COV LIFE BLOG

Genesis 28 – The Gracious Provision of God In our Need

The vision of Jacob’s ladder is a stunning display of the divine grace. It provoked in the patriarch Jacob, a rather telling response of thanksgiving and gratitude. It was a display of grace that one of the commentators has called ‘unsought and unstinting.’ It was unsought because Jacob was no pilgrim or prodigal returning after having spent a long way away from God. It was not the picture of the prodigal son, Jacob rushing out to meet the Lord and the Lord rushing to meet him, but rather Jacob was taken wholly by surprise, and it was unstinted because there was no word of reproach or demand in spite of the experiences of Jacob. All that Jacob heard was a stream of promises that flowed from that central utterance, “I am the Lord, and I am with you.”

These words that the Lord spoke to Jacob were remarkably relevant to the condition of Jacob because the promise of the presence of God was just what this solitary, lonely, sojourner on his way from Beersheba to Haran needed. And the mention of the divine covenant was something that was calculated to sustain him in a very special way, the promise of the land as an inheritance has been repeated over and over again, and that, too, would have been an encouragement to him because he was now being forced to leave that land.

But most of all, the promise of this omnipotent, powerful God, “I am the Lord,” being with him was the thing that would have been a means of tremendous encouragement and assurance to him. The sovereign assurance that this God was the one who could not be frustrated in His purposes and that they would ultimately come to pass must have also been an encouragement to Jacob.

It was a magnificent, dazzling display of the grace of God to a man whose life stands in stark contrast to it and yet the entire account is so fitting for the great God of mercy and grace, Yahweh, the God of Abraham. “Behold, I am with you” reverberates down through the centuries until finally Yahweh himself in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ stands in our midst and says “Lo, I am with always even to the end of the age.” Isn’t that a tremendous thing that as believers, we have the same experience that Jacob had? A revelation from Yahweh who confesses to us that he is the Lord and that he is with us to the end of the age, and with that he guarantees that he will fulfill his promises to us.

S. Lewis Johnson

---

MEDITATION ON THE SERMON PASSAGE
Read Genesis 28.

Do you see the great grace of God to meet Jacob right in the place of his needed provision? How has God been faithful to provide for you? Particularly in your greatest need of all?

SONG FOR THIS WEEK
Grace Alone by Dustin Kensrue