Be careful to obey all my commands, so that all will go well with you and your children after you, because you will be doing what is good and pleasing to the LORD your God.  Deuteronomy 12:28 

Abraham was God’s man.  The Bible shows Abraham as obedient to God and yet, still human. God told Abraham, “Leave your native country, your relatives and your father’s family, and go to the land that I will show you” (Genesis 12:1).  But, then we read that he departed, as God instructed, “and Lot went with him.”

Lot was Abraham’s nephew, who would end up not only being a lot of trouble for Abraham, but whose life would be marked by shame, greed and Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19).  Why did Abraham stop short of fully obeying God’s direction to leave all family behind? Lot’s father had died, so perhaps Abraham felt responsible for Lot and hated to leave him behind. Abraham gives us a great example of how being kind can distract us from God’s will.

Henry Blackaby tells of church members who were upset when an unmarried couple of professing Christians, who were living together, was asked to leave the church. “These misguided souls behave as if they are kinder and more sensitive to people’s feelings than God is!” Blackaby writes.  “Be careful when you act as if you are more loving or kind than God is. You are not…He knows what the outcome will be if people fail to uphold His standards and follow His instructions to the letter.”[1]

God’s kindness is worked through our full obedience!

 

Resource reading: Genesis 13:1-14:24 and 19:1-38

[1] Paula, Funke, & *, N. (2019, October 9). And lot went with him. Blackaby Ministries International. Retrieved January 20, 2022, from https://blackaby.org/and-lot-went-with-him/