“If the God of my father, the God of Abraham and the Fear of Isaac, had not been on my side, surely now you would have sent me away empty-handed. God saw my affliction and the labor of my hands and rebuked you last night.” – Genesis 31:42

Isn’t interesting what Jacob didn’t say in this verse? He never called God “my God”. He talked all about the God of his father and his grandfather, but clearly didn’t consider Him to be his God. Jacob knew plenty about God. He’d even made a deal with God decades before. He was very aware that God was working on his behalf and blessed him enormously. And yet, for all that, Jacob didn’t know God. He had no real faith yet. He had no meaningful relationship with the God of his father and grandfather. In other words, he was missing everything that mattered!

It is all too easy to substitute knowledge about God for a relationship with Him. It’s all too easy to know a lot about the Bible without actually have real faith and trust in Who it reveals. I personally could answer endless questions about Jesus without believing in Him, loving Him, or knowing Him. This is exactly what Jesus lamented in the Sermon on the Mount, when He warned that people would one day demand entrance into His Kingdom based on everything they knew and had done for Him without ever having known Him. Nobody gets into the Kingdom without knowing the King!

Think carefully about this verse and don’t let it happen to you. Do you know Jesus? Not just know about Him, but truly know Him? What about people you know and love? Do they know Jesus or know about Him? There can be a huge distance between head knowledge and a heart relationship. If you aren’t sure about this, slow down, meditate on Scripture, pray for as long as it takes, and enter into fellowship with your Lord. #FollowJesus

“Your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south, and in you and your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed.” – Genesis 28:14

God promised the trickster Jacob what He’d previously promised his father and grandfather before him. All the families of the earth would be blessed through the descendant of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Not just Jacob’s family (Israel) – ALL families. Who? How? Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ of God! It is God’s eternal, unchanging will to redeem for Himself and His glory a new people drawn from every tribe, language, and ethnic people group on the planet. This people will not be formed through marriage or birth but through faith in Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God. This people will be salt and light filling our world and blessing it.

The big story of the entire Bible is the story of this unfolding will and plan of God. After sin ruined creation, God promised a Savior, a Messiah, a Redeemer Who would defeat Satan, conquering sin and its consequence, which is death. The Old Testament follows the ups and downs of the family God selected to bring forth that Redeemer. The New Testament reveals Jesus, the Redeemer and tells how Jesus accomplished our redemption through His sinless life, sacrificial death, and physical resurrection. It then gives believers our responsibility until the glorious day when our Redeemer returns…. Make disciples of Jesus.

If you’re a follower of Jesus, then you’re part of God’s plan to redeem people from all over the world. You have good works prepared by God for you to do (see Ephesians 2:10). By your prayers and your gifts of time, talent, and treasure, God’s mission is being accomplished. People all over the world are finding new life and forgiveness for their sins through faith in Jesus Christ, the promised descendent Who is blessing all nations. But that work is not finished – not until Jesus returns. Commit yourself. Devote yourself. Let God’s will be done through you as you #FollowJesus

“When the men of the place asked him about his wife, he said, ‘She is my sister,’ for he feared to say, ‘My wife,’ thinking, ‘lest the men of the place should kill me because of Rebekah,’ because she was attractive in appearance.” – Genesis 26:7

What a strange and shameful travel tactic Isaac learned from his father Abraham! What’s particularly striking about Isaac’s scheme is that God had JUST appeared to him a couple of verses earlier. God PROMISED He would bless Isaac if he went where He told him to go. Isaac went but he was still so fearful that he told the locals his wife was his sister. Just in case God wasn’t paying attention enough to bless them. Just in case the locals decided they wanted Rebekah for themselves. Because Isaac doubted God’s ability to bless and protect them, Isaac said his wife was single!

What was Isaac doing? Hedging his bets to protect himself from any bad consequences for obeying God. Isaac went where God told him but didn’t fully trust God’s promise of blessing. So he made some “arrangements” as a “just in case”. Isaac thought up a “clever” way to protect himself rather than trusting God to protect both his wife and himself. Isaac was what the book of James would call a “double-minded” man – believing God but also hedging your bets. Trusting God but only somewhat. Doing what God said to do but trying to manage any possible downsides to obedience. Have you ever hedged your bets like that?

Have you ever chosen to obey God and but also tried to insulate yourself from some of the risks of obedience? We often do. We obey the Bible, but only up to a point… We follow Jesus but also keep our earthly situation “managed”… We obey parts of Scripture but minimize the parts that might upset or offend friends, relatives, coworkers, or employers… We follow Jesus but only in a “proper balance” with our other priorities…. It’s easy to become double-minded like Isaac. Resist this temptation! When God says to do something, go all in. When Jesus says to follow Him somewhere uncomfortable or risky, don’t try to minimize that risk. Maximize your faith and trust instead. When you commit to the Lord, FULLY COMMIT! #FollowJesus

“He said to him, ‘Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.’ And he brought him all these, cut them in half, and laid each half over against the other. But he did not cut the birds in half.” – Genesis 15:9-10

In Hebrew, what we translate as “make a covenant” literally means “cut a covenant”. Solemn covenants were always ratified by the shedding of blood. Life was sacrificed and lifeblood poured out to publicly proclaim, “may the same thing happen to me if I break this covenant”. That’s how serious a biblical covenant is! In Genesis 15, God cut a covenant with Abram to give his descendants the land we know as Israel. The animals were cut in two and God’s presence passed between them – that’s how serious God is about the land of Israel!

If Jesus is your Savior, a different covenant has been cut for you. A covenant of grace – guaranteeing that your sins are forgiven through faith in Jesus, the Son of God. Like every biblical covenant, a life was sacrificed and blood was shed to ratify this New Covenant. However, instead of animals being sacrificed, it was the willing suffering and death of Jesus Himself when He went to the cross for our sins. There is nothing higher by which God could swear than Himself, which is what happened at the cross. There is no covenant more serious than one sealed by the innocent blood of the eternal Son of God.

This is your covenant! The covenant promise that your faith in Jesus has resulted in your sins being forgiven and you being reconciled to God forever as His beloved child. Your covenant was sealed by the innocent, sinless blood of Jesus – fully God and fully human. Realize the beautiful weight of this covenant… If you’re in Christ, then there’s absolutely nothing in heaven or on earth than can break God’s covenant promises. There’s no covenant more ironclad than the New Covenant because it was ratified with the broken body and shed blood of your Risen Savior. God’s grace cannot be thwarted and through faith in Christ, you are the blessed beneficiary of the greatest covenant. #FollowJesus