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Episode 10 · 2 years ago
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Episode 10 · 2 years ago
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ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Hello and welcome to read Your Bible devotional with Pastor Brad Reynolds. We are reading through the Bible in a year. This daily devotional will help keep your heart in mind and God's word. Use your phone to download and listen to Pastor Brad Reynolds Audio podcast. You can find a RSS feedlink on our website, www dot do verry baptist clarksbridgecom. Good Day again and glad you're back. Excited about our study for today. We're going to be in Genesis, chapter thirty through thirty two. I have a couple of scars on my arm. I'll show you one of them. Don't know that you can see it real well, but it runs all the way here. Got Another one right here on my shoulder. There are times I wish my scares could speak.
These two scars came from a car accident I had when I was sixteen years old. I've been saved when I was seven years old, but I've been straying from God a little bit. I've been going my own direction. Wasn't real bad, I wasn't a Rache and said I wasn't wicked, but I was living for me. I wanted sports, I wanted what I wanted. I wanted some pleasures in this life rather than following God, and I was on a path of doing what I wanted to do rather than following God. Came around Corner farmdor market road six ninety seven in Texas. was driving a little Chevrolet Shibet. I was on my way to a regional track me. Everything seemed to be going great for me as I came around the corner a for F three fifty pickup truck lost control, came over to my lane and...
...hit me head on. They called me in as the OA and they said that they did CPR on me on the way to the hospital. They lost me. Spend a week in the hospital and during that week in the hospital God got my attention. God said very clearly to me, I can take you home any time. If you're not going to live for me here in this world, if you're not going to live for me in this life, you might as well come on up to have it. And it was that moment that turned my life around. Not long after that I surrendered into ministry. I reddicated my life begin following Jesus Christ ice, but I have two scars from that and I wish my scars had a microphone. I wish they could speak loudly my message in a very rare way. These scars are God's...
...marks of ownership. It's God's Mark of love. He loved me so much he would allow me to go through that to bring me into a inccredible relationship to experience the blessings of heaven. I wish my scars had a microphone to tell the world of their marks of ownership. You know, Jacob had such an experience with God. Jacob, the one who lived his life deceiving and manipulating. He finally reached a point where God would bring him and God would scar him, place a mark of ownership on him, and Jacob's life was changed. If you have your bibles, you can turn to Genesis, Chapter Thirty two, and I'm going to be reading from Verse Twenty Four Through Thirty One. Then Jacob was left alone in a man wrestled with him until daybreak.
When he saw that he had not prevailed against him, he touched the socket of his thigh. So the socket of Jacob's thigh was dislocated while he wrestled with him. Then he said, let me go, for the Dawn is breaking, but Jacob said, I will not let you go unless you bless me. So he said to Jacob, what is your name? Jacob said Jacob. He said your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven, wrestled with God and with men and have prevailed. Then Jacob asked him and said, please tell me Your name. But he said, why is it that you asked my name? And he blessed him. There so Jacob named the place panel, for he said, I have seen God facetoface, yet my life has been preserved. Now the Sun...
Rolls Upon Him, just as he crossed over Panuel and he was limping on his thigh. The name Jacob, as we know from our study already, literally means deceiver or supplanter, one who deceives, one who supplants, and from the womb Jacob would wrestle with others, to supplant them, to deceive them. He did so with his brother, he did so with his father. He manipulated, deceived and wrestled in order to succeed in life. He lived up to his name, deceiver, supplanter. But in Genesis, the one who had always gotten by with his own ingenuity, the one who had always gotten by by his own intelligence. Here in Genesis we see he's going...
...to be broken. The one who had lived his whole life by making it his own would come to an end and realize he needed God. There's a lot of us today who feel we don't need God. We feel like our own intelligence, our abilities, are strengths. We can succeed with those. We don't need God, you say, Pastor, that's not true. I do believe I need God. Really, do you spend time in prayer? Do you spend time reading your word? Do you wake up every day saying God, I need you throughout this day, or do you just get up and depend upon your own ingenuity, your own intelligence, your own work ethic, your own ability? He's Jacob, had done that, and now he's...
...going to reach a point to where he realizes he needs God. Now, up to this point of the story, Laban has and Jacob have had a dispute. Jacob had been blessed of God, Jacob's flocks had been blessed of God, and so Laban said, Jacob, you need to go on your own. You're getting too many of my flocks. You need to get Outa Jacob said you're right, I've been here for twenty years. I'm going to leave. We'll go back now. Before he had left, Esau had told him the next time I see you, I'm going to kill you. So last words he had heard, he saw telling twenty years earlier. And so now, two thousand and twenty one years, after working, fourteen and seven more years, after twenty one years, Jacob is now heading back to Esau. Laban thinks that Jacob has stolen some of his gods and pursues him and finds out he didn't, and then Laban goes back home. And now Jacob...
...sends some people on ahead to Esau to tell he's all hey, your servant, Jacob is coming to serve you. Those messengers he had sent on to Esau come back and they tell Jacob, Hey, Jacob, your brother Esau, he's coming. He's got an army with him, he'll be here tomorrow. So Jacob allows all of his family to sleep on one side of a brook there and Jacob goes to the other side by himself in a camp. He's in this camp site all by himself with an imminent death threat on his head from his brother who's coming to see he lays down that night and someone enters the camp. Now, if you and I were at a camp site all by ourself and it was our campsite and in the middle of the night...
...we earn someone entering our camp, that would provoke a confrontation, especially if we've been threatened or felt a death threat upon us. Sure enough, there was a confrontation. Jacob comes out that night and this one who's in the camp. Jacob begins to wrestle, but he can't prevail over this one. He recognizes there's something different over this one, and so this stranger and Jacob Wrestle and inevitably Jacob realizes the one he's restling is God, a pre incarnate Christ, if you will, before Jesus took on flesh. She appeared here and he appears as a man and he wrestles with Jacob. God Jacob Jacob. He wrestled Jacob to supplant him. He Jacob. God wanted the old...
Jacob to remain in the camp and God wanted a new Jacob to walk out. In all of Jacob's intellect, in all of Jacob's strength, he was no match for God. It was as if, in that wrestling match, God was just toying with them. God simply touched Jacob and his hip was dislocated. And then God makes Jacob Utter his own name. He says, Jacob, what's your name now? God knew Jacob's name. So why would God ask Jacob His name? God knew what he was doing. Why is he asking Jacob His name? God is trying to draw a repentance out of his child. He's trying to bring his child, who had never needed God,...
...who had always done things his way. He's trying to bring his child to say I reap end. My manipulation can't save me, my intellect can't save me, my strength can't save me. In fact, all of that sin, it's pride. I repent of that and I need you. And so he says to Jacob, Jacob, what's your name? Deceiver, supplanter, that's who I am. I'm a deceiver. He was drawing repentance. His request of Jacob was for Jacob's confession. God makes Jacob admit he has lived up to his name. It's a confession. With sincere repentance comes confession. Jacob confesses to his old nature, his old name, and then God...
...gives him a new name and a new name nature. Jacob is left behind and Israel emerges through brokenness. Jacob, Israel is saved and walks away with a scar, a limp and a new nature and a new name. The limp would be a forever reminder of the touch of God and of God's salvation. Praise God for his marks of ownership. Maybe you have one. Maybe you have a scar that God brought about to teach you something in your life and you look at the scar and you've been tempted to look at it as something ugly, and now today you see it as something beautiful. It's God's marks of ownership. It's God saying here by I love you, I've got a plan for you. Oh much richness comes out of the pages of scripture...
...as we study. Well, tomorrow will be reading Genesis, chapter thirty three through thirty six, but let me pray for you before we close today. Father, again we thank you for this wonderful reminder of how much you love us and God. So many times we need to be broken. Thank you for loving US enough to break us. Thank you for our marks of ownership. We see them as beautiful reminders of your love. Help US always see us and may they speak to the world. May We give them my may they terrible word about the goodness of our God. In Jesus name, we pray. Amen. Thank you for joining us.
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