Property of God (Genesis 14)

 Property of God

After Abram had defeated Chedorlaomer and his allies and had obtained much loot from this war to free his nephew, he was reminded of the supremacy of God.


[Gen 14:18-20 NKJV] 18 Then Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine; he [was] the priest of God Most High. 19 And he blessed him and said: "Blessed be Abram of God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth; 20 And blessed be God Most High, Who has delivered your enemies into your hand." And he gave him a tithe of all.


He could’ve kept everything for himself. He could have become prideful, losing sight of God.

But Melchizedek, a priest-king of Salem reminded him of the Possessor of heaven and earth.

He blessed Abram and gave bread and wine to him as a priest. Then he blessed God and he reminded Abram that it was God that had delivered the enemy into his hand.
God gave him the victory and had given him all this loot. He was the Possessor of everything that he had and everything that he had gained.

In response to this Abram gave tithings to this priest of God of everything.

With this in mind Abram also didn’t claim any of the property that was previously of the king of Sodom:


[Gen 14:21-24 NKJV] 21 Now the king of Sodom said to Abram, "Give me the persons, and take the goods for yourself." 22 But Abram said to the king of Sodom, "I have raised my hand to the LORD, God Most High, the Possessor of heaven and earth, 23 "that I [will take] nothing, from a thread to a sandal strap, and that I will not take anything that [is] yours, lest you should say, 'I have made Abram rich'-- 24 "except only what the young men have eaten, and the portion of the men who went with me: Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre; let them take their portion."


Abram was focussed on God. The king of Sodom even proposed to give him the property and yet Abram rejected the offer. He didn’t want people to think that he was dependent on the king of Sodom. He didn’t want people to think that the king of Sodom was the possessor of riches who gave it away. Abram had won a lot of property, but knowing that God is the Possessor of all things he gave it up again as a duty towards God and men.
He did not see his stuff as his own and all he cared about were his allies and the food that was used in the war.

When we receive a lot of riches from a fortunate event, from our own labour or from any other blessing of God it is tempting to forget the Most High Possessor of heaven and earth. It is easy to forget from whom we received this and who has set up all this.

We may become greedy or selfish.

In those cases we may resist this temptation by being reminded that God is the Possessor of all things.
Tithings are a great expression of showing that God owns us and everything we have and that we owe Him. 

A vivid sense of our dependence on Him and our responsibility for His property should make us generous and we should fulfill our duty towards God and our fellow neighbors.
We should make sure that we do not give the impression to anyone that we owe them too much. In this way both the receiver and giver may lose sight of God.

So in our fortunes we should remember God’s position, prevent any wrong impressions on from whom blessings come and we can express and maintain this in tithings and in generosity.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Blessing in the Curse: When God Curses (Genesis 3)

When God Curses In Genesis 3 the first curses of God are given. God hates sin and it is in His character and nature to punish it. His principle is against evil. But even in these first curses His love can still be seen. With the thorn comes the rose and God can be graceful in His stern justice. First the serpent is given a curse, who does not even get the time to give an answer for what he did unlike Adam and Eve: [Gen 3:14-15 NKJV] 14 So the LORD God said to the serpent: "Because you have done this, You [are] cursed more than all cattle, And more than every beast of the field; On your belly you shall go, And you shall eat dust All the days of your life. 15 And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel." Because you have done this . Done what? Deceived humanity and brought it to destruction. In God’s hate for what Satan did He shows His love for humanity. He actually cared about th...
Read more

Curses for the Genders (Genesis 3)

Curses for the Genders When humanity had sinned God cursed the man, woman and the serpent. We will here look at the curses given to the man and woman specifically since these reveal how people often work. They show how the relation between the two sexes often are. This is not the ideal, since it came from a curse. But it is what it is and God Himself had given these curses for a reason. In fact, in the curse for Adam He explicitly says it was for his own good. For the woman it is said: [Gen 3:16 NKJV] 16 To the woman He said: "I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception; In pain you shall bring forth children; Your desire [shall be] for your husband, And he shall rule over you." For this article the last part is especially interesting. The wife would desire the husband. Closely related to this and what may explain which kind of desire this is, is that the husband would rule over the wife. Now this rule has often been abused. But when it is within God’s law it is a...
Read more

Loneliness and Marriage (Genesis 2)

 Loneliness and Marriage On the sixth day God created men. But this did not make it perfect and very good yet. Something was missing. [Gen 2:18 NKJV] 18 And the LORD God said, "[It is] not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him." Adam, the first man, was still alone. To put this loneliness into perspective Scripture gives this context: [Gen 2:19-20 NKJV] 19 Out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought [them] to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature, that [was] its name. 20 So Adam gave names to all cattle, to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him. The animals could not relate to Adam. They could not be His ‘helper’ or sustainer. No one was comparable to him. Not only are animals a different species, they were on a different level too. They did not have his intellige...
Read more