8 God is Faithful

Genesis 35
1. "Move on to Bethel now, and settle there," God said to Jacob, "and build an altar to worship me - the God who appeared to you when you fled from your brother Esau."
2. So Jacob instructed all those in his household to destroy the idols they had brought with them, and to wash themselves and to put on fresh clothing.
3. "For we are going to Bethel," he told them, "and I will build an altar there to the God who answered my prayers in the day of my distress, and was with me on my journey."
4. So they gave Jacob all their idols and their earrings, and he buried them beneath the oak tree near Shechem.
LB

In Genesis chapter 28, Jacob, as a young man on the run, made a vow to the Lord one night after he met God in a vivid dream-encounter.
Now God meets with Jacob again twenty-one years later and gives him the directions in Genesis 35.

The intervening time had been twenty-one years of joys and sorrows during which God allowed life to teach Jacob some memorable lessons. Jacob had become a man of humility and had given up trying to take advantage of others whenever the opportunity presented itself. He had become a man of integrity.

God was now ready for Jacob to mark this mile-stone of intgrity and make a new and deeper commitment to God's purpose for his life.

Notice how willingly Jacob followed God's instructions. This was because the biggest lesson he had learned, outside of humility and integrity, was that God was a faithful God, who had stuck with him and never deserted him.

God is still that way with us today!
Praise God!

Prayer:
Father, help me, like Jacob to come to a place of humility and willingness to obey Your directions.
Help me always to appreciate Your faithfulness to me and to express my appreciation in words when I pray,
in Jesus' name,
Amen.