# 213 Stake Your Claim

The Book of Genesis

Day 213

This entire chapter of Genesis deals with the purchase of a burial place for Sarah. One thing that jumps out at me is the asking price of the field that Abraham sought to purchase. Verse 15 lists the field at 400 shekels of silver. By comparison in Jer 32:9 we read of the going price of another similar piece of property: Jer 32:9 "So I bought the field from Hanamel, the son of my uncle who was in Anathoth, and weighed out to him the money-seventeen shekels of silver.

17 shekels! That’s a 383 shekel difference! Either the real estate market crashed or Abraham was being taken. Well, we know he wasn’t being taken because God used this purchase price for a piece of the Promised Land as an example of the high price His only Son would pay, so that fallen man, (you and I) could have a stake in heaven.

In Jeremiah’s case, the land was completely overrun by the enemy, yet Jeremiah purchased the land  because he recognized God’s call to illustrate louder than words, how certain it was that the land would one day be reoccupied by the Israelites who were being carried off into captivity.

Both purchases illustrate pure examples of faith.  Heb 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Abraham did not own any property before this purchase and this should cause us to consider that the Lord Jesus Christ never owned any property either!  Lu 9:58 And Jesus said to him, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head."

The only property that Jesus ever staked out was when He was staked to a cross on a hill called Golgotha! (The place of the skull) And  after  His resurrection from the dead, that claim was a declaration of ownership over death!  1Co 15:55 "O Death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?" 56 The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law.  57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.  58 Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.

Stake your claim in the Promised Land! Abound in the work of the Lord! And the work of the Lord is to exercise your God-given faith, trusting the promises of God, just as Abraham and Jeremiah did!

Joh 6:29 Jesus answered and said to them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent."