You may be wondering, what on earth has the story of Hagar to do with a social media discourse? We take just two of the observations in the last posting:

1. the Internet as a platform for presenting the self.
2. Social media has negative effects on peoples’ self-esteem and self-worth.
3. People compare their own lives to the lives of their friends through their friends’ posts.

Hagar was called maid, but the actual translation is slave girl. That’s what her world said she was! That’s what she had accepted herself to be, not able to separate her vocation from her person; yet God dealt with her just as He did with Abram, calling her by her name not by her status. O beloved child of God have you been damaged by your confusion and settling into believing that your circumstance in life is who you are? Has your interaction with social media imprisoned you into negative group affirmations?

Reflect deeply on Hagar’s response in Genesis 16:13,14 and see how her communication with what Bible commentators have opined as the first appearance of the Lord God, in theophany, liberated her into realizing that her Creator did not see her or call her a slave but by her name! She was freed from the prison of being a slave as God had given attention to her like a proper daughter.

Such was the experience of Jabez who by sheer faith in God, that God knew him differently from what his mum or the society called him, obtained the blessing of being more honorable than his brethren (1 Chron. 4:9-10). Would you be free from looking down on yourself, seeing yourself through the eyes of others who did not create you? Receive this word and hold to God to show you the reality of who you are.

Herein is the double proof in Paul’s attestation in Galatians 3:28.

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.Galatians 3:28

Our text in Genesis 16, occurred ever before the laws were given or God expressly in judgment separated the Jewish people unto Himself (Deut. 32:8-9 (NLT). The Lord God did not deal with His creation according to human appellation.

The writer of the song Who You Say I Am got it right:

Who the Son sets free
Oh is free indeed
I’m a child of God, yes, I am
In my Father’s house
There’s a place for me
I’m a child of God, yes, I am
I am chosen, not forsaken
I am who You say I am
You are for me, not against me
I am who You say I am

Do you believe? Shalom.


Pastor Afolabi Oladele