Tag Archive | promises

Genesis 28

Oct25

Good Morning y’all. Happy Saturday :).
Today we in chapter 28 of Genesis. Here, Isaac commanded Jacob not to marry canaanite women. Sent him away to his brother in law and asked him to marry one of his daughters. On his way Jacob encountered God.

I pray like Jacob, we too will have an encounter with God today as we study his word.

Be blessed 🙂

Isaac sent Jacob to his brother in-law Laban and he commanded Jacob not to take a canaanite wife but marry one of Laban daughters. Esau over heard the command and realised his father didn’t like canaanite women so he went to his uncle Ishmael and married his daughter Mahalath. Esau was hoping to win his father’s favour again. He wanted to please his father so bad. Perhaps his father will change his mind and bless him.

Esau’s problems started the day he carelessly handled the gift of God in his life (trading his birth right for a meal). He made a bad choice that came back to haunt him. Now he wants so bad to please his father. He wants so bad to win his father’s favor.

We need to be careful how we handle the gift of God in our lives. When we abuse them and repent, God will forgive us but that doesnt mean there wont be consequences for our actions. In Esaus’ case he lost the blessing and now he is trying to please and do things his father’s way but it was too late for him. I pray it won’t be too late for us. Whatever it is that we are involved in that is not pleasing to God, I pray the Holyspirit will give us the grace to walk away from them and God will have mercy and restore us back.

Jacob started on his journey to Labans house. On his way he stopped to sleep and he had a dream where God appeared to him and made promises to him. The promise are the same as He told Abraham and Isaac. God promised He will give them the land and their descendants will be as a many as the dusts of the earth and all the families of the earth will be blessed through him and his descendants.

Then we get to verse 15 which I must say is my favorite verse in the chapter :), this verse is so powerful and amazing. I want us to disect the verse one by one and I pray the truth of the words in the verse will settle in our hearts and fill us to overflow with Gods peace and assurance of his love for us. Amen

I am with you and will protect you everywhere you go and will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” Genesis 28:15 NCV

1) I am with you – this tells me that God is always there. I am is a present tense. It’s a fact that’s always true in the present. Its not in the past but today. Which means even when we don’t feel it or think so, God is always with us!. He is everywhere at all times. That’s why we say He is the Omnipresent God. He is Emmanuel; God with us. Whatever it is you are going through today no matter how bad, I want to assure you God is with you. It might not look like it but that’s the truth. Be encouraged :).

2) I will protect you – this tells me God is our protector. To protect according to the dictionary means to ‘defend or guard from attack, invasion, loss, annoyance, insults, etc’. God does all of that for us. So why should we fear…If God is on our side. He has promised He will protect us. Today hold on to this word. Whatever it is, God is able and will protect you and defend you. One man in the bible who understood what it meant to be protected by God is King David- he had loads of enemies during his lifetime but He knew not to worry about them cos He knew who was backing him – God. In the psalms you see a trend where he is constantly asking God to protect him or declaring that God is his shield and defence. One of my favorite is psalm 18.

I love you, Lord . You are my strength. The Lord is my rock, my protection, my Savior. My God is my rock. I can run to him for safety. He is my shield and my saving strength, my defender. Psalms 18:1-2 NCV

3) ….everywhere you go – that is there is no where we can go that God can’t reach us. He is everywhere and so can protect and shield us wherever we are. So if you are in a situation like Jacob that you are having to leave your comfort zone for the unknown, take comfort in Gods promise this morning, He will protect you everywhere you go. Be encouraged 🙂

4) I will not leave you – (wow! are you excited already. I’m pumped up ready to get up and shout till the world hears me – God said he will not leave me!!! I just want to chant it everywhere 🙂 ). Again God is reminding us that not only is He always with us, not only will He protect us, but He will also not leave us.
The key words here are ‘will’ and ‘not’. Now let’s look at the definition/usage of each one.
a) ‘Will’ is used to express futurity. What I realised here is God said 1st of all to Jacob, I am with you…that’s the present. Now he said I will not leave you, that is the future. That is, for today I am with you and know that cos I will not leave you, you will also have me tomorrow. I am overwhelmed at this point at God’s great love for us.

b) ‘Not’ is used to negate something that is positive. In this case I will leave you is positive but once you insert the word not, it negates the possibility of leaving. That is, God is saying leaving us is something that will never happen at any time!. (Are you excited or what :). At this point, pls indulge me as I ask you to pause and give God some praise, just worship him from the depths of your heart for his love towards you. This God is too much. There is no searching of His power, no question of His greatness…words are failing me to express how i truly feel about my God)

5) ….until I have done what I have promised you –  (Wow I’m done. I’m just too excited! Don’t know if I can take anymore without bursting 🙂 ) here, God is saying every single promise I made to you will come to pass. I am going to be around to make sure those promises come through. Friends, God is not a man that He will lie. Honestly He is faithful to the end. He is reminding us this morning that no matter what, we need to remember He is going to stand with us till what He promised comes to pass. He will hold our hands through it all.

Be encouraged this morning. Invite Jesus into the situation. Let him take it over for you. He never intended for you to have to carry the burden, that’s why he is there – to carry them for you. 1Peter 5:7 says cast your cares to the lord for he cares for you. Give it all to Jesus, let him heal, restore and comfort you. His love for you is unconditional. Jeremiah 31:3(NCV) says “I love you people with a love that will last forever. That is why I have continued showing you kindness.”

Prayer:
Dear Lord we thank you so much for today, we are so grateful for your word this morning. Words are not enough to express our gratitude to you. You are just too much, in a class of your own, God all by yourself! Who is like unto you or who can we compare you to. Thank you so much for your love and for reminding us this morning that you are always with us, that you will protect us, that you will never leave us until you bring to pass all you have promised us. Wow God it’s too much for us :). We pray you help us believe today and that the truth of those words will wash over us, settle in our hearts and fill us with your peace till we overflow. Oh Lord we love you so much. May you always be the object of our affection. In Jesus Name. Amen.

Thanks for joining. I have faith that you have been blessed today 🙂

GO FORTH TODAY WITH BOLDNESS AND CONFIDENCE KNOWING THAT YOUR GOD IS ALWAYS WITH YOU, HE WILL PROTECT YOU, HE WILL NOT LEAVE YOU ALONE! 🙂

***With God all things are possible***

Genesis 26

Oct23

Good. Morning y’all. Today we in chapter 26 of Genesis. I thank God for bringing us this far and I truly pray you have been blessed so far with our study of the book of Genesis. I know have been blessed :). In today’s chapter we see God appear to isaac and promises to bless him as a result of his father’s obedience, Isaac repeats the same mistake his father made by lying about his wife, Isaac prospers in a foreign land and Esau marries foreign women.

Holyspirit we ask for insight that you will open our eyes to see, our ears to hear and our hearts to percieve the truth in the word today. Amen.

Be blessed 🙂

Isaac is reaping the benefit of Abrahams obedience. God appeared to him and give him similar instructions and made promises to Isaac. God ended by saying in v5 ‘because Abraham did everything I told him to’. That is, Isaac you are enjoying all of this as a result of your fathers obedience therefore I will fulfil all the promises I made to Abraham your father.
This tells me that our obedience to God or not will affect the generations coming after us. Let’s examine ourselves, are we living a reckless life that will come back to haunt the generations coming after us or are we living our lives in a manner that’s pleasing to God and so will benefit the future generations?. In a nutshell what legacy are you leaving for the next generation? Are you leaving behind blessings or curses?

In verse 7, we see Isaac repeat the same offence Abraham did when he moved to Gerar. He too lied that his wife is his Sister just because he didn’t want the men of the land to kill him in order to get his wife. Ain’t it funny that his father did exactly the same thing and now him too. Even though Isaac wasn’t born when his father acted that way, yet when he was faced with the same situation he reacted exactly the same way as his father did….lol..seems like they have issues trusting God for protection when it comes to their wives! :). I mean God had appeared to Isaac in the previous verses and made promises to him, even told him to go this land. So why then couldn’t Isaac trust God to protect him and his wife? Was it that he was still immature in his walk with God and didn’t fully understand Gods nature yet or is this a genetic thing that’s just passed down the family line…lol. Either way, we need to examine ourselves to find where like Isaac, we are trying to help God and not trusting him to do what he has promised to do in our lives.

One day king Abimelech happened to stumble on Isaac hugging and kissing his wife and called him and asked why he lied. Funny again Isaac response was the same as his father ‘Because I thought someone would kill me’. Abimelech wasn’t too happy and told Isaac that if someone had slept with his wife he would have brought sin on the whole nation. In effect Isaacs lying could have cost the whole nation. Lesson to learn here is that our actions impact others not just us alone. Our decision to be obedient and do the right thing has a ripple effect on others around us. Same with our decision to be disobedient.

Isaac was blessed in a foreign land scripture says he planted grain and had a good harvest the same year.
Isaac planted grain and had a good harvest that same year. The Lord blessed him, and Isaac was so successful that he became very rich. (‭Genesis‬ ‭26‬:‭12-13‬ CEVUS06)
Even though he was in a foreign land God still prospered and blessed him. Friends Gods blessings are not limited by our location. As long as you are where God wants you to be and obey his instructions, you will enjoy his blessings. I hear people say things like ‘because we are in a foreign land it will be difficult to break though or they don’t give jobs to people who are not from this land… blah blah’. I cringe when I hear things like that from christians, cos to me it’s like indirectly telling God he is restricted and can’t work in that land. So what if that’s the norm in the Land? Have you forgotten that God owns and controls everything. He can change the norm for you because you are his child. Let’s have faith and trust God to bless and make a way for us where we are right now. God is not limited by physical things.

In Isaacs case, he was told to go to Gerar. He obeyed and moved and God blessed him so much that even the philistines were jealous of his blessings so much that they started clogging up all the wells that Abraham dug up during his time. Eventually Abimelech told him to get out of the land because he had become too powerful. God had blessed him so much that the people of the land were threatened by his blessings. Friends when God starts to bless us there will be people that are not happy about it. They will try their best to bring us down and steal our blessings but we have to keep focus and not let them distract us from what God is doing in our lives and where he is taking us.

So Isaac left and settled in the valley still in Gerar. While his men were digging in the valley they found another well but the people of the land started arguing that the well belonged to them. They named the well quarrel. His men dug another well again and this same people again claimed the well belonged to them. They named the well Jealous. Finally they dug another well and this time no one argued it was theirs!!! So Isaac named the well ‘Lots of room’ because the Lord had given them room and would make them very successful.
Finally, they dug one more well. There was no quarreling this time, and the well was named “Lots of Room,” because the Lord had given them room and would make them very successful. (‭Genesis‬ ‭26‬:‭22‬ CEVUS06)
Some people will just not be happy that we are blessed. They will do everything they can to bring us down. But if like Isaac and his men we persevere and keep going we will eventually overcome and get to a place where their is lots of room for us to prosper. Isaac and his men didn’t give up, they kept on digging wells until they finally got to one that was not disputed by the people of the land. Friends, don’t give up in the face of opposition. Hold on to Gods promise and keep going. Have faith that the one who has called us is able to see us through. Isaac knew Gods promise was that he would bless him in the land so he didn’t give up.

Isaac moved on to Beersheba and God appeared to him and told him not to be afraid, He will bless him and because of his father He will give him many descendants. Isaacs response to the Lords word was to build an altar and worship God. He praised God in advance for the promises. Friends don’t wait to start praising God when the promises are fulfilled, we need to start praising now because while we are doing that, the devil is confused as he can’t understand why we would be thankful and praising God for something we haven’t received yet but God on the other hand is pleased when we praise him for things we can’t see yet. It moves him to do more for us because it shows that we have faith and trust him. What are you waiting for? Get to praising !!! 🙂

Abimelech and his men came to see Isaac and Isaac asked why they came seeing as they sent him packing from the land. They replied in v28 and 29 saying “We now know for certain that the Lord is with you, and we have decided there needs to be a peace treaty between you and us. So let’s make a solemn agreement not to harm each other. Remember, we have never hurt you, and when we sent you away, we let you go in peace. The Lord has truly blessed you.” (‭Genesis‬ ‭26‬:‭28-29‬ CEVUS06).
As a result of Gods blessing even in the valley they finally realised it must be God working in Isaac and decided it’s best to be on his good side seeing as the Lord is with him. They asked Isaac for a peace treaty and Isaac gave it to them. So they left and it’s funny that after they left the next verse tells us that Isaacs servant came and told him they have struck water! Isaac named the well Shibah which means “oath”. 
Friends, our enemies can not stop Gods blessing in our lives. By the time God is done with us, they who once opposed us will be the ones coming back to beg our forgiveness because they will realise when they contend with us, they are contending with God because we belong to Him. Lets keep our head up. Our God is not limited, He is Sovereign over all. He knows our needs even before we ask and always ready to meet them. Let’s keep the faith, keep trusting and doing the right thing and in due season God will reward us.

Esau Esau Esau oh my! Not only did he sell his birthright for a meal in the previous chapter, now he decided to marry foreign women who don’t serve the Lord God Almighty. And verse 35 says those women brought a lot of grief to Isaac and Rebekah. There’s only two outcome when we are yoked with people who don’t share our faith in God. Either our lives impact them so much that they turn to our God or they impact us and turn our hearts away from God to serve their foreign gods. Seems the latter is what happened in Esaus case and his parents were having to deal with the issue.
Lets examine ourselves today, what are we unequally yoked with. We need to come out before our heart is turned away from God.

Prayer:
Dear Lord we thank you for today and we thank you for your word. Today we ask for the grace to live a life that’s pleasing to you. We ask for your help to trust u more even in the face of opposition. Sweet Holyspirit we ask that you open our eyes to those areas where we have turned away from God. Give us the grace to make amends and bring us back to you. Thank you Lord. In Jesus Name. Amen

Thanks for joining today. Pls feel free to share your thoughts on the chapter.

Have a blessed Thursday. Remember God is not limited by our location. He can bless us wherever we are.

***With God all things are possible***