t experience emptiness suddenly but gradually. Every step in the wrong direction takes you farther from the place of fullness in God’s presence until you become empty.
According to our text, when Abram walked out of God’s plan, he went downward. He reacted to the famine in the land by deviating from his destiny path. Instead of responding to the challenge by inquiring from the Lord, he walked out of God’s chosen path to go down to Egypt, according to our memory text. Notice the use of words here, … ‘Abram went DOWN to Egypt’. Any step out of God’s destiny path is taking you downward and not upward. From this moment, Abram continued to go down until he got to the climax in Egypt. Egypt represents worldliness or life in the flesh. Apostasy doesn’t start in one day. It starts with the love of the world and the things that are in the world until a person becomes lost in the world, like Demas (2 Tim 4:10).
It starts when we begin to occupy ourselves with our own desires rather than God’s. Proverbs 14:14 says, “The backslider in heart will be filled with his own ways, But a good man will be satisfied from above.”
Abram had the worst embarrassment of his life from King Pharaoh of Egypt. He would have lost his wife and even his own life, if not for the timely intervention of God’s mercy. Nothing brings a man so quickly into an empty life, like walking away from God’s chosen path.
Thereafter, when Abram took a step to return to his destiny path, it was recorded that he ‘went up’. “Then Abram went up from Egypt, ….” (Gen 13:1). He went up after he went down.
Likewise, when Jonah fled from the Lord through a ship to Tarshish, it was recorded that ‘Jonah had gone down into the lowest parts of the ship’. (Jonah 1:3).
Friends, whether on the land or on the sea or wherever a man runs from the presence of the Lord, it will always be a downward trend.
Examine yourself today.
Prayer points
1. Father, please, open my eyes to the true state of my relationship with You, in Jesus’ name.
2. Father, in Your mercy, please redirect my path and heal me if there is a backsliding heart in me, in Jesus’ name.
Today’s declarations
1. I examine myself daily since a gradual and persistent emptiness could be a quick pointer of a backsliding heart.
2. I will not allow any challenge to take me away from my destiny path.
Contact: pastor@thf.org.ng