Have you noticed that the characters in Genesis behave in very human ways. They lie, they wheedle, they play out old rivalries we have theft and murder and war and unspeakable depravity . . . in short the people in Genesis are pretty much like the people in our world today. Lost, broken, self centered and struggling to find help and hope in a contrarian world. When I read about Abraham and Issac and Jacob (holy smokes Jacob) I do not see special people with some special beauty or aura around them that makes them acceptable to God. What I see are normal flawed human beings that God chooses and they strive their whole lives to live into what God has called them to be. That pretty much sums up my life as well.
I do (as do you) have an advantage. The patriarchs encountered God but did not have the Holy Spirit within them. As I understand the Old Testament the Holy Spirit visited people (prophetic people mostly) and then left them. This condition required external controls, laws, to keep them in covenant with God. Under the new covenant the Holy Spirit is resident within every Christ follower. That "Holy Spirit within" reality means we are being transformed from the inside out. We are not driven and controlled by external laws and rules instead the directions for our lives and the covenant itself is being led from within our hearts and minds by the Holy Spirit.
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