Take Possession

DEVOTION

GENESIS

TAKE POSSESSION

Gen 28:1-5

28:1 So Isaac called for Jacob and blessed him and commanded him: "Do not marry a Canaanite woman. 2 Go at once to Paddan Aram, to the house of your mother's father Bethuel. Take a wife for yourself there, from among the daughters of Laban, your mother's brother. 3 May God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and increase your numbers until you become a community of peoples. 4 May he give you and your descendants the blessing given to Abraham, so that you may take possession of the land where you now live as an alien, the land God gave to Abraham." 5 Then Isaac sent Jacob on his way, and he went to Paddan Aram, to Laban son of Bethuel the Aramean, the brother of Rebekah, who was the mother of Jacob and Esau.

NIV

So, a word that indicates Isaac is responding to the manipulation of Rebekah that we considered earlier. She had said that her life would not be worth living if Jacob took Hittite woman to marry as Esau had. At least Isaac is doing something for the benefit of his wife, to put her at ease. Perhaps his actions are somewhat self-serving through. It has been said in our generation that if mama isn’t happy, nobody is happy. Perhaps this was also true in their generation. Therefore Isaac calls for Jacob and gives him a blessing and a charge. This time the blessing was one meant for him, and it was in fact a prophetic one, as inspired by the Lord. Although Jacob had deceived his father and Isaac was so upset that he was physically shaken, he must have forgiven Jacob enough to give him this blessing, or he was doing all this to satisfy Rebekah. Either way Jacob was to head back to their family clan of his mother and find his wife or wives from among them. We know it will be wives as we know the story which lies ahead of us. Nevertheless our lesson is in this blessing. Isaac indicates that once Jacob finds his bride and becomes a community of people, a clan onto himself that he should return to this land and take possession of it. They were now living there as aliens among the Canaanites or Hittites who had possession of the Land under the rule of Abimelech who had discovered the deception by Isaac and Rebekah as being brother and sister. He had invited them to live in his land at peace, making a treaty with Isaac as he had also done with his father Abraham, who deceived him the very same way. Here Isaac tells his son to go become a nation of people and come back and dispose these people who he have made a treaty with and take their land because it is rightfully his as God gave it to Abraham. So much for the treaty. But then it was between Abimelech and Isaac, Jacob was on his own, not obligated to this treaty, but obligated to follow the will of God. Although we are admonished to live in peace with all men, we are also admonished, no actually commanded to not enter into an agreement or treaty with the world.

2 Cor 6:14-16

14 Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common ? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? 15 What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? 16 What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: "I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people."  

NIV

We see this played out all throughout the Old Testament. God has never intended his people to become united in anyway with those who oppose him, who serve other gods, who live without acknowledging him as the Lord God, creator of all things. Yet at the same time we too, as Jacob, should take possession of their land. Now that does not mean to go to war with them, as it might have been for Jacob, but to infiltrate the world with the Gospel. To take possession of it for the kingdom of God. We have nothing in common, no treaty can be made, business deals, no investments, no partnerships, yet we are to share the gospel with them so they too might know the Lord God almighty and his salvation through Jesus Christ. We are to leave this country to find our family, the family of God, then return into it in order to take possession of it for the kingdom of God. We have no common ground, we are not to reenter this land as members of it, as we are aliens as Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were, but God had given us this land, as he goes before us, giving us success in our possession of this land. Let us continue to take this land for the kingdom of God.