Blessing – Light from the Word

Jacob and the Stone Pillow

When her days to give birth were completed, behold, there were twins in her womb. The first came out red, all his body like a hairy cloak, so they called his name Esau. Afterward his brother came out with his hand holding Esau’s heel, so his name was called Jacob (Genesis 25:24-26).

This is the beginning story of two brothers – Esau and Jacob. A story with future significance that has shaped their world and continues shaping, embracing the entire world as it turned to the future of yesterday and will continue writing its pages until the end. The emphasis is given to the younger brother, Jacob. To start with, his name means supplanter. Jacob well lived his name, bringing grudges between the two to this day. The older, Esau was supposed to be the right heir of the blessing before his father Isaac died. But Jacob was always envious of that blessing, so much so that he would not give his brother a bowl of soup without having him give up his blessing. That had come when Isaac was old and his eyes were dim, so he could not see, he called Esau his older son, and said to him: My son! And he answered him, He I am. He said, See here now; I am old, I do not know when I may die. So, now I pray you, take your weapons, your quiver and your bow, and go out into the open country and hunt game for me, and prepare me appetizing meat, such as I love, and bring it to me, that I may eat of it, to giving you my blessing before I die (Gen. 27:1-4). But Rebekah had a plan for her favorite son, Jacob, that of stealing the blessing from her older son to give to his brother.

Jacob hesitated for a while, but went along with it and deceived his father, dressed as Esau with a delicious meal which Rebeka- his mother prepared. In his desperation, when he came to receive his blessing, Esau tried to kill his brother from that day onward. Not a beautiful picture in the pages of History. But God had His plan to write on those pages- a story that would make a difference in the entire world through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. As things were taking place in the lives of the brothers, Jacob had to flee to the house of his mother’s father, which was between six hundred to seven hundred miles from Canaan to Padan-aram, where his mother’s family lived. After that, Isaac blessed him saying, May the God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you until you become a group of peoples; may He give the blessing [He gave to] Abraham to you and your descendants with you, that you may inherit the land He gave to Abraham, in which you’re a sojourner (Gen. 28:3-4). Years earlier, the righteous Abraham had been was tested, when God asked him to offer his only son to Him in the region of Mount Moriah. Abraham obeyed when he built an altar and Isaac, was put on the altar to be sacrificed. There, Abraham was blessed and, in his Seed, all the nations of the world with him for his obedience to God. (Gen.22). The blessing continued through Jacob the day he fled from his brother. Nothing was interrupting God’s plan of salvation through Jacob’s descendance. His journey was going to be challenging, but God ‘s plan was going to be fulfilled in the fulness of time. Paul said, “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, ⁵to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. ⁶And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” ⁷So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God” (Gal. 4:4). One of the beautiful things God does is to reveal His plan to His servants. He reveals to Moses, to Abraham, to the Prophets and still reveals to us today.

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Valleys, Places of Reflection

Solitude, the master of a valley, predominates the silence of the place. No outside voices, noises, only the mind working the past and dreaming the future. It is the place to get near our God. In prayer and anguish of the soul, we very much depend on Him to alleviate the heavy burden that took us over there. However, it is transient or impermanent as we must go through it to reach our final destination. Many of us give up, without the strength to go on, because our spiritual and mental situations are rachitic and in need of help from above, where our help comes from. But it is precisely in the valley that we receive our strength. It is there that we are broken and more willing to listen. If you and I want to know our God, the valley is a good place to be.

When David was in the wilderness of Judah, he wrote Psalm 63, which reads, God, You are my God, earnestly will I seek You; my inner self thirsts for You, my flesh longs and is faint for You, in a dry and weary land where no water is… My whole being follows hard after You and clings closely to You; Your right hand upholds me… (verses 1,8). Many of David’s psalms are based on his experiences in the wilderness or valley. Painful as it was, he never forsook God. His beliefs were firmed on his faith that God existed and that He answers prayers. He understood the benefits of suffering, as he reflected while facing the wilderness or valley. He said, It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I might learn Your statute; before I was afflicted I went astray, but now Your word do I keep (Ps. 119:67,71). He used the challenges before him to acknowledge God’s faithfulness and love. His life was a testimony of endurance in his faith in all the psalms we read. God’s purpose for every believer in suffering is to equip each of us to get to know Him. Without the valleys and wildernesses of life, we would not know our God’s faithfulness, His compassion, and all that that His attributes denote. It is said, “No pain, no gain.” A Christian that has had all without going through deserts and valleys, it is a Christian that does not know God. Or better yet, he is not a Christian at all. The valleys have their twists and uncertainties, they have a way to change and break us; it is in the valley that we are molded, fulfilling God’s purpose for our life.

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The Past Remembered Through Twelve Stones

When Israel left Egypt under the leadership of Moses and his brother, Aaron, they were a multitude of people of which God created a nation for Himself. The first challenge they faced was the Red Sea in front of them, the Egyptian’s army behind and mountain. They all constituted challenges of great proportion, impeding the journey planed by God. Moses, however calmed them saying, “Fear Not; stand still and see the salvation of the Lord which He will work for you today. For the Egyptians you have seen today you shall never see again. The Lord will fight for you and you shall hold your peace and remain at rest”. (Exodus 14:13-14). All through their journey to the Promised Land, Israel experienced the supernatural, for God’s plan was going to be completed amidst all their troubles. From the parting of the Red Sea for them to go through on dry land, to water provided through the rocks to satisfy their thirsty, to food falling from heaven, called mana; for forty years their clothes and shoes did not wear out; they experienced the presence of God on Mount Sinai, when He Himself came down and touched the mountain, to covenant with them, leaving the mountain wrapped in smoke; Israel heard His audible voice and feared Him greatly (Exo. 19). Those were forty years God used to make a nation out of them, a nation like no other nation, whose God was their King.

Psalm 78 gives a report of Israel’s journey through the desert, God’s provision and their rebellion against Him. Psalm 107, the psalmist calls to attention the need for us to give thanks to the Lord, as He reminds Israel of God’s goodness in all Israel’s pilgrimage through the desert to the Promised Land. Verse 20 we read, “He sends forth His word and heals them and rescues them from the pit and destruction; OH, that men would praise the Lord for His goodness and loving-kindness and His wonderful works to the children of men” (20-21). At the end of his life, Moses predicted Israel’s faithlessness. He said, “For I know that after my death you will utterly corrupt yourselves and turn aside from the way which I have commanded you; and evil will befall you in the latter days because you will do what is evil in the sight of the Lord, to provoke Him to anger through the work of your hands (Idolatry)” (Deut. 31:29). Israel provoked Moses at the water of Meribah and quarreled with the Lord. Moses struck the rock twice instead of one time he was commanded to do. For that, he was not allowed to lead the people into the promised Land. (Deut. 20:10-13; 3:23-28).

Twelve stones of remembrance served as a testimony “that the hand of the Lord is mighty and that you may reverence and fear the Lord your God forever.” (Josh. 4:21b). Stones are silent witnesses of the present and the past. Israel’s pilgrimage left enough behind to be remembered. These stones would remind them of all the Lord had done for the nation for their children to know. They had arrived at the end of the road that would take them to the place promised many years ago. Their lives will now change; for they arrived home. Now they were given land to own and establish their lives with their families. A nation now they were considered. With these twelve stones reminding them, for sure that they would not forget their God. These stones remained pointing to them all the blessings of the past. However, they followed after other gods, as Moses prophesized. They were without excuses to forget forty years of experiencing miracles after miracles, and supernatural miracles.

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I Am Wonderfully Created

Have you ever thought how special you are to God? You are His possession from the time He created you. There is such an individuality between God and us that it is difficult not to feel His love when reading Psalm 139. For every person created, God was pleased to create. A baby in the womb of a mother is God’s creation. It is God Who gives form and development to that child at the moment of conception. David said, “For You did form my inward parts; You did knit me together in my mother’s womb” (vs. 13). The word knit is to fasten together closely and firmly (Webster Dictionary). Knitting a shawl, we perceive that the thread needs to be tightly together, in order to sustain its strength and the ability to be used for long time. Imagine how orderly God created us! In perfect harmony and in perfection of action among the organs. Think of the brain and its complexities. It is a world of information restored in it as it is the control center of the body. No human being, smart as they can be will be able to create the body as God created with life and the brain with the ability to think, to reason, to decide, etc. It constitutes the part of the soul: the intellect, the emotion, the will. For every child that has been born, God wrote in His book all the days of his/her life (vs.16b). In some cases, there has been defect due to the parent’s taking drugs, or smoking cigarette, or alcohol, or even due to vaccine. This is not a work of God, but of man, who in his sinful nature, has altered God’s creation. God knows what’s best to keep our body healthy and strong. When He was knitting us together, He thought of us individually as special. He planned our future as in the number of days of our existence on earth: “Your eyes saw my uniformed substance, and in Your book all the days [of my life] were written before ever they took shape, when as yet there was none of them” (vs. 16).

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He Sent His Word and Healed My Diseases

But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our guilt and iniquities; the chastisement [needed to obtain] peace and well-being for us was upon Him, and with the stripes [that wounded Him] we are healed and made whole (Isaiah 53:5).

No disease is greater than God’s healing power. However, diseases have their roots deeply in sin; it is a result of the fall of men. When God introduced man to the garden He had beautifully created, He commanded Adam saying, You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and blessing and calamity you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die (Gen. 2: 16-17). Why was it so important for Adam to obey the Lord’s command, “But the tree of knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat?” Because this particular command was key to men’s blessings. Disobedience of this command would bring serious consequences, not only to Adam’s family, but to the entire human race and nature. The perfect world God had created was going to be changed from order to chaos; from peace to war; from love to hate. Consequences were devastating for all. As a result consequence demanded the death of God’s Son to restore men to Himself, to order, love and peace. The importance of that command demanded obedience. God had created the world in perfect harmony of beauty; He created man to tend the garden, which provided Adam with his sustenance. Adam had everything he needed in that garden. A simple command not to eat the fruit of one tree should have not been a problem for Adam. Obedience is the result of trust, faith and respect for someone; it is also submission of the spirit. Adam, even though knowing what God had commanded him, decided not to harken to the command of the Lord, but to follow his wife’s idea. The apostle Paul tells us that Eve was deceived, but not Adam. If he were not deceived why then did he disobey the Lord? Where was he when the serpent deceived Eve? Created to be the head of the family, Adam was to protect Eve. But he failed and he is to be blamed for the original sin. Although Eve sinned first, God’s question was directed to Adam (Gen. 3: 9)

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The Importance of Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal

(Deuteronomy 11:29-30)

Directed by Moses before he died, Israel was to set the blessings on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ebal, after they had reached the Promised Land. On that day, Moses set before Israel a blessing and a curse- the blessing if they obey the commandments of the Lord, and the curse if they did not obey the commandments of the Lord their God. He said, And when the Lord your God has brought you into the land which you go to possess, you shall set the blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ebal (Deut. 11:29-30). The people were to hear the blessings from Mount Gerizim, when they obeyed the law and the curse from Mount Ebal when they disobeyed God’s law. The significance of these mountains, in particularly the Mount Ebal is relevant to us today in its symbolic prophetic meaning. The late Dr. Francis A Schaeffer, an American theologian, philosopher, an apologetic and pastor, a thinker of his time, suggested that these two mountains represented two life styles: obedience and disobedience. Consequentially, the mountains were to remind the people that keeping God’s law was as if they lived on mount Gerizim. From there, God’s blessing would fall on Israel. But an altar was to be built on Ebal mountain when they sinned against God. Shechem, a city of long history, is found between these two mountains. There, the Patriarch Abraham built the first altar to the living God; Joseph, his great-grandson, sought for his brother in Shechem; his bones were buried there many years later after Israel’s exodus from Egypt. Jacob dug a well near the city and many years later, YAHSHUA providentially met a Samaritan woman there with a message of salvation. The Samaritans, after hearing what the woman had to say about YAHSHUA, said, Now we no longer believe just because of what you said; for we have heard Him ourselves and we know that He truly the Savior of the world, the Messiah. Many more believed Him, because of His personal message (John 4:42,41). The city of Shechem, was a silent witness of past history and of the spiritual meaning they carried, according to the words Moses spoke to Israel before they entered the Land.

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Elijah, Ravens and a Widow

(I Kings 17:2-16)

The days of the prophets of old were days of unprecedented supernatural happenings, when God visibly acted for or against His people – Israel. Elijah’s life, for example, was one with stories to tell, perhaps not all registered in the Bible, causing us to wonder why doesn’t God continue manifesting Himself in our days as He did then. Israel had the direct spoken word from God through the prophets, but they did not heed to them, instead they killed God’s messengers. In Luke 13:34-35 YAHSHUA utters a warning to Jerusalem for having done that: O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who continue to kill the prophets and to stone those who are sent to you! How often I have desired and yearned to gather your children together, as a hen her young under her wings, but you would not! Behold, your house is forsaken. And I tell you, you will not see Me again until the time when you shall say, Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!

Elijah had a message from God to give King Ahab that would cause his anger to arouse, persecute and kill him. However, it is the duty of a prophet to be God’s mouth and Elijah courageously took the podium and proclaimed the word from the Lord to King Ahab: As the Lord lives, before Whom I stand, there shall not be dew or rain these years but according to My word (vs.1). However, before that happened, God provided not only a hiding place for Elijah, but also sustenance. He told him, Go from here, He said, and turn east and hide yourself by the brook Cherith, east of the Jordan. You shall drink of the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there (vs.3-4).

The raven is the largest of the perching birds. It resembles a crow; it is all black, with a 4ft. wing span, measuring over two feet from head to toe. It is one of the most intelligent of all birds; it communicates warning, threats, taunting and cheer to all other birds by changing the sounds it makes. Amazingly how all birds understand the meaning of the various sounds it makes! It is like police to us humans with his siring car. So, God chose ravens to feed Elijah with bread and flesh in the morning and bread and flesh in the evening. For a few days Elijah depended on those ravens to bring him food from heaven, already prepared by God Himself. It must have been the tastiest food ever tried by Elijah. Ah the faithfulness of our God! The Prophet Elijah neither question God, nor doubted His provision, but “did according to the word of the Lord.” Obedience first, then the fulfillment of God’s promises in one’s life. Elijah, was a man of courage and faith; his name has a wonderful meaning: YAHWEH is my God; he is also called Elias. His ministry extended to the northern kingdom of Israel (the remnant of Joseph); his ministry was during the reigns of Ahab, and Ahaziah. In his zeal for the only true God, he commanded the slaughter of all 850 false prophets and prophetess of the northern kingdom in one day. Nothing stopped him from performing the word of the Lord. Taken to heaven without experiencing death, Elijah was one of the two witnesses of the Lord’s death and resurrection; in the future, he will come as one of the two witnesses to turn the hearts of the nation of Israel toward God during the tribulation.

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In the Year King Uzziah Died

The Prophet Isaiah registers a beautiful experience he had with God after King Uzziah died. King Uzziah was a very successful king in the early years of his career as king. The secret laid on the fact that he sought the Lord. It was his desire to seek God (2 Chron. 26: 5). God blessed him and he became very successful in all he did. He was a distinguished and successful politician. He went against the Philistines and broke down the walls of Gath, of Jabneh, and of Ashdod, and built cities near Ashdod and elsewhere among the Philistines, and God helped him against the Philistines and the Arabs who dwelt in Gur-ball and the Meunim. That Ammonites paid tribute to Uzziah, and his fame spread abroad even to the border of Egypt, for he became very strong (II Chron. 26: 6-8).

But King Uzziah’s successes turned him into a prideful king. The Bible says, but when [King Uzziah] was strong, he became proud to his destruction; he trespassed against the Lord his God, for he went into the temple of the Lord to burn incense on the altar of incense (vs. 16). Burning incense by other than the sons of Aaron was a terrible breach of the Levitical Law. He well knew about it, but for whatever reason, he was driven to commit this evil against the word of the Lord. His pride arouse when the priest Azariah confronted him. He was enraged; and while he was enraged with the priests, leprosy broke out on his forehead before the priests in the house of the Lord. King Uzziah was a leper to the day of his death, and being a leper, he dwelt in a separate house, for he was excluded from the Lord’s house (II chron. 16:18-21).

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The End of the Matter Is Fear God

(Ecclesiastes 12:13)

King Solomon was the wisest man who ever lived. God so blessed him because he did not ask for riches or anything else, but for wisdom. At the very beginning of his reign the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, Ask what I shall give you. Solomon (then) said, I am but a lad: I know not how to go out or come in. Your servant is in the midst of Your people whom You have chosen a great people who cannot be counted for multitude. So give You servant an understanding mind and a hearing heart to judge Your people, that I may discern between good and bad. For who is able to judge and rule this Your great people? It pleased the Lord that Solomon had asked this. God said to him, Because you have asked this and have not asked for long life or for riches, nor for the lives of your enemies, but have asked for yourself understanding to recognize what is just and right, behold, I have done as your asked. I have given you a wise, discerning mind, so that no one before you was your equal, nor shall any arise after you equal to you (I Kings 3: 5-12). God not only blessed him with wisdom but also with riches and honor. But something happened to Solomon in the course of his reign that caused him to forsake the Lord, His commandments and statutes. He grew proud and defiant. The Bible says that he [defiantly] loved many foreign women- the daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Sidonians and Hittites. They were of the very nations of whom the Lord said to the Israelites, You shall not mingle with them, neither shall they mingle with you, for surely they will turn away your hearts after their gods, Yet Solomon clung to these in love (I Kings 11: 1-3). He embraced and made alliance with those nations through marriage; he abused his position of king by adopting the practice of having wives and concubines in numbers unheard of. Seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines. I suppose he practiced this idea of alliances to keep peace with the nations.

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YAHSHUA, The Light of Mankind

(John 1:1-17)

In Yahshua was life, and the Life was the Light of men (verse 4). When Paul was on his way to persecute the believers, Yahshua came to him in a Light that flashed from heaven. That Light penetrated Paul’s inmost being and changed the direction of his life from persecutor to persecuted. At that moment he asked Him, “Who are You Lord”? I AM Yahshua, Whom you are persecuting, (He answered) (Acts 9:1-6).

YAHSHUA’S light penetrated not only into Paul’s physical eyes; it also penetrated into his soul – mind, will and emotion, where the source of his hatred against the believers, dwelled. The words spoken by Yahshua illuminated on all the darkness residing in Paul’s life; it removed the spiritual veil which had darkened his understanding of the truth for many years. Paul’s eyes were now opened to realize his spiritual condition. He no longer thought of him as a righteous man, but a wretched sinner. Yes, Paul experienced the effect of that Light and in the impact of its brilliance and splendor the seed of life was planted in him. At that Paul then asks the second question, “Lord, what do You desire me to do?” Powerless, blind and spiritually broken, Paul submitted himself to follow YAHSHUA with the same zeal he had for Judaism, if not greater, to become the greatest preacher of all times. Based on this experience later he told Timothy, YAHSHUA lives in unapproachable light, Whom no man has ever seen or can see (I Timothy 6:16).

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