Learning From OT Greats: Jacob – Wrestling With PurposeSample

Day 2: Jacob at Bethel

Thoughts on the Passage

Jacob, you have the blessing – now go get married!

Well, those were not quite the words, but close. It was definitely direction on who to marry and that the time was now. 

Do not marry anyone local – no Canaanite woman, instead go back to Rebekah’s family and take a wife from there. So Jacob took a long, lonely journey to Padam-Aram. It was the distance of several hundred miles and would take a while. Along the way, God shows up.

Jacob thinks he is alone and with just a rock for a pillow, he lies down to sleep. However, God shows up in a dream. God, Himself, gives Jacob the Abrahamic blessing and promise. Jacob takes this promise from God and:
-- He makes a promise to serve God if God will bring him back in peace.
-- He sets up a pillar monument and calls this place Bethel – the house of God.
-- He wants to tithe everything that he has to God.

Jacob knows that he has burned a lot of bridges with his actions – his brother wants to kill him and, he has been sent away by his father for his own safety. It is a lonely time. Now, God promises that Jacob and his family will inherit the land promised to Abraham and Isaac, his father. 

He has no family yet – God is promising one. He has been chased out of the land – God promises to bring him back to this land. Jacob is leaving with a lot of shame – God promises that Jacob will release blessing on the world.

Do not let the world define your destiny. Do not let your failures define your destiny. Make God your God. He changes everything.

Application to our Lives

What promises of God are you holding on to? Do not let them go. Hold them tightly. God does not speak them carelessly or ignore them.

What commitments to God have you made? God remembers them too. If you have let them drop, pick them up. If you have failed in them, repent and ask God to strengthen your heart to keep them.

Time to Pray

Father, this is my prayer for today. I have many promises yet unanswered. Have I done everything that I have promised so that You will keep them in due time? Have I let any of them drop because of unbelief? Have I lived faithfully so that nothing is going to delay them? 

Today, I ask that You open my heart to hear Your Spirit speak to me. Encourage my heart, rebuke me where I have treated Your word carelessly, and strengthen my heart to walk faithfully to Your word and the promises I have made to You. Each day You are faithful. I ask for a faithful heart from me as well. In Jesus name, Amen.