When God Speaks, Listen

 DEVOTION

GENESIS

WHEN GOD SPEAKS, LISTEN

Gen 35:1-7

35:1 Then God said to Jacob, "Go up to Bethel and settle there, and build an altar there to God, who appeared to you when you were fleeing from your brother Esau." 2 So Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, "Get rid of the foreign gods you have with you, and purify yourselves and change your clothes. 3 Then come, let us go up to Bethel, where I will build an altar to God, who answered me in the day of my distress and who has been with me wherever I have gone." 4 So they gave Jacob all the foreign gods they had and the rings in their ears, and Jacob buried them under the oak at Shechem. 5 Then they set out, and the terror of God fell upon the towns all around them so that no one pursued them. 6 Jacob and all the people with him came to Luz (that is, Bethel) in the land of Canaan. 7 There he built an altar, and he called the place El Bethel, because it was there that God revealed himself to him when he was fleeing from his brother.

NIV

The first thing we wondered was, why there were foreign gods among the camp of Jacob. Then we remembered the two sons, Simeon and Levi, who took all the women and children from the town of Hamor and Shechem after killing all the males. Most likely some of the women carried their gods with them. Perhaps they were made of gold and the sons took them as plunder. However, the major point, once again, is that God spoke to Jacob, giving him instructions to go to Bethel and settle there and to build an altar to God. Interestingly, it is Elohiym who talks to him telling him to build the altar to El, which is the shortened name of the Almighty. However, God is referred to, He is still the LORD God Almighty, and when he speaks everyone who professes Him to be their God should, no, must listen to his voice and his instructions, which sometimes we call His commands. We know He has given us the free will to ignore his instructions, but Jacob did not and made everyone in his household get rid of any foreign gods and purify themselves, changing their clothes. Here is where we pick up our story. Because we believe God and accept His provision for our salvation through Jesus Christ, who is now our Lord and Savior, we must get rid of all our foreign gods, purifying ourselves by changing our clothes. Of course, that sounds strange because we live in a completely different culture and simply changing our clothes has no meaning to us in relationship to purifying ourselves. However, if they were all going to follow God’s instructions, everything they worshipped had to be buried and then needed to be cleansed and wear clean clothes. We too must bury anything we worship, that is not the Lord God Almighty. Jesus taught that we cannot serve two masters, God and money, although that represented all the ways of the world, or the world’s system, thus a foreign god. We also do not just change our clothes, but change our hearts, not just cleansing our outside but having Jesus cleanse our inside, just as Jesus told the Pharisees about being like a cup, clean on the outside, but dirty inside. However, after we have done all that, being cleansed inside and ridding ourselves of the world system, we must first listen to the voice of God and then follow his instructions as to where to go, where to stay, what to do, and where to worship. In other words, our lives do not belong to us, but to God, and for his purpose. It is true, that we need a place to live, clothes, food, cars, and all the stuff that entails living in this culture, but we cannot put more value on all the things God adds to our lives than on God alone, as we seek first His kingdom and His righteousness. Jacob took all his belongings, and what would have been his wealth with him, but he followed the voice of God above all else. God does not insist we are poor or have no wealth, but he requires that we put him above all else. Let us not get distracted by the stuff we have, but always give him glory for whatever we have, while we are constantly attentive to His voice, doing that which He desires, or we could say, requires from us. We recall an old commercial, “When E.F. Hutton talks, people listen”, however, for us, it is, “When God speaks, listen”.