1 Samuel 2:26 The boy Samuel continued to grow in stature and in favour with the LORD and with people.
Your grandpa is in your bones!
A baby is born with 300 bones but an adult has only 206 bones. The soft, flexible, tissue like bones of an infant that is called cartilage eventually fuse together into 206 bones to frame the skeleton in an adult. Similarly, character is formed and groomed as we grow. As the cartilages coagulate into bones, the family practises and patterns hardens into habits and weaves into moral fibres and an ethical backbone.
Prophet Samuel was born to Elkanah and Hannah. Elkanah, a descendant of Kohath (1 Chronicles 6:22-28) was one of the sons of Levi and one of the 12 sons/tribes of Jacob/Israel. The tribe of Levi in Israel was set apart to serve as priests in the temple of God. The family-tree of Prophet Samuel traces back to his ancestry to the bloodline of priests. Samuel was tutored and trained by the High Priest Eli, who did not lead by example. Eli’s sons lived a promiscuous lifestyle and defiled the office of the priesthood. Though Samuel was surrounded by aberrant actions, raspy behaviour and formidable idiosyncrasy, Samuel was not manoeuvred by the external environment as the priestly anointing was in his bones.
Unlike Samuel, we might not come from an elite, esteemed or even anointed ancestry. Our biological family might have never been respected or regarded however, the moment Christ becomes our Father we are infused into the bloodline and bones of Jesus. Conversely, there could have been abominable iniquities, detestable idolatry or even dreadful curses in our family-line. The brittle bones of our grandpa, infected with transgression, must be replaced by the unbreakable bones of Jesus Christ.
Fuse into the Family-Line of Jesus Christ:
- Father: The fervour in our bones is from God the Father. “And I will be a Father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty” (2 Corinthians 6:18). Even the best human father will have faults hidden in his bones. There is no perfect human father. However, we need not bear the blame of the bloodline from our flawed forefathers as we have been fused into the bloodline of our Father in Heaven. Our spiritual bones are fused to our Father in Heaven.
- Brother: The reputation of our Big Brother Jesus Christ is in our bones. He is not ashamed to call them brothers, 12 saying, “I will tell of your name to my brothers (Hebrews 2:11b-12a). Jesus shared our human struggles and sickness to partake in our humanness and to identify with us as brothers. Our shame, stigma and bad name is replaced with the fame of our Big Brother. Our shame is replaced with the fame of Jesus in our bones.
- Family: The favour of the divine family is like calcium to our spiritual-bones. Now you are no longer strangers to God and foreigners to heaven, but you are members of God’s very own family, citizens of God’s country, and you belong in God’s household (Ephesians 2:19). The defaults, deride or damages of our biological family is amputated and we are re-grafted into the family-tree of Jesus Christ. The biological ancestral defaults are defused and divine potent is infused into our bones.
Divine brawniness of Jesus is in our spiritual bones.
“Not one of His (Jesus) bones will be broken” (John 19:26).
Prayer: Sweet Jesus, You are my Father, Brother, Family and Friend. Infuse your character into my spiritual structure. Amen.
Leave a Reply