I am so thankful that “God said.”
God spoke to Jacob and He still speaks to us today through His Word the Bible.
I am so thankful that God said, “Arise, go up…”
We need the Lord to urge us to get up and go. For some of us our get up and go, got up and went a long time ago. We need fresh urgency from the Lord each day to rise up, go, and do.
“Make an altar.”
I am so thankful that the Lord calls us to the altar. The altar represents the place of sacrifice and the place of prayer. Jesus Christ, God’s Son, atoned for our sins on the cross, so now in His Name, we can approach the greatest throne that has or ever will exist. Namely, the throne of God. God’s throne is a throne of grace for all who come to Him in the Name of Christ.
God’s throne is above all thrones. In Psalm 2, God reveals that His Son has a day of reckoning for the earthly rulers who despised Him. They will not be able to halt His justice or vilify Him anymore. He will shatter their plots as when a clay pot is struck with an iron scepter. To avoid this shattering, they need to stop defying and denying and start worshipping Him:
“Why do the nations rage, and the people plot a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His Anointed [Jesus the Anointed One – the Christ].
They say, “Let us break Their bonds in pieces and cast away Their cords from us.”
He who sits in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall hold them in derision [contempt – they think they can judge God in contempt of their courts, but it will be quite the reverse].
Then He shall speak to them in His wrath and distress them in His deep displeasure.
“Yet I have set My King [Jesus] on My holy hill of Zion. I will declare the decree: the Lord has said to Me [Jesus], ‘You are My Son, today I have begotten You. Ask of Me, and I will give You
The nations for Your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for Your possession. You shall [Jesus] break them with a rod of iron; You shall dash them to pieces like a potter’s vessel.’
Now therefore, be wise, O kings; be instructed, you judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear,
And rejoice with trembling. Kiss [worship] the Son [Jesus], lest He be angry, and you perish in the way, When His wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all those who put their trust in Him.” [2]
After the Lord spoke to Jacob, he spoke to his family and said, “Let us arise and go up to Bethel; and I will make an altar there to God, who answered me in the day of my distress and has been with me in the way which I have gone.” [3]
I am thankful that the Lord is with us during times of distress. I am thankful that He keeps us by His side.
Someone once asked President Abraham Lincoln if he thought God was on his side in the civil war. He responded, “Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side, for God is always right.”
[1] Genesis 35:1
[2] Psalm 2
[3] Genesis 35:3
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