Genesis 28:10 – Meanwhile, Jacob left Beersheba and traveled toward Haran. 11 At sundown he arrived at a good place to set up camp and stopped there for the night. Jacob found a stone to rest his head against and lay down to sleep. 12 As he slept, he dreamed of a stairway that reached from the earth up to heaven. And he saw the angels of God going up and down the stairway.
13 At the top of the stairway stood the Lord, and he said, “I am the Lord, the God of your grandfather Abraham, and the God of your father, Isaac. The ground you are lying on belongs to you. I am giving it to you and your descendants. 14 Your descendants will be as numerous as the dust of the earth! They will spread out in all directions—to the west and the east, to the north and the south. And all the families of the earth will be blessed through you and your descendants. 15 What’s more, I am with you, and I will protect you wherever you go. One day I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have finished giving you everything I have promised you.”
16 Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I wasn’t even aware of it!” 17 But he was also afraid and said, “What an awesome place this is! It is none other than the house of God, the very gateway to heaven!”
18 The next morning Jacob got up very early. He took the stone he had rested his head against, and he set it upright as a memorial pillar. Then he poured olive oil over it. 19 He named that place Bethel (which means “house of God”). (NLT)
Today we read about Jacob’s dream at Bethel. The study of Jacob is a very interesting study. He is a complicated character, and comes from a family of complicated characters! In this passage, Jacob is basically ‘getting out of town’ because his brother Esau is thinking of killing him! Of course, we cannot overlook why Esau felt this way – Jacob had tricked their father Isaac into bestowing upon Jacob a blessing that was legally due his brother Esau. Yet, even given his life of trickery and deceit, God was still preparing Jacob for a great future.
If one were to read various verses about Jacob, one could surely wonder why God would want to bless someone so deceitful. That’s a great question! Another great question would be to ask ourselves why God would want to bless someone as sinful as we? The answer we would come up with is this: God is in the business of blessing people! We don’t deserve God’s blessings, yet they are freely given. God’s blessings are not earned, and in this passage Jacob is receiving the same promise that was given to Abraham and Isaac before him. Neither of them deserved God’s blessing. If it was earned it would not be a blessing, it would be a wage. Sin deserves a wage, and that wage is death, but God freely blesses instead (Romans 6:23).
Just as God prepared Jacob for a great future regardless of his past, God this day is preparing us for something great regardless of any sin in our past! God is preparing us for kingdom life. We can begin our kingdom life here and now, and God wants us to experience it here and now. Let us learn from Jacob, our past can be put behind us, at least as far as God is concerned.
So today, let us seek the blessings that God has in store for us. Let us also praise God for setting aside our past. That’s Good Stuff!
Posted by Ramón Torres
That’s good stuff🙏🙏🙏