a step at a time...

the pages of the bible and the pages of the newspaper and the pages of our personal history all tell stories of how in our haste we have built our lives so poorly in our rush, in rapid decisions we have made some bad trades.  we’ve traded careers for embezzlement.  we’ve traded health and reputation for addiction.  we’ve traded marriage and children for an affair.  and we’ve done these so quickly.  in such a rush.  i don’t want to live my life like that.  and you don’t either.

in my study about the life of JESUS there’s something i’ve noticed.  as i really try to get to know JESUS, as i read about HIM in the bible, i realize that HE never one time ran anywhere.  not once.  HE lived HIS life a step at a time.  in unhurried fashion HE made HIS decisions and HE followed HIS FATHER’s will.  i thought that’s the kind of life i want to live.  in unhurried fashion, step at a time i want to follow my heavenly FATHER’s will.  that’s how i want to live.

how about you? 

just a thought from the front porch…

running or depending…

jacob is given a reminder of his experience so he’ll never forget what’s happened to him the rest of his life.  GOD gave him a limp. genesis 32.31 (niv), the sun rose as jacob left peniel, and he was limping because of his hip. 

in the struggle, GOD dislocated his hip and left a weakness.  for the rest of his life jacob walked with a limp.  he would never walk the same again.  a reminder of that event, the event of  Jacobs wrestling with GOD, of his coming face to face with GOD.

when you really meet GOD, you will never walk the same again.  if you say, “i'm a CHRISTian,” and your life has not changed any bit you’re not really a CHRISTian.  you’ve never really met GOD.  you cannot meet somebody who’s as great as GOD and not have your desires change.  you want to do the right thing now, you can’t do it.  he would never walk the same again.

so what is the significance of this limp?  two things.

           

1.     it stopped jacob’s lifelong pattern of running. 

if you have followed jacob’s story you know he was constantly creating trouble and running from it.  he’d create a problem then run from it.  he was always trying to escape.  he was the most irresponsible a person you could imagine.  he was always running from problems that he created.  GOD said, “we can stop that.  we’ll just give you a limp.  you’ll never run again.”  it’s a reminder.

it is never GOD’s will for you to run from a problem.  never.  if you run from it, it will just come up again because GOD’s more interested in changing your character than making your life comfortable. 

2.  it’s a daily reminder to depend upon GOD. 

your thigh muscle is the largest and strongest muscle in your body.  GOD touched jacob at his greatest point of strength and created a weakness out of it.  from that point on jacob was going to have to stand in GOD’s power not his own.  jacob leaves this situation both stronger and weaker – stronger in that he’s not the same person any more, there’s been a conversion.  all the junk in his past has been dealt with.  but also weaker because now he’s going to have to depend on GOD for his daily walk.  we have to remember to depend on GOD on his strength not our own.

just a thought from the front porch…

run or fight?...

jacob on his way back to his native land is thinking about something all the way there.  there’s one thought in his mind.  it’s not the mountains he used to climb on.  it’s not the food that he might have missed of his native land.  it’s the person who’s there.  it’s the person he’s going to have to face, face to face – his brother esau. 

when last he left, it was like the western where they’re standing at high noon ready to draw and jacob turned around and ran away.  he’s feeling like esau’s going to still be standing there with his gun drawn… or his sword.  and the fear and the tension was mounting.  jacob prepares to meet esau.  he’s got some schemes and some plans of his own but GOD has an entirely different plan. 

genesis 32.22-30 (niv), that night jacob got up and took his two wives, his two maidservants and his eleven sons, and crossed the ford of the brook jabbok.  after he had sent them across the stream… jacob was left alone and a MAN wrestled with him till daybreak.  when the MAN saw that he could not overpower HIM HE touched the socket of jacob’s hip [one of the strongest muscles of our body] so that the hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the MAN.  then the man said, “let me go for it is daybreak.”  jacob replied, “i won’t let YOU go unless you bless me.”  the MAN said, “what’s your name?”  “jacob,”  he answered.  then the MAN said, “your name will no longer be jacob but israel because you have struggled with GOD and with men and have overcome.”  jacob said, “please tell me your name.”  HE replied, “why do you ask my name?”  [the thought was if you get somebody’s name you had a power over them.  GOD laughed at him and said, “why do you ask my name?”] and then HE blessed him.  so jacob called the place peniel saying, “it is because i saw GOD face to face and yet my life was spared.”

he had a wrestling match.  perfect!  for a schemer, for someone who ran from every problem, a wrestling match.  he couldn’t run.  he was wrestling.  and who was he wrestling with?  he knew.  it was GOD. 

this is what we learned was called a theophany, an appearance of GOD in human form.  it’s not all of GOD but an appearance of GOD in human form.  HIM showing himself to us.  most theologians believe these appearances of GOD in the old testament the person of the GODhead that appeared was not the FATHER or the SPIRIT.  it was the SON, JESUS, before HIS birth on earth.  it’s not JESUS becoming a man before HIS birth in bethlehem.  it’s JESUS appearing as a man in order to deal in human lives.  

so jacob wrestles with GOD.

just a thought from the front porch…

how to recognize a schemer...

jacob in the old testament is a schemer.  so how do you recognize a schemer?  

well first of all schemers have usually been taught by a master schemer. if you’ve got a scheming mentality, a way of always doing the angles, there’s probably some master schemer in your life that’s showing you how.  who was jacob’s?  his mom. 

often times it is a parent who is a schemer who showed you how.  maybe it was an older brother or sister.  maybe it was a best friend.  maybe it was a business acquaintance who became a partner.  but there’s usually someone in your life who’s shown you, “they got what they want by scheming.  they reached the top by doing it this way.  that’s what i'm going to do, too.” 

but you don’t get to see into their soul.  you don’t get to see what it did to them.  you don’t get to see that there’s no joy.  you get to see that they got the prize but you don’t get to see that they lost the joy.

then we need to see that when things get difficult a schemers favorite strategy is one three-letter word – run!  fast!  far!  get away! 

if you move every three months, you may be a schemer.  jacob ran clear to the north of israel and then out.  he traveled from the north (damascus) and began to head towards haran.  as he heads toward the north, he decides to sleep for the night.  he gets a rock to lay his head on and something happens.  GOD has something to say to a schemer. 

GOD meets him there on the way to haran.  he has an experience that you and i have come to call jacob’s ladder.  it’s not really jacob’s ladder.  it’s GOD’s ladder, but we’ve come to call it jacob’s ladder.  he has a dream at bethel. 

in genesis 28.10 (niv),  jacob left beersheba and set out for haran.  when he reached a certain place he stopped for the night because the sun had set.  taking one of the stones there he put it under his head and lay down and went to sleep and he had a dream.  he saw a stairway resting on the earth and it’s top reaching to heaven.  the angels of GOD were ascending and descending on it.  there above it stood the LORD.  and HE said, “I am the LORD, the GOD of your father abraham, the GOD of isaac.  I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying.  your descendants will be like the dust of the earth and you will spread out to the west and the east, to the north and the south.  all people on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring.  I am with you.  I will watch over you wherever you go.  I will bring you back to this land.  I will not leave you until I have done what I’ve promised.”

is that a pretty assuring comment from GOD?  but jacob didn’t take it that way. 

just a thought from the front porch…