As the servant is prepared to leave with Rebekah her mother
and brother have some second thoughts about their commitment from the day
before for her to go her way as this came "from the Lord." Now, they want to keep her there for ten days
or so. It is a perfectly reasonable idea
that they would suddenly realize the girl was likely not to return to them and
think it good for a long goodbye. We frequently
require a recission clause in major purchase contracts in order to allow for a
cooling off period on significant decisions so it is a common thing to have
this remorse, but we will find later that Laban is the king of delay. The blessing with which they send her off
includes the very ideas of the blessing of God on Abraham's offspring regarding
multiplication and also of possessing the enemy's gate. We see the family continues to live in tents
as Isaac took Rebekah into the tent of his mother and she became his wife and
he loved her, a beautiful moment.
To receive the kingdom like a child is the way we are
intended to be. Immediately following
Jesus' words here we see a rich young man come to ask what he has to do to
inherit the kingdom, eternal life. Is inheritance
ever a matter of doing? It is being in the
right family relationship to inherit isn't it?
This man has already received an earthly inheritance and Jesus says you
have to give up what you inherited from your family and give it to the poor in
order to receive this inheritance. There
is the idea that you have to leave it all behind, this family that has so
richly blessed you so far, in order to receive the heavenly inheritance. Rebekah had to leave behind the past completely
to go with this man to meet the man who would be her husband. A little child is unencumbered by things and
is able to receive with gladness what is offered.
The call is to cleanse ourselves from iniquity but that
first requires us to not only know iniquity but to despise it. Repentance has not only the idea of
confession of sin in it but also the turning away from not the attraction
to. We have to develop a new attitude
towards sin, we have to see it as God sees it, bad for us and bad for all
concerned. The Lord is not a libertarian
towards the issue, there is no such thing as no harm no foul or a victimless
crime. We can't know whether that is
true or not, our knowledge of such things is horribly limited. To receive the kingdom like a little child
requires humility and submission, complete trust in the Lord to know truly what
is best for us and what is harmful to us.
Has He earned your trust as He earned Rebekah's?
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