Prayer 120: Knowing Who You Are

Offering

Proverbs 28:27 NIV84

He who gives to the poor will lack nothing, but he who closes his eyes to them receives many curses.

Knowing Who You Are

Genesis 33:18–20 NIV84

After Jacob came from Paddan Aram, he arrived safely at the city of Shechem in Canaan and camped within sight of the city. For a hundred pieces of silver, he bought from the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem, the plot of ground where he pitched his tent. There he set up an altar and called it El Elohe Israel.

Have you ever been through a situation you were not sure you would survive?

Gen 3

Genesis 33:18 NIV84

After Jacob came from Paddan Aram, he arrived safely at the city of Shechem in Canaan and camped within sight of the city.

Have you ever been through a situation you were not sure you would survive?

Jacob moved nearly 500 miles with a caravan and no one to protect them.

He ran from a furious father-in-law with an army.

He was greeted by a bitter long-lost brother who just happened to bring an army along.

He wrestled with a stranger in the night that left him limping and weak.

This is like waltzing your family through an active warzone with bullets flying and hoping you don’t get hit.

God Brought Him Safely

Genesis 33:18 NIV84

After Jacob came from Paddan Aram, he arrived safely at the city of Shechem in Canaan and camped within sight of the city.

Only God could rescue Jacob. And God did, as He promised that He would.

God Gave Him A Place

Genesis 33:19 NIV84

For a hundred pieces of silver, he bought from the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem, the plot of ground where he pitched his tent.

Gen 33:

Too often we look to people to make a place for us. And by place, I am not just talking about a home, but more than that, a purpose, destiny, a Kingdom assignment. A situation in which we can flourish and bring glory to God. God will give us a place.

The problem is when we try to create our own place or we depend on other people to make a place for us.

Esau insisted on helping Jacob, but Jacob had been dependent on man for too long. This time he insists on going alone, at his own place to the location of his choosing.

Missionary that stayed too long on the field for fear of scorn from his fellow missionaries.

Jacob traveled back to Israel- to the land of promise. He did not go with Esau to Edom- to the land of the flesh. Edom became a symbol in scripture of carnality and worldliness.

Jacob Gave God Thanks

One of the first thing Jacob does is to build an altar to God.

Jacob Thanks God

Jacob Calls on God

Jacob Calls Himself What God Called Him

His father called him and liar and a thief.

His brother called him a liar and a thief.

His father in law called him a liar and thief.

He called himself a liar and a thief.

But God called him a fighter- Israel. The one who wrestles with God, who fights with God. Or God Fights For him.

It was true. Jacob had lied. He had cheated. He had stolen. But that was not the end of the story.

Let neither the cynic nor the critic write your story. Let God write your story and it will be truly glorious.

God is ready to speak life and hope over our life, but we must be willing to believe it, receive it and act on it.

Jacob builds an altar to thank God for bringing him safely and when he does, he calls himself what God called him.

He found His identity in God’s word. Not in man’s word. Not in his own words. But in God’s word.

He stopped saying what he thought about himself and started saying what God said about him.

This reflected a willingness to be changed and transformed by God. To become what God wanted him to be.

The devil tries to use shame to keep the people of God from becoming what God has called them to be.

Shame says: I am what I am. I cannot change. I am hopeless.

But God says:

2 Corinthians 5:17 NIV84

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!

2 Corinthians 5:21 NIV84

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

2 Corinthians 3:18 NIV84

And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

What I was is not what I am and what I am is not what I will be.

Chad Shalom Testimony