Jacob to Israel – A Life Transformed – 3

This “‘Awesome Place” is:-

1. A place of Revelation (Genesis 28:12-13)

God reveals Himself to a man or woman when they are alone. Jacob was running from his brother’s wrath yet at the same time he was going to a place at the bidding of his father. As we have seen, God knows what He is doing when He intervenes in our lives. We may not like it and it may be through circumstances that are beyond our control, but God is on the throne and knows when to intervene.

Revelation came to Jacob in the form of a ladder reaching to heaven with angels ascending and descending (Genesis 28:12), notice they were going up before they came down. It is as if God was saying you come to me and I will give you rest, trust in me and my plan for you and not in your own schemes and plans.

The revelation of God to Man is always a personal revelation (Genesis 28:13). God speaks to the individual and says “I will be God to you” and “I will give“. The very heart of God is that He wants to establish His covenant with us and “Be God to us“. and He gives all of Himself to us. The land on which we lie, the place of our deepest trouble and our most desperate situation is the place that God wants to give us for our possession. God does this so that in and through the work that He does in us “all the families of earth will be blessed“. Those we meet on a daily basis will be encouraged and see the salvation of our God. God wants the willing heart, the one that has reached rock bottom and is desperate for Him to step in so that He can work out His plan of salvation to all nations.

2. A place of Promise (Genesis 28:14-17)

• A promise that He will give (Genesis 28:13). The heart of God gives and gives again. God wants us to be reliant on His generous giving spirit. He wants us to begin to understand, accept and experience something of this generous spirit that says ‘to you and your descendants‘.
•  A promise of fruitfulness (Genesis 28:13-14). This is not necessarily material fruitfulness. Where God primarily meets mankind is on the spiritual level and if we never allow God to carry us to Himself and rescue us spiritually then we will never really bear ‘fruit that will remain‘ (John 15) and therefore never be fruitful.
• A promise that He will be God to us wherever we go, wherever the sole of our foot treads He is there, sticking like glue. We can experience Him in good times and bad, in the ‘ups’ and ‘downs’ of life. This is a promise that He will bring us back to the safety of Himself (Genesis 28:15).
• A promise that He will never leave us until He has accomplished all that He has spoken to us (Genesis 28:15).

What a faithful and loving God who, despite all our failings and anxieties, all our ‘ups’ and ‘downs’, all our deceitful misdemeanours, puts Himself at our disposal and promises to undertake, protect and above all never leave us.

3. A two fold place of Commitment.

• God’s commitment to Jacob Genesis 28:15

The  commitment that God gives is “I will never leave you until I have done what I have promised“. We need to hang onto this promise and commitment through all that life throws our way.

Lets begin to believe and stand on the promise that God has given us.

• Jacobs’ promise to God Genesis 28:20. 

Jacobs’ promise was that he would trust Almighty God, this God that had appeared to him and had intervened in his life; Jacob puts his trust in the ONE True GOD and places all of his future at God’s disposal. “If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and clothing to put on,and I come again to my father’s house in peace, then shall the Jehovah be my God“

Jacob was prepared to give God a chance, a chance to change his life. Changed lives do not happen in an instance they take a lifetime to work out.

• May we allow God to intervene in our lives?
• May we give God a chance?
• May we put our faith in a God who prepares the way for us to bring all to Him?
• And like Jacob may we participate in a relationship with God by dedicating what we have received from Him back to Him?

The scripture records in Genesis 28:16-17 that Jacob awoke from his dream and said “Surely the LORD is in this place, and I did not know it, what an awesome place, it is the house of God“

I wonder how we respond to such an incredible God?  Let us look and see Jacobs’ response.

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