Thurs.’s Devo - Possessing the Gate of the Enemy

Read: Genesis 24:52-26:16; Matthew 8:18-34; Psalm 10:1-15; Proverbs 3:7-8 The servant wanted to leave immediately with Rebecca and go back home but the brother wanted him to stay 10 days. They called in Rebecca to let her make the decision. She wanted to leave so off they went to meet Isaac. *** Isaac loved Rebecca and was comforted after his mother’s death. Abraham married Keturah and from her and her offspring had 16 descendants. Abraham lived to be 175 and was buried in the cave with Sarah. *** Ishmael had 12 sons which became princes over their land. He lived to be 137. *** Isaac was 40 years old when he married Rebecca but she was barren. Isaac pleaded with the Lord for a son and God heard his prayer. Rebecca became pregnant with twins. They struggled in her womb and God said it was because they were two nations who would struggle when they came out too. The older would serve the younger. *** The first twin was Esau who was born with hair all over his body like fur. The second was Jacob. Isaac loved Esau because he hunted game and he loved to eat it. Rebecca loved Jacob because he was a homebody and helped her cook. *** One day, Esau came in from hunting and Jacob was cooking stew. Esau wanted some but Jacob bargained a bowl of soup for his birthright. Esau despised his birthright by giving it up for the stew. *** There was a famine in the land and Isaac went to the king of the Philistines, Abimelech. God told him not to go to Egypt but to stay here with the Philistines in Gerar. He told him he would multiply his descendants as the stars of heaven and bless the earth through them because of Abraham. *** Isaac told Rebecca to tell everyone there that she was his sister so they wouldn’t kill him for her. (Here we go again!) But the king saw them flirting together and called Isaac in and rebuked him for lying. Isaac told him why he did it ,so the king made it law that if anyone touched Rebecca would die. Isaac sowed seed in their land and reaped 100 fold. He became so prosperous the Philistines because jealous and afraid of him. He was becoming more powerful than them. They stopped up his water supply to drive him out of town. Abimelech met with him and told him they needed to leave because they were becoming too big. *** In Matthew, a scribe came to Jesus and wanted to follow him wherever he went. He answered the man saying that he didn’t have a permanent place to stay. This must have been a personal thing with this man. We don’t know if he followed Jesus or not. Another came and wanted to follow Jesus but first go bury his father. Another excuse that Jesus saw through. *** Jesus got into his boat to go to the other side. On the way over there was a storm. Jesus rebuked it and it became calm. The disciples were amazed. This was a precursor for what they were about to meet. *** On the other side were two demon-possessed men who lived in the caves. They recognized Jesus as the Son of God and begged to go into the herd of swine. Jesus sent them to the swine who jumped a cliff to get to water. This scared the people of the city so much they asked him to leave. *** Lord, thank you that you are in control of who rules the nations and you watch over your people and protect them. You are our refuge and high tower. May we possess the gates of our enemies.