Dug again
Genesis 26:18”Then Isaac dug again the wells of water which had been dug in the days of his father Abraham, for the Philistines had stopped them up after the death of Abraham; and he gave them the same names which his father had given them.
With health tips floating everywhere, mushrooming of gyms, diet clubs, healthify apps, yoga, laughing clubs and what not; yet, people lack inner stamina and energy to tackle and cope up with pressure, strain and opposition. They either would like to quit or shift places, but the challenge is to stay and overcome.
INNER MAN: With plethora of job opportunities, people want to speedily look for greener pastures, failing to understand that ‘ change is required on the inside rather than change of place.’ Same applies to marriage, relationships etc…..Anybody listening?
2 Corinthians 4:16” says “Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day.” Amen.
Ephesians 3:16:” that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man,
Today I am going to talk about Abraham’s son Isaac who had inculcated the ‘ace character and skills ‘ of his dad Abraham and excels in his life too. I simply enjoyed reading chapter 26 of Genesis, I only wish I should be able to transfer what I felt in words, may the Holy Spirit help me do this….
BLESSINGS: Genesis 26:14 says: “for he had possessions of flocks and herds and a great household, so that the Philistines envied him.” The Bible says: Psalms 37: 18 The LORD knows the days of the blameless, And their inheritance will be forever. 19 “In times of disaster they will not wither; in days of famine they will enjoy plenty.”
Friend, it is nice to talk about the prosperity of a person and then say, ‘hey, he is highly qualified from a reputed institution, technically sound and well learned and smart hence he is doing great’ or ‘ he has got the favor of the supervisors’ or ‘ his language skills are excellent’ and so on. But today I want to talk about being blessed because of your obedience to the Word of God. Deuteronomy 28:1 says: "Now it shall come to pass, if you diligently obey the voice of the LORD your God, to observe carefully all His commandments which I command you today, that the LORD your God will set you high above all nations of the earth.” Did you hear that? This scripture revolutionized my life!
Obedience of Isaac to the command of God started with God telling him: live in the land of which I shall tell you.(Genesis 26:2) and Isaac obeyed immediately and the Bible says: Isaac dwelt in Gerar. Let me tell you something about Gerar, this is where Abimelech king of the Philistines lived. It was a strange land where the people were very harsh and strong idol worshippers. Isaac got terrified when he walked into that place and saw their lustful eyes hence he lied that his beautiful wife was his sister. Don’t let this fear in Isaac beguile you into thinking that he is a coward, taking the challenge of staying in Gerar and not running away from that wicked place, is a fine example of his willingness to face challenges head on. Bravo Isaac!
ENVY: Success comes with a package of ENVY! Eerie! The Bible says: Proverbs 27:4 “Anger is cruel and fury overwhelming, but who can stand before jealousy? “
Solomon says: Ecclesiastes 4:4
4 And I saw that all toil and all achievement spring from one person’s envy of another. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.
Look what they do, they closed all the wells that Abraham dug.
Genesis 26:16”Then Abimelech said to Isaac, "Go away from us, for you are too powerful for us."
As you allow ‘envy’ to grow and take root in you then the next thing that happens is insecurity, fear and angst, which are dangerous, are you listening?
When Isaac was blessed and started getting prosperous and more prosperous, we see that Abimelech got scared and insecure, so he told Isaac, ‘go away’. This is insecurity! Beware! An energetic, smart and young woman taught math for our students of Abide School, the free school that we run for the poor, she was highly educated and brilliant, after a few months, her co-sister who recently got married joined our school as well, both were talented and they enjoyed working together. However, something happened that shattered their unity, when the in-laws celebrated the co-sister’s birthday very grandly and lavishly the senior daughter-in-law got upset because they did not do that for her. She came and cried to me and from that day onwards, she stopped talking to her co-sister, they stopped coming to school together, her work deteriorated and she fell into depression with anger, self-pity and deep hatred for her co-sister. She felt insecure and afraid of her position in her family! Did you see that? I gave her a Bible, counseled her, prayed for her but nothing worked and she finally left the job. Very sad. This is what envy would do a person, caveat! The Bible says: Proverbs 27:4”Wrath is fierce and anger is a flood, But who can stand before jealousy?
When someone younger than you, less experienced and less talented is put as your supervisor, the situation is not normal, it breaks your heart and bites into your pride and dignity, this is height of humiliation; however, we got to handle such situations (which we have to face in our life at some point or the other) prayerfully. Do not allow the enemy to plant seeds of hatred, jealousy and bitterness in you, feel secure in Christ who would never fail to bless you, are you listening? Also submit to God to take you through whatever path that has been allotted for you with grace and patience so that you learn the necessary lessons during the journey of your life.
I remember watching an animation movie about two sisters, the movie starts with them being very pally, buddy-buddy and happy; however, somewhere in-between the elder sister becomes jealous of the younger sister and then they become like vicious enemies. Towards the end of the movie, the younger sister says ‘sorry’, for which the elder sister says, ‘if only we had been humble with each other, we could have avoided all this bitterness and unhappiness.” It was hard to see what ‘envy’ can do to the family and disrupt peace, I am sure someone out there will agree with me.
When Bishop T.D.Jakes was training in his gym suddenly there was a heavy sound and one portion of the gym was ripped apart and blown up because of a bomb that was placed there. Everyone were shocked and alarmed at this incident; however, Bishop’s life was saved by the grace of God because he was not in the place where the bomb was planted. After investigation they found that a group who were jealous of Bishop’s success and prosperity plotted this heinous crime. Pray and get into the umbrella of God’s protection and do not give room for envy, God bless you!
DON’T QUIT:
Genesis 26:16”King Abimelech said to Isaac, "Go away from us, for you are too powerful for us."
When someone says that to us, with ‘mountain-size ego’ we would just give up on our project. Isn’t it? One of my workers, when I questioned her about something, (not rebuked but just questioned) said, “I’ll quit’, most crazy and irresponsible way to respond to pressure.
But our friend Isaac refused to quit. Isaac moved to a different location and dug again what the Philistines closed, they found there a well of flowing water. Wow, praise God! When you obey God, persevere and keep working at the project entrusted to you by God, there would be an overflow of blessings. However, the herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with the herdsmen of Isaac, saying, "The water is ours!" So he named the well Esek, because they contended with him. Did not quit though, DUG AGAIN, when they quarreled called that place Sitnah. DUG AGAIN, they did not quarrel over it; so he named it Rehoboth, for he said, "At last the LORD has made room for us, and we will be fruitful in the land." Glory to Jesus!
The Bible says: Isaiah 65:13 Therefore this is what the Sovereign LORD says: “My servants will eat, but you will go hungry; my servants will drink, but you will go thirsty; my servants will rejoice, but you will be put to shame.”
Failure should help us to be fruitful , wonderful, aim to be successful again and not be hateful! It should help us to flex our muscles and come back again, instead of curling yourself inside your own shell like the snail. When we do that, we would remain slimy and wormy like the snail and never get strong. Are you listening to me? Get up and move on! Don’t quit! Don’t stop that Bible study just because someone mocked at you, continue doing it with more passion and punch the enemy’s nose. If someone comments on your scale and voice while singing, don’t give up, practice more, do hard work and bounce back friend, don’t quit. When the husband looked at the wife and told her, ’I love somebody else,’ the shattered wife came to me for prayers. For many months I taught her to fight back the devil on her knees, instead of cursing the woman who grabbed her husband. Friend, charge at the enemy instead of filing for divorce. Don’t act like a Maoist terrorist and think of revenge, instead forgive and move on! This wife started to fast, pray, attend fasting prayers and guess what happened? The husband came back to her! Give God a shout of praise!
GOD KNOWS YOUR JOURNEY: This chapter ministered to me, I’m sure , you would be comforted too! After continuous fights, arguments, wanderings, frequent shifts and harassments, God finally SHOWS UP to Isaac in Beersheba. If I tell you that “I am a super-duper woman who never felt discouraged and had the urge of just throwing in the towel, then this sermon will not be rooted in integrity. During the process of starting ABIDE SCHOOL, free school for the poor and abandoned children of Hyderabad, we were mocked, jeered and booed. One particular officer told me, “we have enough free schools here, why do you have to come from Tamil Nadu to start a school here, without knowledge of the local language.’ Those words were daggers! I felt absolutely lonely that day! I guess Isaac felt that way that night; enough is enough he thought may be. But the Bible says, verse 24”The LORD appeared to him the same night and said, "I am the God of your father Abraham; Do not fear, for I am with you. I will bless you, and multiply your descendants, For the sake of My servant Abraham." This is called Father heart!
People can hate you, reject you, overlook you, block you on whatsapp, mock you, ignore you as though you don’t exist and humiliate you, but remember God knows when you are depleted of all energy and when you can take it no more, now ‘He shows up!’ The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph!
Wow and wow! There are certain injustices done to you that you feel ashamed to even share with others or talk with your children or spouse; however, God knows your pain, He will promptly shows up because HE is the balm that is required for us. He will whisper: “ I AM WITH YOU!” Wow, you can run against an army with those words, don’t you think? My husband and I, with a young adult daughter going to college and my son going to school at that time, we started learning telugu, the local language. Today we can speak, read, write and teach telugu to our students. Both of us have written few songs in telugu too….Unstoppable!
BEERSHEBA :Verse 32 Now it came about on the same day, that Isaac's servants came in and told him about the well which they had dug, and said to him, "We have found water."
33 So he called it Shibah; therefore the name of the city is Beersheba to this day.The anointing on Isaac rubbed off on his servants too, they kept digging wells again and again. Unstoppable!
OBEYING GOD’S WILL IN YOUR LIFE, DOES NOT GUARANTEE A STRESS-FREE, HASSLE-FREE AND TROUBLE-FREE LIFE; ON THE CONTRARY, IT CAN BE UNEASY, TURBULENT AND UNCOMFORTABLE; HOWEVER, GOD WILL NEVER LEAVE YOU NOR FORSAKE YOU.”
I would like to give an illustration and wind up this sermon:
Ferruccio Lamborghini BORN in April 1916 – 20 February 1993) was an Italian automobile designer, inventor, mechanic, engineer, winemaker, industrialist and businessman who created opulent, swanky Lamborghini in 1963, a maker of high-end sports cars. His parents were farmers but Ferruccio soon decided he wanted to do something with mechanics. He started working on his father’s tractor out of interest and was able to attend a technical school in Bologna later on.
Lamborghini found that Ferrari's cars (an Italian luxury sports car)were equipped with inferior clutches, and required continuous trips for rebuilds. Lamborghini brought this to Enzo Ferrari's attention, but was dismissed and ignored. Lamborghini did not sit and sob over the bad treatment, but moved forward to successfully modifying one of his personally-owned Ferrari 250 GTs to outperform stock models, Lamborghini gained the impulse to pursue an automobile manufacturing venture of his own. These are unstoppable people!
For 2022, Lamborghini has almost sold out its entire production run following record deliveries in 2021, CEO Stephan Winkelmann said.
The price of Lamborghini cars in India starts from 3.15 Cr for the Urus while the most expensive Lamborghini car in India one is the Aventador with a price of 6.25 Cr. The newest model in the Lamborghini line-up is the Huracan EVO with a price tag of 3.21 - 4.99 Cr.
Don’t give up! Move past your failures!
