All this week I will be sharing some thoughts on the life of Jacob, based on a series of messages I gave at a youth retreat last fall. I pray that this will be encouraging and challenging for you, as it was for me!

Monday we asked the question, “Who are you?” Yesterday, we considered “What do you really want?” Today the question is, “Where are you?”

While I was in college my family lived north of Chicago. My sophomore year I had my own car and was driving home from Ohio for the first time with a couple of other girls who lived in the area. I dropped one of them off deep in the city in an area that was unfamiliar to me – a very confusing area where all the highways twist and intersect. Needless to say, I got completely turned around. The girl who was with me in the car didn’t know how to read a map, and after we realized we were lost we were in a terrible part of town late at night and knew it wasn’t safe to sit in a parking lot trying to figure out where to go. [Oh, for a GPS!] :)

I called my dad frantically and told him what was happening. He told me, “find the Sears tower. Drive toward it, and keep it in your front passenger window.” I had no idea where I was, but by finding that one unmistakable Chicago landmark, my dad gave me a sense of direction and helped me find my way home. Having that one fixed landmark gave me the direction I needed to find my way out of utter confusion. Knowing where you are changes everything.

We’re picking up Jacob‘s story today in Genesis 28 as he flees from Esau and stops for the night in Bethel.

Remember the wording: a ladder was set up on the earth, and its top reached to heaven; and there the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. (28:12)

What is this dream all about? Access to God. God is basically offering Jacob a personal relationship with Him – which is the only access to heaven.

How does Jacob respond to God’s offer? Check out 28:20-21.

Then Jacob made a vow, saying, “If God will be with me, and keep me in this way that I am going, and give me bread to eat and clothing to put on, so that I come back to my father’s house in peace, then the Lord shall be my God.

In other words: Ok, God. IF you are with me and bless me and give me everything I need or want and bring me back to my family, THEN you can have the privilege of being my God. Is this a genuine response of faith and gratitude for God’s amazing offer? I’m afraid not. As we discussed in yesterday’s post, Jacob seems far more interested in receiving God’s blessings than he is in knowing God Himself. Jacob didn’t understand that the real treasure was knowing God. Now, keep all of that in mind and fast-forward to the New Testament. In John 1:51, Jesus says

“Most assuredly, I say to you, hereafter you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”

(The Son of Man is a title used for Christ). The wording Jesus used would not be lost on the men he was speaking to at this point- He was claiming to be Jacob’s ladder! He is the only point of access to the Father!

Through Christ, God has offered us an unbelievable gift – a way of access to Him! Unfortunately, our wayward hearts often respond similarly to Jacob’s: “If God will take care of me and keep me safe and keep me comfortable and give me everything I want, THEN He can be my God. [And if He allows me to experience pain or suffering or sickness or the results of my own bad choices or if He just does things I don’t understand, all bets are off.]”

My friends, we have to decide what we really want! Not only that… but do you know where you are?

Jacob realized that he was in the presence of God, and it made him afraid – but he didn’t allow it to change his heart and life.

Do you know where you are? Not just physically where you are… do you recognize that you are, right now, in the presence of God? That He wants to meet you where you are and have a true, vibrant relationship with you?

Stop settling for stuff. Wake up and realize that God is offering you access to Himself. Just like the Sears Tower offered me a fixed point of direction that allowed me to find my way, realizing that we live each day in His presence – longing to know Him above all else- will change the way we live, the choices we make, the priorities we have.

Do you realize where you are?

All this week I will be sharing some thoughts on the life of Jacob, based on a series of messages I gave at a youth retreat last fall. I pray that this will be encouraging and challenging for you, as it was for me!

Yesterday we asked the question, “Who are you?” Today, I have another question for you to consider: What do you really want?

My husband and I are terrible decision makers. We will go to a restaurant and our waitress will come back three or four times before we’re ready to order! And just when I think I’ve made up my mind, I turn the page on the menu, or a waiter walks by with someone else’s dinner, or my husband tells me what he’s having… and suddenly I don’t know what I want again! I am almost always the last person at the table to order.

I just hate it when I finally have made my decision, the waiter brings the food to the table, and someone else’s food looks better to me than my own. Restaurant regret. All that time deciding… and I still picked the wrong thing.

You know what would be so much worse than restaurant regret? Life regret. What if we reach the end of our lives and realize that what we decided we wanted wasn’t really the best thing? What if we find ourselves standing before the throne of Jesus realizing that we settled… that what looked so good, so appealing to us was a cheap substitute for what life should have been?

As we consider this question of what we really want, we’re going to be rejoining Jacob again in Beersheba. At this point in his life, he is still home with his family. Thinking about our discussion last night, remember that we can safely assume that he has heard a lot about God’s promises and faithfulness to his family. Jacob has seen and heard what God has done; now we’ll find out what he has decided that he wants.

In Genesis 25, what does Jacob want? The birthright – the birthright is a double portion of the inheritance [if Isaac left his sons 1200 sheep, Jacob would have received 400 and Esau would have received 800!]

How does he get it? Deceiving his brother! Remember why he was named Jacob: he is the heel grabber- the one who trips up, takes the place of, and deceives. His name literally means “deceiver,” and this is just the beginning of him living up to his name with gusto. Not only that, but the birthright is most definitely not all he wants.

Notice what he wants now – the blessing. I can’t fully explain to you how the blessing worked, but somehow God would work through the spoken blessings of the patriarchs to pass on the supernatural blessing. Genesis 26:12 tells us that Isaac planted crops and in the same year reaped a hundredfold because God had blessed him. Jacob surely noticed this, and his sights became set on the blessing in addition to the birthright. Why just inherit riches when your own wealth could exponentially increase?

You know the rest of this story. In order to secure the blessing, Jacob and his mother work together to “jacob” Isaac – time and time again he deceives and outright lies. Once his actions are discovered, Isaac and Esau’s summaries of the situation are telling.

But he said, “Your brother came deceitfully and took your blessing.” Esau said, “Isn’t he rightly named Jacob? He has deceived me these two times: He took my birthright, and now he’s taken my blessing!”

Isaac points it out clearly – he came deceitfully. He came “jacobly.”

It begs the question: God had richly blessed this family. He had taken care of them, He had allowed them to become wealthy and influential. Did Jacob want the God of his father and grandfather… or did he just want stuff?

Under the New Testament covenant, God doesn’t necessarily bless us with wealth and power for following Him; there are other types of blessings. Blessings such as:

• Peace
• Joy
• Direction
• God’s provision
• Fellowship with other believers
• Fewer self-inflicted problems
• Salvation

Friends, let me ask you a hard question. Do we want God, or do we just want this stuff?

Do we treasure knowing Him, or do we want a “get out of hell free” card?

Do we obey Him because we love Him, or do we want a reputation as a good Christian?

What do you really want? Are you going to reach the end of your life and realize that you spent your days in pursuit of the wrong thing?

To be continued tomorrow!

This week I will be sharing some thoughts on the life of Jacob, based on a series of messages I gave at a youth retreat last fall. I pray that this will be encouraging and challenging for you, as it was for me!

Did you ever read one of those “choose your own adventure” novels?

As you read along, you came to places in the story where you could decide if you wanted the story to unfold with plot A or plot B. Then you would come to another place where you could choose again. Each choice built on the one before to create a particular story.

Just like that “choose your own adventure” novel, your life is a series of defining questions, defining moments, and defining choices. At one point, we might seem to be in relatively the same place right as our peers, but as we go through our lives we will have particular moments that change and mark who we become. Some of these moments you will have control over, some you will not.

We will also all make defining choices. We will come to places in our lives where we must choose what is most important to us, who we are, if we will serve God or ourselves.

Underneath these defining moments and defining choices are some particular questions we must answer. Questions like, “What is the purpose of my life?” “What will I do with Jesus?” “Is God who the Bible says He is?” – the way we answer these questions  will radically change the way the rest of our lives unfold.

This week we will be considering four questions that tie together into one big question – what’s your story? As you come to those places where you can choose plot line A or plot line B… what decisions have you already made? Which ones will you make next? Ultimately each of those things will define the story of your life.

To look at our own stories and consider what God might want to do in the next chapters of our lives, we will be considering together the life of Jacob.

Everyone’s story begins with a family, and this is true for Jacob, as well.

As I think about Jacob’s family, it makes me wonder if he felt lost in the shadow of those around him. His grandfather was the Abraham – Jacob grew up hearing stories of his grandfather leaving Ur, believing incredible promises that God had made to him, waiting for years and years for their beloved son Isaac to be born. Surely his father had told him stories about the day he hiked up Mount Moriah with his dad, finding that God had commanded that he be sacrificed on top of the mountain… and the dramatic way God stopped them and provided a ram in the thicket.

These were the stories that were told as the family sat around their fire in the evenings. We read the book of Genesis… but these were their lives. Their stories.

And then there was Esau. Jacob was already a twin brother, and he was the twin who didn’t really get along as well with his father. Esau was the “man’s man.” He was an outdoorsy hunter, while Jacob preferred to stay near Rebekah and help her around the campsite.

I wonder if Jacob felt forgotten, unimportant, lost in the shadows of those around him. I wonder, after growing up hearing amazing stories of what God had done for his father and grandfather, if their sin caused him to view them as fakes.

Sometimes we can feel lost in the shadow. We can begin to rebel and reject those around us, thinking that they are fake. We can start to want to give up, comparing ourselves to those around us, feeling that we are unimportant or less valued than others we interact with. We can also begin to coast by on the spiritual heritage we have been given, resting in their testimonies of walking with God rather than striking out on a journey of our own with Him.

The question is – “who are you?” Not what kind of heritage do you have, how much knowledge do you have, what church do you belong to… who are you? What choice will you make to walk with the Lord Jesus Christ – no matter how fake or how spiritually outstanding others might be?

At the end of your life, what will be your story?

To be continued tomorrow!