Wed.’s Devo - The Struggle

Read: Genesis 35:1-36:43; Matthew 12:1-21; Psalm 15:1-5; Proverbs 3:21-26
God told Jacob to go back to the place where he first heard from Him and build an altar. Jacob immediately cleansed his household. God didn’t tell Jacob about his idolatrous lifestyle, he just gave him a task. When God speaks to us and gives us an assignment, our conscience is brought back to life. It tells us what we need to do and we realize our sinful state. Repentance is powerful spiritual warfare. When they buried their foreign gods the terror of God fell on the people so that no one tried to attack them.
Jacob built his altar in Bethel, the first place God spoke to Abram. It was also the place God had spoken to Jacob when he was running from Esau. It represents the cross - the place of repentance and salvation.
Verse 8 seems so unimportant and out of place. It says that, Deborah, Rebekah’s nurse died and was buried beneath Beth-el under an oak and the name of it was Allon-bacuth.
I have learned that nothing is insignificant in the Bible so I decided to investigate. Deborah has never been introduced until now. Her name means “her speaking”. I would think that since she was Rebekah’s nurse that she stood for Rebekah’s words. Rebekah had been the master mind of Jacob’s deceit and now God was showing us that her sin was forgiven and dead. The curse that she had evoked on herself (Gen. 27:13) was no longer alive.
We get the account once more of God changing Jacob’s name to Israel. Now we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that that man that wrestled Jacob was the Lord, himself.
Rachel also had to die but she died in childbirth, bringing Benjamin into the world. She was bitter and named him Ben-oni which means “son of my trouble” but Jacob changed his name to Benjamin, “son of my right hand.” This is a picture of the church being born. She came out of Christ’s great struggle on the earth, but God’s perspective was that that struggle brought his bride access to his throne. We are the son of God’s right hand; we move through him and do miracles through him.
The Bible is all about teaching us our identity in God. It is a struggle for us understand just as it was a struggle for the people to understand Jesus’ identity. The Pharisees kept calling Jesus out for not following their man-made laws when Jesus was operating from a different kingdom. He had help make those laws and now he was bringing a new law and replacing the law with himself. The Pharisees struggled with Jesus’ identity because they never understood their own. They were suppose to be the students and Jesus the teacher, but they became the judge and him the wrongly accused.
Isaiah had prophesied that Jesus would be the one God loved and put his Spirit on to proclaim justice to the nation. The public would not understand but there would be nations that would put their trust in Him.
Lord, thank you that we are that nation of people who put our trust in You.