WordLive - Year OneSample

Prepare: Imagine yourself sitting in the shade of your tent, in burning, shimmering heat. You see three figures at a distance, and you know you are being visited by none other than God. How do you respond? God appears In the stories of the Old Testament, God chooses many different ways of approaching his human creations. He speaks from a burning bush, he writes on stone tablets, he whispers in the breeze, he dictates to prophets, he appears in dreams and visions. Here he arrives at Abraham’s tent in the form of three men and shares a meal with him. Abraham shows him generous, even extravagant hospitality, loudly and clearly demonstrating how he wishes to honour him. During the visit, the Lord announces the imminent fulfilment of the covenantal promise (v 10). Intimacy with God We too have the opportunity for domestic intimacy with God. We are under a new covenant, and staggeringly, wondrously, the Lord has chosen for his dwelling place to be in us and among us – around our tables and in our hearts. The same God who gave a son to a 90-year-old woman became a man himself in order that there could be lasting peace between us. ‘Is anything too hard for the LORD?’ (v 14)? No. Respond: ‘Let us come near to God with a sincere heart and a sure faith ... Let us hold firmly to the hope that we have confessed, because we can trust God to do what he promised’ (Hebrews 10:22,23). http://www.wordlive.org/Session/Classic/2012-04-11