The Vision

DEVOTION

GENESIS

THE VISION

Gen 28:10-15

10 Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Haran. 11 When he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones there, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep. 12 He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. 13 There above it stood the LORD, and he said: "I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. 14 Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. 15 I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you."

NIV

Does God leave once he finishes with his promise? That is just not possible, yet it seems he is telling Jacob that he will not leave him until he has done what he spoke to him about. Yet the promise is that all the peoples on earth will be blessed through him and his offspring. That can only be done through Jesus coming to earth. Therefore God never ever left Jacob, not ever. But God also promised the children of Israel he would go before them into the land he just promised to Jacob, and that he would never leave them not forsake them. God will always be with us in one form or another. He was with them as the Father and then he came and was with mankind as the Son and when he ascended back to heaven to sit at the right hand of the Father, he sent the third person of the trinity, the Holy Spirit to not only be with us, but to be within us. This promise he made to Jacob was all about Jesus and therefore about the Holy Spirit who will be with us to the end of this age. Then we who believe will be caught up in the air to meet our Lord Jesus when the sound of the last trumpet blasts. It matters not whether we are awake or asleep, alive or dead, we will all rise to meet him and be with him for all of eternity. God will accomplish all that he promised. He will watch over us and bring us back to the land he has promised us, the new city of Jerusalem. Just as Jacob had a vision of these stairs to heaven with angels ascending and descending with the Lord standing there, we also have been a given a vision of this. It was given to us in words written by John. This revelation is so visual we can see it all as clear as we see the sunrise each morning. He has given us this vision so we know the land we have been promised through Jesus Christ and been sealed with the Holy Spirit. We are one of those peoples on the earth who has been blessed. This life is but a precursor to the life which is to come, eternal life in the promised land of God. Although we live a blessed life now, we will live such a blessed life eternally in the land of God, it might even be beyond our imagination, except he has given us the vision of what it is and therefore we can know without a shadow of a doubt just how blessed it will be. Yes, we could think all these words here were just for Jacob, but we know that it not the case for they were recorded so that we could hear them and know it is also meant for us. All of the words of scripture are God breathed and profitable for us in so many ways. Yet the most important way is that we may know God. Knowing him brings us to our knees before him, accepting his Son, Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, repenting of our life of sin and being born again a new creature in Christ and receiving his baptism with the Holy Spirit thus being the temple of God. He has given us this life and he has given us eternal life. His promise will be done. He has given Jacob that vision and he has given us that vision. Jacob surely went on living with this in his mind all the days of his life. We should continue living all the days of our life, with this vision of our new city in mind.