Prayer: Father, there is a lot of meaning in a name. May we be wise in naming our children. Amen.
Reading: Genesis 10 key: 8-9
8 Now Cush fathered Nimrod. He started to become mighty in the land. 9 He was a mighty hunter before Adonai. This is why it is said, “Like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before Adonai.”
Attention: There are many names in scripture which give us a description of the character of the individual. Names such as Joshua (God is deliverance), David (beloved), Jonathan (gift of God), or Barnabas (son of encouragement). These all were positive meaning names. There were those which spoke of a negative character like Nimrod (we shall rebel).
It may be speculative but the names and meaning of names are many times lived up to. Nimrod was not only a mighty warrior, but we are told that “the beginning of his kingdom included Babel…(and) from that land he went out to Assyria and built Nineveh” which became the capital center for Assyria.
It was the city of Nineveh which Jonah was told by Adonai to go and preach against, warning them of the consequences of their sin if they didn’t repent. It was the Assyrians who came against Northern Israel and took them captive into exile between 740 BCE and 722 BCE.
So, not only is the character of Nimrod rebellious, but the labor of his hands continues his rebellious ways upon the nation of Israel, Adonai’s people, the children of Israel (Bnei-Yisrael) in later centuries.
It appears from tomorrow’s text that an attitude of self-promotion or self-exaltation is part of the motive for building cities, especially Nineveh. There is an attitude which permeates mankind when we accomplish what we determine to be great things. We begin to look inward and manifest a spirit of self-sufficiency. An attitude of “look what we have done, how great are we. There is nothing we cannot accomplish.”
In Nimrod’s day, they had developed the brick and with it, the knowledge to build a skyscraper to reach into heaven. Adonai put a stop to it because it breeched the division between Adonai and man. What things are we doing today which breeches the divide between Adonai and man?
Have we in our own ways become self-sufficient and self-reliant?
Action: Father, I confess my own self-reliance on things of this world rather than You.
Yield: I give my life into Your hands.
Engage: I engage with You when I give You the honor and glory!
Relationship: You demand to have the first and only place in my heart.
Prayer: Father, we have the proclivity to become self-directed and self-reliant. May I give up the right to think I am so self-important. You are my all in all. Amen.
Memory Verse: Exodus 20:3
3 “You shall have no other gods before Me.
Music Video: Micah Stampley- Take My Life (Holiness) https://youtu.be/G5ZrO_IIDwo
Remember, “Abide in Yeshua, today!”