Parashat Bereshit 2024

Haftarah: Is 42:5-43:11

What does it mean to be a covenant people, a light to the nations? Carrying out our covenant and being light has a lot to do with how we reflect the person of God in this world. We not only live in the shadow of the Most High, but we also bear his image and are sons. Our sonship does not take us out of the world and its problems, our sonship helps us to insert the will and testimony of God everywhere we go.

As a son, what do you proclaim? Our words and actions testify to our faith and have a lot to do with our place as sons? How do you speak out against the carnality of the culture? How do you respond to the dry, empty places? How do you react against oppression, ridicule, and conflict? How do you speak when your marriage is in trouble and the narrative in your home seems to spin out of control? How do you speak when you are hurting, feel abandoned, or constantly fight the negative sentiments of your mind and heart that don't seem to stop?

Proclaiming God's truth is done in many places, both personally and corporately. Proclaiming truth marks the person of faith when one accepts his/her role to partner with God as sons. We can feel controlled and at the mercy of many things until we begin to speak God's word over them. We feel demoralized, weak in faith, and powerless until we embrace our role and begin to insert God's will into our spiritual journey. God led you into that problematic place because he had something he wanted to speak there. He permitted some things to go away because he wanted to teach you faith so you could serve him powerfully. He allowed the struggle and the striving to muscle up your spirit man so that the enemy could not silence your voice and weaken your resolve. He called you to fight hard against every principality, power, rulers of darkness of this world, and every spiritual wickedness in high places. You are not only empowered to speak against them, but you can also stand against their retaliation and relentlessly assail every bastion of power the enemy has until he crumbles.

What we sow in righteousness, God can use to work his will (Hosea 10:11-12). A son sows the righteousness of God in his/her own life and in the lives of others. The constant speaking, interceding, sowing, and reaping helps us be light in every dark and lonely place. Have you ever considered that as a son, God has positioned you? God is working in your problem as you walk out your faith, so that the world can have a reason to hope. It is our testimony of faith in God's faithfulness that often brings heaven to earth as we testify before struggling people. That thing you struggle with becomes an avenue of evangelism and revelation for another person and before you realize it, someone is being led out of the desert they were stuck in and salvation, healing, and deliverance begin to abound.

Sometimes being a son leads us into treacherous territory in the name of the King. But, as we proclaim his sovereignty, the Kingdom of Heaven expands, the door of the sheepfold is opened, and the world is changed one life at a time. The world may get crazy, but it is good to be a son.

Rav Calev

Apostolic Messianic International-Gulf Coast