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Daily Devotion: Genesis 32:9-12

Genesis 32:9-12    "And Jacob said, O God of my father Abraham, and God of my father Isaac, the LORD which saidst unto me, Return unto thy country, and to thy kindred, and I will deal well with thee.  (10)  I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies, and of all the truth, which thou hast shewed unto thy servant; for with my staff I passed over this Jordan; and now I am become two bands.  (11)  Deliver me, I pray thee, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau: for I fear him, lest he will come and smite me, and the mother with the children.  (12)  And thou saidst, I will surely do thee good, and make thy seed as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude."

The Lord appeared unto Jacob and told him to go back to his father's house. He was fearful to go back, but he was learning to depend upon the Lord.  He remembered the dream where he saw the ladder and had heard the words of God. For 21 years, he had those words imprinted upon his heart. No doubt, his father Isaac, had told him of the time when God had provided the ram as the substitute for the burnt offering. He knew of the way God had blessed his grandfather, Abraham. Now it was his turn to draw from those lessons and seek to have God's mercy applied to his life.

It was time for him to prove to himself that God's promises are true. Notice the prayer, "O God of my father Abraham, and God of my father Isaac..." Do you see anything missing from the first words of his prayer? When I see those words, I notice that he does not speak of God as being "his God".  We will see that he is brought to the place of confessing God to be his God as well as his fathers', but for now he seems to be drawing from what he knows God has done in the past. 

 I want to be familiar with the manner in which God has worked in the lives of the saints in the Scripture. But my thoughts this morning are telling me that I need to rise from the place of seeing Him as God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to the place where I acknowledge Him to be my God as well. I want to be in the place where Paul wrote, "But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus." (Philippians 4:19)  I want to walk in the confidence that "My God".... shall "surely do me good."  I want to walk in the confidence of which David tells us in Psalm 56:9, "When I cry unto thee, then shall mine enemies turn back: this I know; for God is for me."

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