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23 “I am the God of Bethel..”

 Genesis 31:13

 Firstly the great “I AM” is speaking here, that Lord who dwells in the eternal present and who sits on the throne of all time and eternity. He is the ever present one and inhabits the praises of His people, the saints and the angels. He is the God of Bethel and remains faithful to His people down through all time and history.

 Bethel was the place of the House of God and the location of His dwelling place. There He was with Abraham and also met Jacob there in his vision of the stairway to heaven. It is a place of remembrance and the saints of old lifted their “Ebenezers” there to commemorate the ongoing presence of God and His great faithfulness to them throughout all their days.

“O God of Bethel by who’s hand Thy people still are fed

Who through this weary pilgrimage hast all our fathers led…” (Philip Doddridge 1702)

 God is bound by His own promises to supply all our needs and bring us safely to heaven and home. We all have instances where God has helped us and we can rejoice with the hymnwriter that we are cared for and loved. What a joy it is to belong to Christ and to walk with Him each day. The Scripture is full of promises and these instances where God binds himself to us and ministers to us. Jacob knew the presence of God and His protecting power and commends this God to us the God of Bethel.

 

22 “The angel of God said to me in the dream, “

 Genesis 31:11

 In the Scripture we have evidence of God in the person of Christ appearing to people and giving messages to them. These instances are pre-incarnation appearances of the Lord Jesus and are very precious to us. God did not leave His people without hope but ministered to them in a way they would understand and be able to know that God was with them. It is different for us in our day for we have the presence of Christ always with us in the Holy Word and in the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in our life.

 These appearances of Christ in dreams are not necessary in our day for we have the whole council of God before us. There are some who are enthralled by the stories of dreams, but have little time for the Holy Word. This ought not to be so. All kinds of subterfuge are used to distract us from reading and meditating on the Word of God and take our attention on to things that are really fleshly. The enemy of our soul is always ready and able to decry the Scripture and keep us away from valuing it. He will downgrade it constantly and keep us dependent on emotion and unsubstantiated dreams and visions.

 God communicated with His people in days past through dreams for they did not have the written word. Today the Word of God has been so downplayed that we again seek dreams and visions. This ought not to be so, for the truth is before us and should be precious to us. Let us meditate day and night on the revealed Word of God and not on fantasies.

 

 

21 “Rachel came with her father’s sheep, for she kept them.”

 Genesis 29:9

 How humble was this great mother of the nation of Israel that she kept sheep. She was a shepherdess and full of acts of mercy even to the unknown visitor. She faithfully watered the herds of her father, not knowing that it would lead to great love and blessing for her in her life. She was not proud and puffed up that this lowly job would be below her. She did it joyfully and with no thought of compensation or blessing.

 And yet God blessed her faithfulness and joy as she did His will in her life. Let us also rejoice in the lowly tasks that God assigns for us. There are too many who seek acclaim and want to be recognized as leaders and game-changers. God looks for the lowly and lifts them up in His own time that they be not overly taken up with their own ambitions.

“Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time…”

 1 Peter 5:6

 Rachel was willing to do the bidding of God and tend sheep and even in that low place was lifted by God into the position of the Mother of Israel. It was there she met true love and found the reason for her life, even in the center of the will of God.

 May this also be our position that we do not manoeuvre ourselves into the place of honour, that we are ultimately cast down from, because of self seeking.

 

 

20 “Esau lifted up his voice, and wept.”

 Genesis 27:38

 Foolish Esau did not regard his birthright and lost it to Jacob’s subterfuge and he also lost the blessing for the future from His father.

 It is so easy to get caught up in the things of this life and forget the spiritual life that we possess as the people of God. We pray for temporal blessings and sideline the things of God. We fail to value the personal closeness of the Lord and the joy of keeping His commandments. The Psalmist rejoiced to know the Lord and follow in all His ways.

“The Lord’s precepts are right, rejoicing the heart. The Lord’s commandment is pure, enlightening the eyes.”

 Psalm 19:8

 O that we would value the greater things and not fail to think upon our eternal inheritance. We value it above all and daily seek to walk circumspectly in the ways of our glorious God. This is the way to blessing even though our flesh does not agree. We walk in the Spirit of God and not in the folly of our own ideas.

“There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who don’t walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.”

 Romans 8:1

 Let is keep in tune and in step with the Spirit and not deviate into the realms of evil by following our sinful self. God is our everlasting contentment, and we succumb to all His ways and statutes.

19 “The elder will serve the younger.”

 Genesis 25:23

 We are reminded in this verse that the ways of God are not the ways of humankind. God delights to raise up the lowly and do the unexpected thing. Jesus was born, not in the mighty Jerusalem, but in the humility of a stable in Bethlehem.

“The Lord upholds the humble. He brings the wicked down to the ground.”

 Psalm 147:6

 The Lord delights to raise up those who are bowed down and make them great in the reality of His kingdom. We are not great in terms of this world and we should not seek greatness, for all glory belongs to the Lord and He will raise up the humble to serve Him and be mighty people of God. Therefore, we should rejoice that we are of low estate and with little to offer, for the Lord will fill us with good things.

 Esau was destined to serve Jacob, even though he was the elder of the two twins, but God desired that Jacob would lead the family line to the Lord Jesus Christ. God overrules in all situations and destines His holy will in every life. He loves those who think little of themselves and much of Christ. He will work out His purposes in our life and bring us to great joy and fulfillment. Let us bow our knees to our God and worship all He is and all he does.

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not my ways,” says the Lord.”

 Isaiah 55:8

18 “O Lord, the God of my master Abraham, please give me success today, and show kindness to my master Abraham.”

 Genesis 24:12

 This should be the prayer on our lips every day we set out to serve the Lord in whatever we are doing. Our day rises up before us and we dare not face it without the blessing of our Lord and God and the strength which He gives us to face every dilemma. Abrahm’s servant knew where the blessedness lies and knew that the overarching providence of God was to be sought and prayed for.

 We bow our will to the will of God and accept all that He has giving to us with grateful hearts. He does allow sorrow at times to hone our faith and make us look to Him when there is no other comfort in view. We succumb all our desires and wishes to His desire for He knows what is best for us and sees the situation differently to us. We do not know what we pray for and therefore concede all we say in prayer to the will of a loving Heavenly Father.

“Don’t be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what is the good, well-pleasing, and perfect will of God.”

 Romans 12:2

 As we bow to God’s holy will we are taught the ways of the Lord and to obediently trust Him for all we cannot understand. He is training us in holiness and so we walk as obedient children.

 

17 “The Lord had blessed Abraham in all things.”

 Genesis 24:1

 O that this might be said of us as we review our lives and our standing before God. To know His keeping power in all areas of our life is blessing indeed. Our physical bodies, our mental capacities and our spiritual standing. To know we are fully kept by God is a blessed estate and a place where we can reach out to others and support them with the comfort that we are comforted by.

“… who comforts us in all our affliction, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, through the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”

 2 Corinthians 1:4

 How rich a state we are in when we can rejoice in the Lord with great joy and blessing. How useful we can be for His glory and the blessing of others around us, saint and sinner alike.

 What a bolster to faith are the blessing of God as we consider all His purposes and designs in our life and see His faithful hand on our days. Abraham was the friend of God and so also can we be, as we succumb to all His decrees and obey His word. This is the key to godly living and to know that blessing of God on all our ways.

 Let us humble ourselves before Him and in deep contrition confess our sin and set out on a life of daily sacrifice and follow Him.

 

16 “God will provide himself the lamb for a burnt offering,”

 Genesis 22:8

 In this scripture we have the prophecy and promise that God would provide a just recompense for sin. Abraham was instructed to offer his son as a sacrifice, but he already knew that God would do a wonderful work of redemption for Isaac. God had always kept His promises to Abraham and Abraham trusted God completely. It made him the friend of God and because he believed, it was counted as righteous before God.

 God has also provided for us in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ the Saviour of the world. The second person of the godhead entered this world and lived and died that we might be reconciled to God. God provided this through the covenant He made with Himself before the world was. God knew all that would happen and how we would utterly fail Him, so He purposed a way with Himself that would allow us to be forgiven and made new.

 Jesus became the sin offering for us when He died on the cross and His perfect sacrifice is enough for us. We can know God and be counted as righteous because of what Jesus has done for us. There is nothing more that needs to be done, only that we repent and believe, as Abraham believed, and we will enter into the joy of knowing God and being free from all sin and death. Hell has no more jurisdiction over us for we belong to the Father and none can take us out of His loving hands.

“I give eternal life to them. They will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.”  

John 10:28

15 “He (Abraham) lived as a foreigner in Gerar.”

 Genesis 20:1

Gerar was a godless Philistine city which skirted the desert and provided refreshment for travellers. Abraham found himself there but he did not settle nor give his allegiance to it. It was not part of the earthly inheritance promised to Abraham.

We also have an inheritance from God as His elect people. We have all our citizenship in the heavenly country which is the New Jerusalem. We must not settle or put down roots in this world, for we are not of it. Abraham kept his life separate from the world and lived in faith towards God. He did not depend on the world to sustain him but rested his hope in the Lord. So also, we must not let this world infiltrate our thinking and doing but remain faithful to our Lord and God.

 Let us keep this world out of our life and separate ourselves from ungodly living and finding our satisfaction in the things of this life. Let us devote our days to the Lord and His Word and follow in the footsteps of our Saviour Jesus who left all for our sake. May the enticements of this present life sit lightly on us as we think of our heavenly inheritance. Our reality is more than the inheritance of the worlding which is only sin and death. We have been freed from all that.

“Stand firm therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and don’t be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.”

 Galatians 5:1

 

 

14 “and the Lord did to Sarah as he had spoken.”

 Genesis 21:1

 The Word of the Lord is binding and will surely come to pass. God keeps all His promises to the godly and the unjust also. God had promised Sarah a miracle baby in the form of Isaac and God kept His promise for nothing is too hard for the Lord. Sarah had her baby boy at ninety years of age, and he gave her great delight. He was the son of promise and through his generations God would bless the whole world. The line of the Messiah would come through that family, and the very Word of God would be born into the world as its Saviour.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

 John 1:1

 The Word of God stands forever sure, and He will keep all His promises to you and bring you safely to the heavenly home, if you are trusting in Him. None of His words can fail and we have them written for us in the Bible. Jesus is the very Word of God incarnate, and we can trust Him for all the prophecies about Him have proved true. His Word never fails but will accomplish all that it says.