Showing posts with label vow. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vow. Show all posts

November 23, 2019

Jacob’s vow: making a deal with God


In times of uncertainty or doubt, many of us have prayed, “Lord, IF You will ___(fill in the blank), THEN I will ___(fill in the blank.)” That’s what Jacob did.

This son of Isaac and twin brother of Esau didn't know if God would be with him the way He had been with Jacob’s grandfather Abraham. He’d undoubtedly heard his family’s stories of faith, but maybe he thought that tricking his brother and his father had put him on the outs with God.

Now on the run from his brother’s wrath, Jacob fled toward his mother’s family many, many miles away. Alone and in new terrain, he made a vow to God in this prayer:


Genesis 28:20-22
from the King James Version of the Bible
and 
the Book of KJV prayers

And Jacob vowed a vow, saying,
If God will be with me,
and will keep me in this way that I go,
and will give me bread to eat,
and raiment to put on,
So that I come again
to my father's house in peace;
then shall the Lord be my God:
And this stone,
which I have set for a pillar,
shall be God's house:
and of all that thou shalt give me
I will surely give the tenth unto thee.


Genesis 28:20-21
paraphrase of Jacob’s prayer-vow

Lord God, if You will be with me
and
watch over me wherever I go
and
provide me with necessities
and
get me safely home,
then
You will be my God.


God did indeed take care of Jacob, whom He later renamed "Israel" and blessed with twelve sons who became the tribal chiefs of the Twelve Tribes of Israel.

 


In the Amen of Jesus

  2 Corinthians 1:20 – “In Christ, every promise of God finds its ‘Yes!’ And also through Him is our ‘Amen!’ for the glory of God through us...