Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Session 10: Jacob and His Family
This week we are learning about the life of Jacob and his family. This is another one of those lessons that came to life during our recent revival services. Bro. Mike touched on the life of Jacob during the sermon titled "Back to Bethel." When I studied this lesson, I kept thinking about the study we have been doing on Wednesday nights. We started in the book of James and the first couple of lessons were on "having triumph over our trials." This is one thing we see in the life of Jacob. Trials came his way as God was trying to develop a character trait in his life. Sometimes I wonder, when going through a trying time, just exactly what God is trying to teach me? What sticks out this week to you?
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2 comments:
That is so true. What is He trying to tell us @ times? Why do we have to go through this? Am I going to be a better person whenever this is
finally over? (and it seem's like it take's a long time) The question's in my mind keep coming When I am going through something. Why?Why?Why? It seem's like some people never go through anything or is it just because we don't know? We sometime
think that just because we are a child of God's that we shouldn't have to go through all this heaartache.
While studying, I came across some interesting points:
What about Jacob’s family? I think we can conclude that he was raised in a less than desirable family. His mother dominated and manipulated. His father was passive and did not follow God’s will. His brother was very worldly. He had no good role models to follow. So he developed a wrong style of relating to people.
Does this give Jacob an excuse? No! That is something we really need to emphasize because of the way our society thinks. We are not helpless victims. We either react wrongly to our environment or we act correctly I spite of our environment. Jacob reacted wrongly to his upbringing.
What was Jacob’s problem? He wanted to control his life, so he manipulated people. Jacob’s problem was he thought he could make it on his own without God.
We are just like Jacob because we try to handle life on our own without God.
Maybe we are looking for a best friend who is going to be there when we need them.
Maybe we are looking for that perfect job which is going to offer us security through a regular paycheck or give us enough money to buy the things we want.
Maybe we manipulate our spouses or other people to get the things we want.
But all this doesn’t work. I continually go back to Hosea 2:5-6 which says
5 Their mother has been unfaithful and has conceived them in disgrace. She said, ‘I will go after my lovers, who give me my food and my water, my wool and my linen, my oil and my drink.’ 6 Therefore I will block her path with thornbushes; I will wall her in so that she cannot find her way. 7 She will chase after her lovers but not catch them; she will look for them but not find them. Then she will say, ‘I will go back to my husband as at first, for then I was better off than now.’
Jacob did this. And we do this. We think we can find happiness apart from God. We think we are in control of our lives. But God will not allow us to succeed without him. He will block our efforts to satisfy ourselves and lead us back to Him. I think we can see how he did this with Jacob. And if we reflect on our own lives a little, I think we can see how He does this to us.
http://bible.org/article/jacob
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