Daily Devotion, January 4, 2023

 

Devotion:

Read Genesis 27:1-29.

Jacob, the deceiver. His name literally means, “heel-grabber.”  This story would puzzle even the best Family Counselor! During pre-marriage counseling, a couple is often asked about the stories of the previous generations’ ways and patterns of their families. Can you imagine Joseph’s children telling the stories of their Grandfather Jacob’s and their Great-Grandmother Rebekah’s deceptive ways?

Jacob’s greed and hunger for power led him on a pathway of deceiving his brother and his father. First he deceived his brother for his birthright. Secondly, Jacob deceived his father to give him the blessing of inheritance which should have gone to his older twin brother, Esau. God works within the midst of all this. Later this week, you will be reading about God’s transforming work in Jacob’s life.

There is another thread here worthy of exploration. In the Old Testament the understanding of being blessed by God is that all things would go well with you. If blessed, everything would fall in its place and there would not be striving or suffering. And they believed that God’s blessing was reserved for one group of people.

But when we read Jesus’ words in Matthew’s and Luke’s gospels, Jesus opens up for his listeners new understandings of what it means to be blessed. For example, in Matthew 5:5, Jesus says, “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.” Throughout the gospels of the New Testament, Jesus also teaches his disciples that God’s blessing is offered unto all people, not just one group of people.

God is never the deceiver and deception is never God’s way. God sees through humanity’s ways of deception from the same motives of greed and power as Jacob’s. Yet, God is able to restore, transform and redeem the ways of the deceivers.

It’s interesting in the Disciple I Bible Study, that the chapter on Jacob’s family story is titled, “Covenant”. I liked the following quote. “So the covenant community is called, shaped, tested, and watched over by God. Imperfect people—doubting, conniving, arrogant people---are molded into a message: God is God of all creation. God can be trusted.”

Personal Worship Option:

Also, from the Disciple I Bible Study: “In looking back over your life, where do you see God’s shaping and guiding providence?” God is faithful in keeping the covenant with us imperfect people.