Jacob to Israel – A Life Transformed – 14
What we find in Genesis 35:5 is that it would have been useless for Jacob’s household to continue their journey had the repentance and justification not taken place. This one act of ‘getting right’, allowing themselves to be justified was the very act that protected them along the way. We read that “the terror of God was on the cities around them and they did not pursue them“. This demonstrates that when we walk with God, in His ways, confessing our sin before Him then He is at liberty to protect us. Notice I use the word liberty because God does nothing to violate free will. God always works in partnership with those who demonstrate repentance, those who bow the knee before Him in recognition that He is Lord.
Jacob arrives at the place of his ‘God Encounter’. I wonder how many of us have ever revisited the place or moment where we first encountered God, the place where everything became clear? We need to hold onto that place or moment as there will be times in our lives when we will need to remind ourselves of God’s absolute faithfulness and like Jacob return and build an altar a second time and call it El-Bethel, God of the house of God.
Jacob has arrived at Padan-Aram, the place where he started from some 20 years earlier. His troubles are not over, yet there is this kind of acceptance that God Almighty is in control. Jacob has come a long way from the days when he wanted to be in control, to a place where God is now in control.
God has a way with mankind that when we seek after Him He accomplishes within us that which causes us to be able to follow Him, even through adverse circumstances.
God appears to Jacob again at the same place where he had had his ‘God Encounter’ and blesses him. We can imagine God reminding Jacob of the wrestling match that they had together, you know the one where Jacob got injured, and says to him “your name is now Israel”. In other words Jacob, “start living as a prince”, “be different”, “you have wrestled and prevailed and I love you and care for you”.
It’s as if God is saying things like “through all the trials of your life I have been with you, I have given good things to you because I love to give, I can’t do anything else, that is what I do, I give and I create”.
God then says something that He says to all mankind. “Be fruitful and Multiply”. This command was given to the first beings, Adam and Eve and has been given down through the ages to all who would choose to follow Christ. ‘Be fruitful and Multiply’ God wants us to exercise that which is in Himself, to give and give and enable others to live.
Jacobs’ response is one of thankfulness, one of gratitude and worship. He builds an altar and pours a drink offering over it in recognition of the Almighty God who is over all and in all.
// Required code