January 11, 2010 Genesis 27 & 28, Psalm 4, Luke 11

Title: Ambitious mother leads son astray.
(S) Gen 27:11-13 Jacob said to Rebekah his mother, "But my brother Esau is a hairy man and I'm a man with smooth skin. What if my father touches me? I would appear to be tricking him and would bring down a curse on myself rather than a blessing. His mother said to him, "My son, let the curse fall on me. Just do what I say; go and get them for me."
(O) Rebekah not only favoured only one son, she was a woman that was not honest with her husband and convinced Jacob to be deceitful. This a woman who has ambition for her son without regard for anything else. Success at any cost. One lie leads to another in this sequence.
(A) I look at my children - I do not favour one above the other but I have wanted them to be successful in life. I want them to have a happy marriage and a home of their own and a good job that will support their families. I wonder if I have influenced them for Godliness as much as I have to get a good education, job and house?
(P) Those that watch us and copy us and will be as we are - how are we? God first or the things of this world first - they will surely copy us. God free us from wrong ambitions.

Title: Sin brings animosity between brothers.
(S) Gen 27:42b "Your brother Esau is consoling himself with the thought of killing you."
(O) By choosing a favourite son and leading him to deceit this mother has created blood lust between brothers - what such ambition leads to.
(A) I do not know how a mother could love one child more when each child you hold in your arms and love as a baby the same - it seems unthinkable - I just don't get it.
(P) I pray that I will never have one child even consider that there is a difference between them because there isn't.

Title: Trying to please your father.
(S) Gen. 28:8 "Esau then realized how displeasing the Canaanite women were to his father Isaac; so he went to Ishmael and married Mahalath,"
(O) Even though he was cheated out of his birthright and then out of his father's blessing and his father had nothing to give him this man is still trying to please his father.
(A)I think men are always looking for their father's approval. I have four sons and I know this.
(P) I hope and pray that my sons feel that their father does approve of them.

Title: It still shocks me that Jesus should come from such a rotten sequence of liars and cheaters.
(S) Gen 28:14b "All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring."
(O) Out of a line of deceivers and cheaters - Jesus is born. Jacob is in the line of Christ and yet he is not really a good man. He becomes a good man but he certainly does not start out that way.
(A) I suppose this is an example of how Jesus takes sinners and uses them anyway.
(P) Help me never to judge who God will use to do his work.

Title: Jacob's stone became what the Muslims regard as Mecca
(S) Gen 28:16-22 "When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, "Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it."....This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven. Early the next morning Jacob took the stone he had placed under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on top of it. He called that place Bethel, though the city used to be called Luz. Then Jacob made a vow, saying, "If God will be with me and will with me.....then the Lord will be my God. This stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God's house, and of all that you give me I will give you a tenth."
(O) This is the Hajj around which over 2 million Muslims circle every year. Does this make any sense to me? No. Here Jacob is making a vow to worship the one true God and what happens historically is that this place becomes the place that Muslims pray towards. Maybe I am wrong on this and I am misunderstanding somewhere. So, Jacob wants to worship the one true God here and the Muslims make a pilgrimage to this place - surely the one true God - Jesus - will one day be worship by both Jew and those of the Muslim faith.
(A) Lord I keep finding things that really are a mystery - what a book this Bible is - so many questions.
(P) That all of these faiths one day find Jesus.

Psalm 4:8 "I will lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety."

Luke 11
Title: The Lord's Prayer is a formula for life.
(S) The Lord's Prayer
(O)
1. Begin with praise to God - our day, our prayers, our life
2. Pray for the day that Jesus will reign
3. Only ask for our daily needs and not more
4. Ask for forgiveness of our personal sins
4. Forgive others
6. Don't let us go where we will be tempted to sin.
(A) The above is a good way to live our lives.
(P) I do not begin prayer with praise - I need to do this. God I thank you for revealing my faults daily as I do this blog - I am only beginning to get the idea of your greatness.

Title: A half hearted Christian may be doing more harm than good.
(S) Luke 11:23 "He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me, scatters."
(O) So - someone that is not gathering (or does this mean bringing others to Jesus) is actually causing the flock to scatter. Pretty harsh words. Might be reading this wrong.
(A) ?
(P)?

Title: Will we be judged by a black queen from Ethiopia at the judgement time?
(S) Luke 11:31"The Queen of the South will rise at the judgment with the men of this generation and condemn them, for she came from the ends of the earth to listen to Solomon's wisdom, and now one greater than Solomon is here."
(O) There are 2 things that I observe here - the intention of the verse is to show how the Queen of Sheba travelled a very long way just to sit at the feet of Solomon - it was not easy for her. The second thing is that this black woman from Ethiopia is going to judge us. So - what is the Ethiopian legend - that Solomon and Sheba had a son and the royal Ethiopian line is still in place and Halie Selassie was of this line and the Rastafarian's believe that this line was directly from Solomon. Hmmm.
(A) I think we will be surprised at who is there on judgement day.
(P) None


(S) Luke 11:38 "But the Pharisee, noticing that Jesus did not first wash before the meal, was surprised."
(O) Hand washing was never forgotten and yet Jesus did not do it here just to tell a story with an example. My daughter is a nurse - with the H1N1 flu people have remembered to wash there hands all the time. Apparently many illnesses that are usual at this time of year like colds are way down. Guess this custom was very wise.