September 2, 2020
I greet and bless everyone in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. The blessed word that God has given for you today is from the book of Genesis 28:15 “Behold I am with you and will keep you wherever you go. And will bring you back to this land. For I will not leave you until I have done what I have spoken to you.”
My Dear Brothers and Sisters, wherever we are, we are safe if we have God’s favourable presence with us. The Lord whom we worship respects each one of us. He is a great creator. He is an Almighty God. The Earth or the World could not contain Him. He has authority over heaven and Earth. Such a great God, respects the ordinary man. Or in other words is mindful of man. God likewise expects us to respect others. We are nothing when we compare ourselves to God. Yet He loves us and wants to have relationship with us. We see now a days that man wants to have relationship with similar people. God does not look for status. He has no partiality. He treats the rich and the poor alike.
My Dear brothers and Sisters, We see in the Bible, a young man, Jacob who experiences personal relationship with God Almighty. One day his parents Isaac, and his mother Rebecca, called Jacob blessed him and asked him to go to his uncles place, to make his livelihood. Being young he had to take up some job and help himself for his survival. In those days rearing sheep was the main occupation. Jacob was an obedient son to his parents. He did not receive any money or take his share of wealth or any investment to start his business but just received the blessings of his parents and departed to his uncle’s place. He considered the blessing of his parents more valuable than anything else. We see that the blessing of parents is so important, if one must be blessed by God. The Bible says, he acquired all the blessing from his father Isaac. As a result Jacob feared his brother Easu, who wanted to kill him.
My Dear Brothers and Sisters, Jacob never argued with his parents or questioned his parents about leaving to his uncles place. He honoured and Respected his parents He was a humble man. So God was pleased with him. Whether Jacob knew or not, about the presence of the Almighty, God was with him. He had chosen him even before the foundation of the world. Now that he feared his brother he was in trouble, obliged to flee, so he looked up only to God, to make him dwell in safety. He had to take up a long journey from Canaan to an unknown country. He was prepared to lie down and sleep in the open air, with his head upon a stone. God’s time to visit his people with His comforts is when they are most destitute of their comforts.
My Dear Brothers and Sisters, God gives his people graces and comforts, accommodated to the events that shall be, as well as to those that are. Jacob at that point of time was forsaken by all, even by his own family members. God foresaw what hardship Jacob would face in that strange land especially in his uncles service. So God promises to keep him. God visited him while he was asleep. He saw a ladder, which reached from earth to heaven. The angels were going up and down and God himself, was at the head of it. Christ is the way to God. All God’s favours come to us from God through Christ. All the glad tidings we receive from heaven come through Christ. God assures him saying” Behold I am with you, and will keep you, wherever you go. And will bring you back to this land. For I will not leave you until I have done what I have spoken to you.”God was mindful of him. So he says, I will not leave you nor forsake you. Whom God loves, he never leaves. God bless you.
Prayer: Our loving heavenly Father, we thank You for this blessed day. Thank you Lord for telling us the importance of getting the blessing of our parents. Help us to be obedient to our parents and also to honour them. Make us a blessing to others. Teach us to have a personal relationship with God as Jacob had. Accommodate us with your graces and comforts when we are forsaken by all.
In Jesus name we pray.
Amen.