Religion

Genesis 21:14 ESV
So Abraham rose early in the morning and took bread and a skin of water and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, along with the child, and sent her away. And she departed and wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba.


Maybe I'm being a bit tenuous, but I see Abraham as symbolic of manmade religion in this verse. There's nothing wrong with being moral, but it only gets you so far, like bread and a skin of water in the wilderness. Hagar didn't need a handout, but divine intervention.

Abraham, at Sarah's goading, had tried to religiously take matters into his own hands to get a son. He went about it in an illegitimate manner, getting Sarah's female servant pregnant. It was culturally acceptable at the time, but it's still wrong in the eyes of God.

Thankfully, Hagar got a divine intervention. The Angel of the Lord/preincarnate Jesus provided for her and her son Ishmael in the wilderness. That's what he does for us spiritually too.

Religion is a sticking plaster on an open wound. Jesus is the Great Physician who binds up the broken hearted. He is a spiritual heart surgeon.

'Father God, thank you for sending your Son for our deliverance. In his name we pray, amen'.

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