Do you ever feel like people are taking advantage of you? Are you tired of picking up the slack for folks who don’t seem to be pulling their weight? Does it seem like others always get the better end of the deal, and you have to settle for second best?

It would have been easy for Abram to feel this way. He was genuinely trying to worship God (13:4, 18), and God had made great promises to him (12:1-3, 7). In fact, God had blessed him and his nephew Lot so greatly that their livestock were too numerous for them to pasture together (13:7). So, Abram did the right thing. Since they had to separate from one another, he decided to give Lot first choice of the land. As the friend of God, he demonstrated the selfless character of God.

And Lot took advantage of Abram’s generosity. He was focused on material things, not spiritual things. He was only interested in what he could get, not what he could give. And so, he looked around and took the best part of the land for himself (13:10-11). He set off for the well-watered plains, for the easy life, and left Abram in the hill country where pasturing his livestock would be much more difficult.

It was no surprise that Lot fell into bad company (13:13) – birds of a feather flock together, so those who focus on satisfying themselves tend to gravitate toward the richest, most pleasant places. But selfish people also tend to want what each other has, and Lot got caught up in one of the fights that inevitably results (14:11-12). And who had to go bail him out? Abram, of course. He and all his herdsmen had to go and rescue Lot, at no doubt considerable risk to themselves (14:14-16).

But isn’t this really the same thing God does for all of us, time and time again? And are any of us worthy of God’s salvation? Even Abram wasn’t perfect – he let his fears put his wife in tremendous danger (12:11-15). No, it doesn’t matter how selfish, how materialistic we think other people are – none of us deserve God’s forgiveness and grace.

But just as Abram loved Lot enough to give him the best part of the land, God loved His people enough to give us His Son. And just as Abram saved undeserving Lot, God saves those who belong to Him, no matter how selfish and materialistic we may have been.

And God promises to bless those who are faithful to Him. Even after Lot took the best land and left, God promised Abram that it would be Abram’s descendants, not Lot’s, who would end up possessing both of their shares of the land (13:15). And God has repeated that promise for all those who trust in Jesus Christ – it is the meek and the generous who will inherit the earth, not the grasping and greedy (Matthew 5:5; 25:34).

So today, let’s keep loving, keep giving, keep helping and keep serving, no matter how little we may receive in return. How else can we truly say we are following Jesus, the One Who gave up Himself for sinners like us?

Genesis 13:2-18 (ESV)

2 Now Abram was very rich in livestock, in silver, and in gold.
3 And he journeyed on from the Negeb as far as Bethel to the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Ai,
4 to the place where he had made an altar at the first. And there Abram called upon the name of the LORD.
5 And Lot, who went with Abram, also had flocks and herds and tents,
6 so that the land could not support both of them dwelling together; for their possessions were so great that they could not dwell together,
7 and there was strife between the herdsmen of Abram’s livestock and the herdsmen of Lot’s livestock. At that time the Canaanites and the Perizzites were dwelling in the land.
8 Then Abram said to Lot, “Let there be no strife between you and me, and between your herdsmen and my herdsmen, for we are kinsmen.
9 Is not the whole land before you? Separate yourself from me. If you take the left hand, then I will go to the right, or if you take the right hand, then I will go to the left.”
10 And Lot lifted up his eyes and saw that the Jordan Valley was well watered everywhere like the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt, in the direction of Zoar. (This was before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.)
11 So Lot chose for himself all the Jordan Valley, and Lot journeyed east. Thus they separated from each other.
12 Abram settled in the land of Canaan, while Lot settled among the cities of the valley and moved his tent as far as Sodom.
13 Now the men of Sodom were wicked, great sinners against the LORD.
14 The LORD said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him, “Lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward,
15 for all the land that you see I will give to you and to your offspring forever.
16 I will make your offspring as the dust of the earth, so that if one can count the dust of the earth, your offspring also can be counted.
17 Arise, walk through the length and the breadth of the land, for I will give it to you.”
18 So Abram moved his tent and came and settled by the oaks of Mamre, which are at Hebron, and there he built an altar to the LORD.