Normally, on the days the Lord stirs me to share, I’m perfectly happy to have brief exchanges over the chapter I just read in my morning devotions. Not this morning. This morning I wish we were live & I could say, “Open your Bibles to Genesis 28” and we could have a legit lesson.
So I’ll just point you that direction. Jacob, the heel grabber, has just cheated his brother Esau for the 2nd time. 1st his birthright then his blessing. The scene in the wake of discovery is heart-wrenching, Esau weeping loudly to Isaac, “Do you have only 1 blessing, my father?”
Rebekah, the scheming mother, overhears Esau planning to kill Jacob as soon as Isaac dies so she sends him to her brother in Haran. On the way, Jacob stops for the night, lays his head on a stone & has a dream. “A stairway was set on the ground with its top reaching the sky and
God‘s angels were going up & down on it. The Lord was standing there beside him saying, ‘I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham & the God of Isaac... all the peoples on earth will be blessed thru you & your offspring.’”Jacob awakens, startled. Knows it’s no ordinary dream.
Says, “What an awesome place this is! This is none other than the house of God. This is the gate of heaven.” Names it Bethel meaning house of God. Turn in your Bibles please :) to John 1:47-51. The 1st few disciples are encountering Jesus for the 1st time. Philip brings Nathaniel
to Jesus who greets him as if he already fully knows him, which of course he does. “Here truly is an Israelite in whom there’s no deceit.” Plays on 2 names: Deceit plays off Jacob meaning deceiver. Israelite, because God renamed Jacob Israel (something like “struggled with God”).
Nathaniel wants to know how Jesus knew him. Jesus answers, “I saw you under the fig tree.” Jesus & Nathaniel alone know the significance. I so love that. But the significance of what follows is not lost on any of us: Nathaniel exclaims “You are the Son of God, King of Israel!”
Then Jesus says the most astounding thing. “Amen, amen. I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.” ON Him. The “you will” now becomes plural. “All of you will.” It was stuff like this that captured me at 27 for life.
The original scene with Jacob is only 28 chapters into the entire canon of Scripture. Likewise, the reference to it falls among the very 1st scenes of John’s Gospel, tied together with absolute perfection. The offspring had come through whom the promise would be fulfilled: Jesus.
Jesus reveals Himself as the very embodiment of Bethel. He IS the House of God. Furthermore, He doesn’t just elaborate on the ladder. He IS the ladder, the solitary connection between heaven and earth and the singular means of entering that open gate. It’s absolute perfection.
Jesus is Jacob’s dream made flesh and dwelling among them.

Oh man, don’t you see? Don’t you see how beautifully, how intricately, the whole story was put together? The Bible is not a book of haphazard happenings, too fractured to piece together. It is an unfolding masterpiece.

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More from @BethMooreLPM

23 Nov
One of my favorite things about the apostle Paul is his absolute unwillingness to surrender his joy. He refuses to do it.

Even in his imprisonments.

Even after beatings. Floggings.

Even when he knows some are proclaiming Christ not sincerely at all but out of selfish ambition.
Even in all his persecutions. In all the stress of the young churches. Conflicts. Anxieties. Sleepless nights. In his hunger. In sickness. Physical weakness. In his death sentence. They could take his life but they could not take his joy. This is our heritage, brothers & sisters.
We’ve been left a legacy of joy in our strain, struggle and pain. And not by itself. A legacy alone could prove only to heap up crushing guilt for what we couldn’t live up to. We were left more than a legacy. We were left the same Holy Spirit who galvanized their stubborn joy.
Read 5 tweets
20 Nov
Years ago, my pastor, a wonderful man and a loving, faithful shepherd to his flock, ended a great conversation between us with words I didn’t see coming. Words that stopped me in my tracks. “I know I can always count on you to be loyal to me, Beth.” Wait wait wait. Define loyal.
NO. No, you can’t. I’d try my hardest to be counted on to be loving, grace-filled, faithful &, God helping me, Holy Spirit filling me, godly. But when loyalty demands dishonesty & what’s perceived as the right end justifies unrighteous means & piety serves as cover for duplicity,
loyalty to man has demanded disloyalty to Christ. I don’t care how it looks from the outside. Don’t care if it looks like rightness won. Sowing to the flesh reaps corruption. Every time. Every time. EVERY TIME. The only means to reaping what’s of the Spirit is sowing the Spirit.
Read 5 tweets
19 Nov
My reading took me to Ps 27 NET today. I thought this morning I’d simply read some of it to you. I won’t go on long. Read these verses aloud if you would. Reading silently is a lovely thing but I often find particular strength & rekindled fires of faith & love in the spoken word:
The Lord is my light & my salvation...The Lord protects my life...I’ve asked the Lord for 1 thing—this is what I desire!...to live in the Lord’s house all the days of my life so I can gaze at the splendor of the Lord...He will surely give me shelter...He will hide me in His home.
(Isn’t that beautiful? I love the thought of Him hiding us in His home. God is your hideout in this havoc. From a NT perspective, think of this as abiding in Christ, Jn15, & being hidden in Christ with God, Col 3:3)

“My heart tells me to pray to you & I do pray to you, O Lord.”
Read 5 tweets
16 Nov
Starting memory work in Philippians & I can’t think of a more fitting prayer for Christ’s church right now than Paul’s:
“And I pray this: that your love will keep on growing in knowledge and every kind of discernment so that you may approve the things that are superior & may be
pure and blameless in the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God.” One of the things I love about praying the prayers that are in Scripture is that they were breathed by God himself. So often we don’t
know exactly how to pray in a given situation then we come upon an inspired intercession like this one & it encompasses so much of what we desire for our loved ones, for the church, our neighbors & ourselves. I believe in the power of Scripture. I believe in the power of prayer.
Read 5 tweets
15 Nov
Thank the Lord, fellow Jesus-followers, if you have a pastor who chooses God’s approval over yours, who loves Christ, his congregation & you enough to be willing to offend you or go against the doctrines & traditions of men to preach what is in step with the truth of the gospel.
For the love of God, don’t pack up & leave in a huff. Go to your knees & thank God for that pastor. If you are always comfortable with your pastor’s preaching, if he always stays within your preferred perimeters & nothing ever changes, you don’t have a pastor. You have a puppet.
If your financial giving to your church is according to whether or not your pastor stays within your pet subjects and preferred perimeters, if you threaten to take your big wallet somewhere else if he doesn’t behave better, you are not giving. You are bribing.
Read 4 tweets
13 Nov
Genesis 16. Hagar. “The angel of the Lord found her by a spring in the wilderness...’Hagar, slave of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?’ She replied, ‘I’m running away...’”

God knew where she was yet He “found” her.
God knew why she’d run yet He asked her.
God engaged Hagar. He knew everything that had happened to her but He wanted her to tell it to Him in her own words. The psalmist pens God’s welcome this way: “Trust in Him...pour out your hearts before Him. God is our refuge. (62) A pent-up heart knows no intimacy with God.
It is the poured-out heart that draws near to God. Maybe this is foreign to you. Maybe you don’t grasp how a God who already knows your story could still want to hear it from you. He wants a relationship with you & relationships aren’t 1-sided. Maybe you’re ashamed of your story.
Read 7 tweets

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