10.27.25 ~ Spiritual Genetics

Good morning!

As many of us know, DNA is the building blocks of life. It’s the molecule that carries genetic information for the development and function of every organism. Every living organism depends on this foundational element. It’s not just a storage place of genetic information, needed for an organism to develop and function, but also to reproduce. But what happens if the DNA is damaged? What if it mutates? How does that affect the subsequent generations of that organism? Will the offspring resemble the parent? What if the DNA is continually corrupted in every generation? In this week's Torah portion Lekh Lekha/go to yourself, we begin that quest of understanding.

At the beginning of our Torah portion, we find a man by the name of Abram Being called out from a polluted world. But while he was still called Abram, the Creator of the universe summoned him out from among his people and into God's service. He immediately left a city and headed toward the land of Canaan, the land God would eventually give to him and his descendants. When he reached Canaan, however, we have detailed his encampments naming them individually beginning with Shechem, to the oak of Moreh...(Gen.12:6).

 Why does the Torah record these events? Enquiring minds want to know :-). The Torah is teaching us a valuable lesson: a principle of the Torah that states "the deeds of the fathers are signs for the children" (Eccl. 1:8,9).

Abraham, the father of the Israelite nation, and the father of faith to all who believe (Gal.3:29)

And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise. (Gal.3:29)

 set the pattern for those who would come after him (Jn.8:39).

They answered and said unto him, Abraham is our father. Jesus saith unto them, If ye were Abraham's children, ye would do the works of Abraham. (Jn. 8:39)

His action set in motion this spiritual principle. Everything he did became a blueprint for both his natural children and spiritual children.

We can many times in the life of Isaac and Jacob, and we also see this on a national scale. For instance, when Abraham fled to Egypt to escape from famine, and his wife was taken captive, finally to be released because God‘s judgment came upon the people in the form of a plague (Gen. 12)...Later, Israel went down into Egypt to avoid famine and was enslaved only to be released when God brought judgment upon the pharaoh in the form of plagues (Ex. 12).

Just as Abraham first came to Canaan by way of Shechem and then camped between Bethel and AI, when Joshua led the children of Israel into the promised land they first conquered them and then conquered AI (Josh. 7&8).

We can clearly see this pattern revealing itself through the Torah, not only in the life of Abraham, but also in the lives of all the patriarchs, and if we are honest, we can also see this pattern established in our own lives.

Both our choices and our actions have generational repercussions. If children look closely at themselves, they will see similar patterns to their parents being played out in their lives. It’s a frightening thought (and I'm not talking about Halloween...then again).

What patterns have we unknowingly established for future generations? They’re probably a combination of good and bad! Once we have this knowledge, however, we should become more intentional in our actions to begin working to establish better patterns that will produce the fruits of righteousness in subsequent generations. We must be mindful of the fruit of our actions, whether we see it in our lifetime or not, our actions have ramifications (Gal.6:7-9). If we all understood this principle and made life choices with this in mind then each generation would draw nearer to God rather than becoming more distant from Him.

We have the power to change the future, but that change has to begin with us. We can’t teach one thing and practice another. This was the issue that Yeshua had against the leading Pharisees of his day; they preach, but do not practice… They do all their deeds to be seen by others (Matt. 23:3, 5). The deeds of the fathers are indeed signs for the children, and our deeds will set the course for our future generations.

Whether we realize it or not, we’re planting for the next generation through our own actions we can pass down seeds of righteousness or seeds of hypocrisy. We are either passing down healthy, spiritual DNA or damaged spiritual DNA to the subsequent generations, as with our physical DNA, we also have the ability to alter our spiritual DNA, even though we may try to hide our spiritual genetics they will come out in our children, our grandchildren, and those we disciple because they will inherit these spiritual genes. So if we want to change the future, we need to begin by changing the present in ourselves.

Happy 2nd day of the week!
Shalom