Genesis 27-28
In the Bible story of salvation, the only real 'Hero' is God Himself who chooses, blesses, uses and changes people who are often miserably faulty characters.
God's plan was to continue the promised covenant line of Abraham's "offspring" through Jacob, the younger of the two sons of Isaac and Rebekah (Genesis 25:23). But the outworking of God's plan sadly involved low and unworthy manipulation (Jacob buying the birthright of the first born - Genesis 25:29-34) and deception (Rebekah and Jacob's lie to get Isaac to bless Jacob - Genesis 27).
After a momentous revelation of God's presence with him at Bethel, all Jacob can do is try and strike a bargain with God. If God looks after him and brings him safely home, then he will accept the Lord as his God, build a house for God and give God a tithe as an expression of his commitment to the kingship of God over his life (Genesis 28:20-22).
It would be years before Jacob would finally acknowledge the God of his fathers (Genesis 27:20; 28:23) as His own God. It would take twenty years of God blessing him (Genesis 29-31) and another huge personal encounter with God (Genesis 32). Only at the end of his life do we hear Jacob saying the Lord is "my shepherd" (Genesis 48:15).
What did (or might) it take for us to confess that "the Lord is MY Shepherd"?
And that the only real 'Hero' in our own life story is God?
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