God takes what we do wrong and still makes it beautiful. All imoorality involves treating people like an object. Children do not become unworthy because of faulty ways that their parents conceived. God showa us that He came to save sinners.
Joseph is one of the most significant Bible characters, however, he did not start off this way. Joseph had many faults, however, he did the Father's will. Joseph became a forerunner, though not perfect at all, of Jesus. We need to be concerned with wether or not what we do is pleasing to God. Jesus said we must be born again. We tend to do the things that we grew up around. We do not have the capacity, in and of ourselves, however, Jesus can. We do not have to repeat the mistakes of the past, with God's help we will not.
In the eyes of God, He is bringing redemption to the whole world through the Jews. In this passage, there is a list of names of the genealogy of Esau. While some think of these as just a bunch of names, God sees each name as a person. God loves people. Everyone.
God declared to Jacob to get up and go to Bethel. Doing what God says is always a good plan. We need to do what God says; we are to obey Him. His word tells what we are to do. Sometimes our clothing sends a message to our attitude. When we go to meet with God, we need to give it some thought. Instead of destroying the idols, Jacob hides them under an oak tree. In the midst of Jacob's grief over the loss of Rachel he still had a promise from God. Isaac's eyesight was failing when he was around 60 years old. He spent approximately 120 years just laying around waiting in bed. We should not make Isaac's mistake in is old age and give up. We instead need to cling to God's promises when things are down.
In this passage Dinah had done nothing wrong, and yet she was raped. This evil was not due to anything that Dinah had done. Rape is not the fault of the person abused, the sin falls on the rapist. God designed such a wonderful, beautiful thing with love, marriage, then sexual relations. Jacob's sons plotted to murder the men of Shechem. The muder of every man in Shechem was sin and not okay. The only good out of this story is God. We all mess up, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Sometimes when we try to do the right thing we end up messy and even messier then we know. We need to have confidence in Christ alone.
In this part of Genesis, Jacob is afraid of Esau. There is a lot of signifiance, not only in what we give, but how we recieve as well. In order to recieve,we must humble ourselves. Do we trust God personnaly with our whole lives?
Apart from God's grace, we are murderers at heart. Today, as in times past, siblings often do not get along. God calls us to get along anyway. We should not ask angels to do anything for us, we should ask God to give angels instructions concerning us. God knows what is going on for all eternity. God chose to manifest His power in the context of human frailty. God often puts Himself in the position where it looks as if we prevail. God is ready to meet us where we are and He is ready to wrestle with us. We will only be over comers if we trust in Jesus as our Lord and Savior.
God calls us to truth and integrity. Unfortunately, most people do not keep their word. It is not worth lying. Sometimes in the midst of doing the right thing, we can dishonor God. We will never be able to outsmart or thwart His plan. We need to stop fighting with God and follow His will. God is a jealous God. Love does not keep a record of wrongs. We are not to blame our parents for how our lives turn out. If we want to have a healthy biblical family, we must not stop doing what God has called us to do.
In this story, we see that the people did things that were very superstitious. We have been taught a lot of things that are not correct. The whole idea of bad luck was developed by people who do not know God or who did not love God. God is in charge of the Universe and only He made and it. God is the one who brings life and He alone can bring salvation. We all have physical problems because we are living in a world that is under a curse. If we are in Christ, we will gain a new body with no physical defects that will live forever. God knew what He was doing when he made us. He designed us with a purpose and a plan. We should not attempt to manipulate our situations and make silly plans when God has already promised us and told us what to do. Sin is not okay, even though God uses the sin that we do to accomplish His will. God is the author of life and is in charge of everything.
Jacob is on a journey because he was running from his brother. People need affection without references to sex and sexual behavior. Jesus is the perfect mnan and yet He wept.