Read Gen. 35:1-7
God called Jacob back to the place he had visited him before - Bethel which means “house of God”. He told him to build an altar to him. Jacob’s household had blood on their hands and had turned away from following God with their whole heart. They had absorbed the gods and religions of the people they had lived among and God was calling them to repentance. Jacob told his family to put away the strange gods they had accumulated and cleanse their hearts and change their garments.
Garments were a covering that assumed the shape of the one that wore them. God told Moses to put holy garments on the priests. When God was talking to the churches in Revelation 3:4 he said that there were only a few names in Sardis that had not defiled their garments so they would be able to walk with him in white; for they were worthy. Today our garments are what people first see when the look at us. Do we reflect Jesus or do we look just like the world. Are we guarding our minds with Jesus so that we wear righteousness like a cloak? Are we wearing holy garments? Apparently, Jacob’s family needed to wash their garments and come clean. He took his family back to the place God had spoken to him. They gave him all their strange gods and all their earrings and Jacob hid them under the oak in Shechem. They buried their past sins and went in pursuit of God. Because they did this God put an invisible shield of protection around them. Everyone was afraid to touch or harm them. Even though they had just killed an entire city and carried everything they had away, no one came after them because they feared their God. They came to Bethel and built an altar to God in the very place he had been years before when he fled from Esau’s wrath. Many times, God will call us back to the place where we encountered him and renew our vows to him.
Lord, may we have a leader in America that will call us back to you and what you have done for us.
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