Zion -Psalm84

What a beautiful psalm! (Ps84)
5-7 How blessed is the man whose strength is in You, In whose heart ar the highways to Zion! Passing through the valley of Baca they make it a spring; the early rain also covers it with blessings. They go from strength to strength, everyone of them appears before God in Zion."

Zion: God's callings.
Valley of Baca: Baca means weeping, the place of disapointment, of mourning, failure,etc.
Spring: God's rhema words, when we're down God will always give us words to give us faith and hope again.
Early rain: we see miracles along the way.
From strength to strength: everytime we fall, God will pick us up and renew our strength, give us faith again. If the calling is from God, He won't let us go. He will tell us the same vision, same calling again and again even though we're stumbling all the way. In the end our strength will be replaced with His strength.
Everyone appears before God in Zion: Wow!! Isn't that awesome!

Faith and doubt -James1

James1:2"Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance."

The journey of faith always involves various trials. Often we want to see God's hands, but during the trials God teaches us to seek His face, and that's the time we get to grow in endurance, in Godly character.

V5-8 God will always give us wisdom generously and without reproach if we ask Him. But it's up to us receive in faith. Faith comes from hearing and hearing from the word of God. We really need to set our anchor firmly in God's word, otherwise we'll just be driven and tossed easily by all kinds of doubts.
I like V25"one who looks intently at the perfect law" When you look intently, when you look long enough, you tend to remember, the idea starts to sink in and you're more likely to believe and act out.
It's hard to step out of the boat onto the water when you're not convinced you can walk. But when you know that you know that you know that it's God who has called you, then you feel safe to step out into the sea.
Posted: 21-Jun-2005 09:07

Jacob's return and his path to destiny -Genesis33

Gen33
Esau speaks to me the elder son, people who have always been Christians, people who didn't "backslide", who haven't had any odyssey. They welcome the prodigal sons back to the church with warm embrace. They want to rush "Jacobs" along their path to their success, which is what "Seir" means to me. But Jacob didn't follow the men's lead. Jacob journeyed to a place called Succoth, which means favor. He found favor in God's eyes. He found his own place that God had prepared for him. Then he came to a place called Paddan-aram, which was the place of Rebekah, the person who sacrificed and paved the way for his blessing, he inherited every blessing that's from his mentor.In the end he reached Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan, the place where God promised to give to the descendants of Abraham, the place he was destined to arrive.
Although Jacob reconciled with Esau, he didn't follow every footstep of Esau's, as he knew he had a higher calling and higher level of blessing and favor.
Don't ever under estimate the potential of those prodigal sons in our midst. They are the ones that will really reach destinies and fulfill God's callings.

Jacob's wrestle - Genesis32

Gen32
A few years ago I heard a great sermon about Jacob's wrestle by Benny Hinn.
Instead of Jacob wrestled with the angel, it's the angel wrestled with Jacob, wanting him to lean on him, to surrender. The angel couldn't get Jacob to surrender by wrestling, so in the end the angel had to touch the socket of his thigh and then Jacob had to lean on him.
Interesting sometimes this is the way God makes a stubborn child to surrender: by taking things away from him, by leaving him alone, and by wrestling with him all night, then by touching the socket of the thigh. For a prodigal son, he simply wouldn't return until all is gone and then his strength, his means of support is gone as well.

Thank you God for sending your angel to wrestle with us when we're stubborn!

Take the stand -Proverb 8

Pr8:2"On top of the heights beside the way, where the paths meet, she takes her stand;"
Heights means success and fulfilment of all sorts. Each success takes price and effort, takes life. Which one do we want? Which path do you want to choose for your life? There're so many choices we can make that will affect the rest of our lives: career, relationship, hobby, ...
It's painful and a sheer desperation when one spends his whole life to climb to the top of a mountain and finds there's nothing there!
Which mountain is your mountain to climb? Which path leads to Your destiny that you'd really call it home in your heart?
Wisdom and understanding is so vitally important when it comes down to making choices.

Odyssey of Jacob -Genesis31

Gen31
This chapter reminds me of "What the enemy meant for evil, the Lord turned around for good."
Jacob had his odyssey,and now it's time to return home.
He had found his wives, his love, but now he's all spent. Although he was smart and he worked hard in those years, he was not destined to prosper and flourish in that land. But the Lord restored his wealth with a miracle.

V19"When Laban had gone to shear his flock, then Rachel stole the household idols that were her fathers." This verse revealed the reality of Rachel. That actually defined who she was and what she was heading into.

"Laban Pursues Jacob" in a way reminds me of the Egyptians chasing
Moses, and the red sea(or Galeed) meant miracle, also it meant seperation: there's no way back.

Odyssey for Moses was the desert(in which he married); for Abraham was Ishmael, for Isaac it could be the time he spent in Negev...(I'm only guessing)

From desperation to glory - Psalm 77

Ps77
What a powerful psalm!
"My soul refused to be comforted...
when I sigh, then my spirit grows faint...
I am so troubled that I cannot speak...
Will the Lord reject forever?
Has His promise come to an end forever?...
Has God forgotten to be gracious, or has He in anger withdrawn His compassion?
Then I said, it is my grief, that the right hand of the Most High has changed."

Have you ever been to a place like this? Everything seems so hopeless, there's no way out, everything's against you, it seems the only thing left to do is to die?
Praise God! He's in charge of your situation. He'll turn the most hopeless situation into a most glorious exodus in your life!

Rachel and Leah- Genisis30

They both loved Jacob. Rachel got Jacob's praise and love, but Leah got the blessings of the children. Rachel had what a normal girl would dream of. Leah seemed to live a life of misery, but she stored up treasures for the generations to come. Jesus was born out of Leah's descendant, not Rachel's.
Rachel was popular. Leah's life seemed nothing but pain, yet she turned God's favor into her children. Rachel died of tragedy, the very thing she loved most brought death to her. Leah lived a normal life, and yet she birthed glory and everlasting,evergrowing treasure in eternity. Rachel reaped most of her harvest while she lived. Leah died, and her harvest started to begin...
Not many people would prefer to live like Leah, and yet it was Leah that got God's heart.
Rachel had the love and praise of man. The reward? she's got it all, not much more to come.
Leah was rejected and ignored by man. Her very presense seemed to be just annoying and full of nonsense. But God appointed to her the very blessing that mattered. What other blessings can compare to have Jesus as a descendant? What harvest would that be?
Two sisters, one happy, one sad on earth, one sad, one happy in heaven.

Rebecca favoured Jacob and she sowed a seed of manipulation, deception, prejudice and injustice into her future generations. Joseph, being such a good boy himself, unfortunately had to reap every bit of what she had sowed.
Jacob loved Rachel. And they both loved Joseph more than anyone else. But even though Joseph survived the generational curse that's upon his life from birth, even though he even saved his nation by his own good faith and works, even though Jacob and Rachel had done all they could to pass down the generational blessings to him, he could not twist God's arm again to get the blessing as the bloodline of Abraham all the way to Jesus.
Sometimes it's hard to live like Leah. It's hard to not to have the love and praise of man. Everyone wants to follow Rachel: "I'll have what she's having". But if you have a mindset of eternal benefit, your point of view might change.

In Matt2:18 "A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children;And she refused to be comforted, because they were no more."

The well -Gen29

Gen29
By the well Abraham's servant met Rebekah for Isaac, by the well Jacob met Rachel, and by the well Moses met his wife (Ex2:15)...isn't the well an interesting place?

Jacob -Gen28

Gen28
Esau and Ishmael seem to get along pretty well. They're one family. They're the hard working people.(lol)

Jacob is quite a carefree boy. The journey he started out was a bit like Moses' journey into desert.
He encountered God in the place of Bethel, which means the house of God, the gate of heaven, where angels ascending and descending,"Surely the Lord is in this place...awesome"(16-17), He is amazed at God, and aware of His promise to him, but he's not ready to give his heart to God yet. He made a vow(v20), saying "if... then the Lord will be my God."(v21)

Jacob always reminds me of the prodigal son.
When my husband had a powerful dream of heaven and hell, and was baptised in the Holy Spirit without any knowledge of the tongues(amazing experience), he was then 21 and was wild in the world, but he said to God, if by 35 I still haven't settled in the world, then I'll come to find you. Then when he was 35 his world totally collapsed and on his way to kill someone the Lord saved him and he became a Christian.

The prodigal son knows he has an inheritance, he's had encounters, but he's not ready to settle in the will of God. He wants to have a journey first before he can really settle down in the house of God.

Rebekah - Gen27

In Gen25:23 Rebekah had an encounter with God and received a word" And the older shall serve the younger."
This to Rebekah could be like a lifetime calling like Abraham's:"you shall have a child..."
From the very beginning of birth Rebekah started to favour Jacob and seeked as her mission to fulfil that word in Jacob. She did with a passion and she didn't care what price it would take.
Although it was a big lie and it was greatly distresseing to other people, God didn't seem to be bothered.(there's no reference in this chapter)
This could be another example of breaking the universal ethics(as Craig would say)in order to fulfil a higher purpose. We see it in Abraham planning to kill Isaac, we see it in the destroy and killing through the flood(Noah), we see it in the devastation of Sodom and Gomorrah, we see God sacrificed Jesus His own son...while killing is definately condemned in any universal law.
At this stage, Esau was no longer fit for the enheritance of the blessing, as he had married the daughter of Hittite.
However, Jacob paid heavily for the price of this lie:
He loved Rachel, but he was tricked with Leah first and then end up cursing Rachel; He favored Joseph, but Joseph was badly mistreated and sold out,etc.

Isaac and his wells -Gen26

Although Isaac had the promise and command from the Lord to sojourn in the land(v3), the journey he had toward this calling was not easy.
First, the inherited wells were "stopped up by filling them with earth(v15)", then there was contention, then there was enmity. Finally he was able to make peace with Abimelech and settled in that place.
The Lord was with him all the time, because every time he dug a well there was living water. But the journey to actually possess that blessing was quite a battle. This was Isaac's faith journey, just like Abraham's faith journey of having a child.

Well seems to be used as supplying waters. When we're thirsty in the spirit, we try to find water. So it's kind of like annointing, fellowship with God, or where you can feel God's presence? You can find God's presence and annointing in the things He promised, called. When you're following His will and way you'd find His presence, and that's like finding a thirst quenching water supply. The well could be in church, in devotions, in the businesses,etc.
If we're seeking God's presence then we're digging a well, sometimes we find called to do something, then some other people will come in and deny them or give us doubt, or battle with us...I guess anyone can dig a well, if you can find water flowing, you know God's with you in the things you do.

Esau - Gen25

Abraham had Ishmael and Isaac; Isaac had Esau and Jacob.
Ishmael and Esau had quite a lot in common.
Esau was very practical, he's a hard worker. He'd trade spiritual things with physical needs if necessary. He didn't esteem the value of his spirutal blessings highly. Like Ishmael, he married a foreign girl.
Jacob, on the contrary, "was a peaceful man, living in tents.(v27)" He's quite laid back, enjoying cooking and just being the mommy's boy. I guess he's a thinker. At times he could be very tricky and sneaky. Although he paid for every bit of tricks and lies later on in his life, he got the most important thing: the bloodline blessing.
Esau worked his way out of the blessing. He took whatever came his way without analysing and seeking the Lord for direction. Sometimes life present us things like opportunity, but by taking these opportunities, we could end up losing every blessing we have in God.

Sarah - Gen23

The Bible devoted a whole chapter to the death and burial of Sarah.
Although Sarah's life was mostly barreness and shame, she was given twice by her husband to someone else, and then she gave her maid to her husband in her place, she birthed the vision that God put in her heart. Although she only saw a tiny glimpse of that vision and promise came to pass, although when she died Abraham had to trade for the field to bury her, she laid the foundation for her future generations. Thus her life is worth being remembered.
This reminds me of people like Frank Houston, although having flaws in their lives, they were faithful toward their calling and gave birth to the vision and laid foundation for future generations.
Sometimes we might use a whole life time to see just a glimpse of God's calling fulfilled, but if it's truly God's calling and promise, the reward in heaven will be great and it's worth every bit of effort and tears.