Put Away

Put away the foreign gods

which are among you,

and purify yourselves

and change your garments.

Genesis 35:2

After the slaughter at Shechem, God comes to Jacob and tells him, once again, to go to Bethel and live there. God also says to build there an altar, but first Jacob and his family have business to attend to.

They have foreign gods among them; they have rings in their ears and garments on their bodies that represented these foreign gods, and they were to be removed.

These foreign gods were made by a goldsmith, formed by silver and gold. These foreign gods had to be carried around on someone’s shoulder. They had to be set in place and stood up by someone because they cannot stand up on their on. These foreign gods that had to be bought, formed, and stood were worshiped, and those who stood them bowed before them.

Jacob knew that it was not these foreign gods that had protected him and answered him in his day of distress. The family carried these foreign gods, but the One True God carried the family.

The God of Abraham and Isaac had been with Jacob wherever he had gone. Jacob did not have to pack God with the tents in order for Him to come along.

Jacob is finally completely surrendering to the Lord his God and is finally stepping up as the spiritual leader of his household.

Oh Father,

You have called us to be separate, and we are to put away all idols and everything that is in our lives that comes before You. We are to purify our hearts and change our actions and our attitudes so that they are in line with You. You called me to be Yours and to represent You and to be a holy priesthood and a light in this dark world. My light cannot shine if it is smeared with the muck of this world. My God, how I need You. You deserve nothing less than all of me. Show me how to give all I am to You.

My Jesus, it is in Your name I pray,

Amen.

Like Father Like Son

Now Dinah the daughter of Leah,

whom she had borne to Jacob,

went out to visit the daughters of the land. When Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite,

the prince of the land, saw her,

he took her

and lay with her by force.

Genesis 34:1–2

How dangerous it is for us to stop short of total obedience to God’s Word. We must never settle with “almost” and “close enough” when following the Lord. How careful we must be not to set up camp outside the umbrella of His will.

God does not hide from us the consequences of being outside His will. God does not hide the faults of His people. He does not sugarcoat the recording of the history of His people.

Jacob stopped short of where God called him to go, and now we are seeing the results. Dinah is raped, and things are about to get even worse. Shechem wants to marry Dinah, so he and his father come to Jacob to work out the arrangements. Dinah’s brothers speak deceitfully to Shechem and his father.

My friend, our children are watching us. Do you see the way of deception passing from generation to generation? Laban was a deceiver, as was his niece Rebekah, as was her son Jacob, and now we see, so were the sons of Jacob.

They devised a plan, claiming that Shechem and all the men of his land were to become like them and be circumcised, and then they would allow the marriage. Then they could all live peacefully together as one people.

When the men of the city complied with the circumcision (basically because they thought they would eventually end up with all that Jacob owned) and were in great pain, Simeon and Levi came in and attacked the city and killed every male, including Shechem and his father. They then took Dinah, along with all the wealth and possessions of the city, including all the women and children, and they returned to Jacob.

Jacob is not happy with his sons, and he scolds them for they have put the entire family in danger; yet Simeon and Levi show no remorse: “Should he treat our sister as a harlot?” (Genesis 34:31).

Doesn’t the old saying go “What a tangled web we weave when we deceive”?

Oh yes, my friend, our choices matter. Our children and all those little eyes and young hearts around us are watching.

Oh Father,

How I want to follow You. More than anything, I desire to be in Your will; to go where You go and be in Your presence. In complete obedience to You and Your Word, this is my desire. My Jesus, I want to serve You, and I want my family to serve You. The last thing I want to do is jeopardize my children simply to satisfy the desire of my flesh. Oh Father, make the way clear, the path straight; lead me in accordance with Your will. Strengthen me when I am weak and revive me when I am tired and help me to press on until You have completed Your work in me.

My Jesus, it is in Your name that I pray,

Amen.

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Some related blogs:

Obey All The Way

Train Up A Child Day 14

  

Good Is Not Always Right

Then he erected there an altar

and called it El-Elohe-Israel.

Genesis 33:20

Jacob has reconciled with Esau. He is supposed to be on his way home, for God’s command was to “return to the land of your fathers and to your relatives” (Genesis 31:3). Jacob stopped for a while in Succoth, and now he has made it to Shechem, where he has bought land and pitched his tent. Here he erects an altar and names it El-Elohe-Israel, or “God the God of Israel.”

We don’t know why Jacob chose to stop here and set up camp. Whatever his reason, we will soon see that he stopped too soon. Perhaps he thought that by erecting the altar he could compromise with God. Perhaps he thought he was making a wise decision, yet he does not consult his God.

Don’t we as the church, as individuals, sometimes just do what we want to and then expect God to bless it just because we say it is for Him and His kingdom? “There is a way which seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death” (Proverbs 14:12). How many “good” decisions made without seeking the counsel of God have brought bad consequences?

One of the hardest lessons in this journey through life is that what seems good is not always right. This is the privilege, the advantage; we have in following El Elyon, God Most High. Our God knows the beginning from the end, He knows the best path, and He will guide us if we will just listen. “But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth” ( John 16:13).

The bright moment here is that God is no longer just the God of Abraham and Isaac, but Jacob now proclaims Him as his God, the God of Jacob. Jacob has learned a lot about the God of his fathers in the past years, but he still has a lot to learn.

Don’t we all?

Oh Father,

Let me not set up camp too soon. Help me to always be where You desire me to be; not my will, but Your will be done. Oh Father, I have so many times made decisions based on my own knowledge instead of waiting for Your answer and for Your guidance. Never have those choices produced good results. This journey of life is not always easy, it is not always fun, and I long for the day that I am finally home; but until that day, help me to not grow weary. Let me not lose my love of the journey, the wonder of seeking You, the moments of revelation, the discoveries of truth. Let me place my foundations not in this world but in the solid rock of my Savior and His Word. Oh Father, may I chase after You and pursue You with a passionate heart.

My Jesus, it is in Your name I pray,

Amen.

No Holds Barred

Then Jacob was left alone.

Genesis 32:24

Jacob was first a man of the flesh—he was Jacob the deceiver. He is now a man fighting and struggling within himself, and he sends everyone across the stream and is left alone. Soon he will encounter God in a way he never has before.

Jacob had encountered God at Bethel. At this encounter, Jacob responded to God by giving him a test: “If God will be with me and will keep me on this journey that I take, and will give me food to eat and garments to wear, and I return to my father’s house in safety, then the Lord will be my God” (Genesis 28:20–21).

Jacob then encountered God at Mahanaim in Genesis 32:1–12, and he called on Him to get him out of the mess he was in with Esau.

Now Jacob will encounter God again, and this time Jacob will encounter God with his heart. I believe God has been waiting for Jacob’s heart to finally call upon Him.

We all are first born of the flesh. We are all also born with God evident within us and around us (Romans 1:19). God blesses us all with encounters of His truth and with the reality of His presence (Psalm 19:1). We all have struggled in some way, wrestling with the idea of God.

Jacob now is alone with God. Here across the ford of Jabbok he goes toe to toe with a man, a man that I believe to be an angel, possibly even the pre-incarnate Christ. He wrestles with this angel. The angel allows Jacob to keep struggling with him, but he reaches out and dislocates Jacob’s thigh with just a touch of his hand. I believe he did this just to remind Jacob that he was in control the whole time.

Jacob did not let go after the touch. He held on tight. Jacob had finally come to realize that he needed God. He now understood that he could go no farther without God. He knew that he did not just want what God had to offer him; he did not just want God to get him out of trouble. He just wanted God.

Know, precious one, that if you are wrestling with God, He wrestles you as a lifeguard wrestles someone drowning in the water. Oftentimes when a person is drowning, he fights the one who is trying to save him as much as he fights the water that he is drowning in.

A lifeguard is trained to knock out a drowning victim if he continues to fight him so that he may safely bring him out of the water. God wrestles with us to bring us life and save us from this body of death. Sometimes God has to knock us out to save us. Sometimes He has to dislocate our thigh so that we remember that He is in control.

Ultimately we have to choose to either submit to Him and honor Him as God, or to keep fighting and become harder in heart and die without Him, eternally separated.

There comes a time in every person’s life when he or she is left alone, alone with God. The time will come in all our lives when the wrestling match will go toe-to-toe, no holds barred.

Have you been in the wrestling match?

Are you struggling with the reality of God?

Are you struggling with understanding that God desires all of you?

Are you fighting and struggling within yourself?

Have you realized that you agree with the law of God in your inner man but see that the members of your body do not want to obey His law?

Do you see that evil is present within you?

Is there a wrestling match going on between the law of your mind that knows what is right and this body of flesh that wants to do wrong?

Oh, precious one, have you cried out as Paul cried out, “Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death” (Romans 7:24)?

Have you cried out as Jacob did, “I will not let you go unless you bless me” (Genesis 32:26)?

This war, this wrestling match, does not end at salvation. While we remain here in this body of flesh, we will wage war. When we submit and hold on to God just as Jacob did, we too will become men and women obedient to the faith (Romans 16:25–27).

Have you been toe-to-toe with God?

Remember this, my friend: “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ has set you free from the law of sin and death” (Romans 8:2).

Remember that “in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us” (Romans 8:37).

Don’t let go, my friend.

Hold on to God; cling to Him; He will bless you.

Oh Father,

How I love You. You are my God. Oh Father, thank You that Your relationship with me is intimate and personal. Oh, thank You for Your Word, so that I may speak to You face-to-face. I can go toe-to-toe with You through Your Word. Then I must choose to either submit to You and Your Word and order my life accordingly or suffer the consequences of disobedience and unbelief. Oh Father, when times come that I wrestle with You, help me to tap out quickly. Oh Father, I believe in You and I trust in Your every word. Continue to transform me into the image of You from glory to glory
(2 Corinthians 3:18).

My Jesus, it is in Your name I pray,

Amen.

How To Say I'm Sorry

Then you shall say,

“These belong to your servant Jacob;

it is a present sent to my lord Esau.

And behold, he also is behind us.”

Genesis 32:18

How do we face someone we have wronged or angered?

We must face them in humility.

And according to Genesis 32:5, bringing along a gift appears to help.

Jacob is in the process of learning that if we are to be in a right relationship with God, we must also be in a right relationship with our fellow man. In Luke 2:52 we read that Jesus increased in favor with God and with man.

Christ came to be our Savior and to be our standard.

The greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22:36–40). God simply will not allow us to go on unreconciled. God came in the flesh in the person of Jesus Christ so that we could be reconciled to the fellowship that we lost with Him in the garden. He died for us and gave us the gift of the shed blood of His only begotten Son.

Christ went to the cross when it was not even He who had done the wrong. We wronged Him, yet He made the initiative to reconcile. “While we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son” (Romans 5:10).

We are to forgive just as God forgave us and continues to forgive us. In Matthew 5:9 Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.”

Are you a peacemaker or a pot-stirrer?

 If Christ were to come to you today would He find you involved in strife, jealousy, gossip, disturbances (2 Corinthians 12:20), or would He find you being made complete, comforted, like-minded, living in peace (2 Corinthians 13:11)?

Are you quick to forgive?

Are you quick to seek forgiveness?

Oh, precious one, let us not give in to the schemes of Satan by holding on to unforgiveness or withholding forgiveness. Let us remember the example set for us by Jacob. Let us even more remember the example set for us by Jesus Christ, our Peacemaker.

Oh Father,

Open my eyes to anyone whom I have wronged that I might make it right. Oh Father, may Your Holy Spirit within me convict my heart when I have need to initiate a reconciliation. Help me to not hang on to unforgiveness. Help me, Father, to see to it that no one comes short of Your grace and that no bitter root springs up, causing trouble in the work of Your kingdom (Hebrews 12:15). And when I feel I have been wronged and someone comes to me to be reconciled, help me to always be ready to forgive. May I have already forgiven before the reconciliation attempt has even been made.

My Jesus, it is in Your name that I pray,

Amen.

Never let it be too late to apologize...

Unworthy

I am unworthy of all the lovingkindness

and of all the faithfulness

which You have shown to Your servant.

Genesis 32:10

In Genesis 32 we discover the first time that Jacob calls upon the name of the Lord. He is about to have to encounter his brother, Esau. Jacob has found himself between a rock and a hard place. He has Laban behind him, and he has Esau before him, who the last time he saw him, was ready to kill him. So with nowhere to run and fear gripping him, Jacob turns to God.

Jacob cries out, asking for God’s deliverance. He doesn’t ask out of his own merit or out of his own right, for Jacob has come face-to-face with his own unworthiness. Jacob appeals to God from the promise that God Himself had made him. He appeals to God according to the covenant and according to the word of God.

We are beginning to see evidence of the work that God has been doing on Jacob’s heart. He is finally coming to the realization that all that he has is because of the God of his fathers. He has come to know that God has kept the words that he spoke to him at Bethel (Genesis 28:13–15). He now comes before God and reminds God of these words, of this promise, again. He knows that he does not deserve God’s help, but he knows that God honors His word.

Jacob’s deliverance was not based on his righteous acts but on the covenant of God. “For the promise to Abraham or to his descendants that he would be heir of the world was not through the Law, but through the righteousness of faith” (Romans 4:13). God had promised Jacob that He would see him safely home. He had promised him that his descendants would inherit the land. He had promised him that He would not leave him until He had done all that He had promised him. This promise was made to Jacob, the deceiver. This promise was made before Jacob claimed the God of his fathers as his own.

This is the same confidence we have today. The promises of God are never first made to the saint. They are made to the sinner. When the sinner hears the promise, he then comes before God and appeals to Him according to His word. The sinner comes knowing he does not deserve God’s deliverance, but still he comes.

When the sinner sees that God has kept His word, even though he, the sinner, was unworthy, he realizes that this God is true and faithful. Then he puts all his trust in this God. It is then that this sinner becomes the saint.

Oh, precious one, have you come face-to-face with your own unworthiness?

Have you realized your state as a sinner?

Have you realized that apart from God there is no good in you?

Are you standing between a rock and a hard place?

Then look up to the One who calls you.

Salvation through Christ is not based on our own righteousness but on the grace of God and the promise of His Word, “for by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8).

My friend, be fully assured that what God has promised, He is able to perform (Romans 4:21). Abraham believed God, and he was credited righteous, as was Jacob, and as are we when we believe.

Oh Father,

How unworthy I am of Your lovingkindness and Your faithfulness. How thankful I am that Your love and faithfulness is not dependent upon mine. You say that even if we are faithless, You remain faithful, for You cannot deny Yourself (2 Timothy 2:13). I have done nothing to earn or deserve Your love, but You offer it freely without cost. My Jesus, you are the mediator of a better covenant (Hebrews 8:6). Through this covenant I am able to have confidence to enter the holy place through Your blood, which means that when I stumble and fall, when I fail You, when I sin against You, I can still run boldly to Your throne and in true repentance seek Your deliverance. Oh Father, I thank You and give You all the glory and praise!

My Jesus, it is in Your name I pray,

Amen.

Keeper of the Covenants

If the God of my father,

the God of Abraham,

and the fear of Isaac,

had not been for me,

surely now

you would have sent me away

empty-handed.

God has seen my affliction

and the toil of my hands,

so He rendered judgment last night.

Genesis 31:42

Jacob takes his wives, his children, and his livestock and leaves without saying good-bye. Laban then follows in hot pursuit. When Laban finally catches up to Jacob, God appears to him in a dream and warns him not to speak to Jacob either good or bad. God knew the wrong that Laban had done Jacob, and God also knew the wrong that Jacob had done by secretly fleeing.

Laban chooses to obey God because he is not ignorant of His power.

Laban shares his dream with Jacob, and Jacob is reminded once again, as are we, that God is El-Roi, a God who sees. Jacob and Laban make a covenant, and they build a memorial to this covenant so that their sons and daughters would know to honor it.

The memorial was named Galeed, which means “heap of witness,” and Mizpah, which means “watchtower.” Laban says, “May the Lord watch between you and me when we are absent one from another.” It is the Lord himself who watches over covenants.

Whether the covenant be between God and man or between man and man, the Lord watches over it. When a covenant is made, God is the one who holds us accountable.

In 1 Peter 4:11 we read, “Whoever speaks, is to do so as one who is speaking the utterances of God.”

In James 5:12 we are told, “Do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or with any other oath; but your yes is to be yes, and your no, no, so that you may not fall under judgment.”

As Christians we should live our lives in such a way that when we give our word, people can count on it, because it is not to them we give our word, but to God. In turn, as Christians, we should not live our lives consumed with making sure others keep their word. We don’t have to. God is who all have to give an account to, so ultimately, they have not broken their word to us; but to God.

Oh Father,

You are my protector, and You are my judge. How quickly I can forget that You see everything and You hear everything. Nothing is hidden from You. I have no reason to keep a record of wrongs because You already have the record. You will render judgment in righteousness, according to the heart. You know what is inside of me, “for He Himself knew what was in man” (John 2:25), and you know what is inside others.

I have no reason to fear or to worry, for You are watching over me. You are also watching over promises made by and to me. You are the arbitrator over my marriage, over my business dealings, over my word. Oh Father, thank You for the peace I can have by simply trusting in You to watch over me.

My Jesus, it is in Your name I pray,

Amen.