Genesis 28:10-15 "Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Harran. When he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones there, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep. He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. There above it stood the Lord, and he said: “I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” Today's episode is about how God blessed Jacob right after he had stolen his brother's blessing? It talks about how no matter what you have done, or what you think of yourself, you shouldn't count yourself out. God can and will still bless you if you want Him to. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Don’t Count Yourself Out
Genesis 28:10-15 "Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Harran. When he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones there, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep. He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. There above it stood the Lord, and he said: “I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”
The title of this episode is Don’t Count Yourself Out. Do you ever do this? Do you ever hear about someone doing something and count yourself out because you don’t think you are strong enough or you don’t think you are good enough, or you are not enough in some other way? Do you ever hear about someone receiving a blessing and count yourself out of receiving a blessing because you are not good enough or you are not holy enough? I think we all count ourselves sometimes. We hear about people receiving blessing and good things from God and we tell ourselves they are holier than we are. They are better Christians that we are. They are closer to God so of course He is blessing them. We then proceed to think of all the ways where we are falling short. We think of all the thing we are doing wrong and how God couldn’t possibly bless us.
Yesterday in class we talked about the verse above and when I heard her talking about it I knew some of you needed to hear it as bad as I did. In the verse above God is bestowing upon Jacob an amazing blessing. He is promising to give him and his descendants the land Jacob was laying on. God is also promising Jacob his descendants will be like dust of the earth and will be spread out to the east, west, north and south. Then he says all people on earth will be blessed through Jacob and his offspring. God promises to be with Jacob, to watch over him, and to bring him back to that land. I am not sure if you know the story of Jacob or not. If you don’t you probably assume Jacob is a great guy. It is easy to assume he is a very holy man that was doing everything right. However, this is not the case.
In Genesis 27, the chapter right before this, Isaac, Jacob’s dad, asked Essau, Jacob’s brother, to prepare him some food and then he will give him the blessing he deserves because he is the oldest. However, Jacob’s mom persuades Jacob to get the blessing instead. Jacob dressed up like his brother, they even put goat skin on his hands so he would be hairy like his brother’s hands. Then he brought food into his father and pretended to be his brother. His father doubted but Jacob convinced him and stole his brothers blessing. When Essau came home he was really angry. He begged his father for a blessing but there wasn’t really one to be had, He had already given it to Jacob.
Essau was so angry he decided he would kill Jacob once his father passed away. Their mother heard about Essau’s plan and told Jacob to run away. She told him to go and stay with her brother until Essau’s anger calmed down. It was on his way to her brother’s house where Jacob has this dream. Jacob was not doing everything right. He was not the ideal person we would think God would choose to bless and yet God blessed him tremendously. Do you know what that means? That means He can bless you tremendously too. It means you don’t have to count yourself out from whatever it is you think you want to do or whatever it is God wants to do for you.
If we look back through scripture we will see plenty of examples of where God used people we would have never chosen to do the things he wanted to get done. God chose Tamar, a woman whose husband died and because her father in law refused to give his other younger son to her so she could conceive a child, as was the custom back then, she pretended to be a harlot and tricked her father in law into sleeping with her so she could conceive a son. Tamar was definitely not doing everything right and yet God used Tamar is part of the lineage that brought about David the king and therefore our savior Jesus as well. There is also Ruth, who was not even Christian, she was a moabite woman, a foreigner. Even though she was not Christian she was great grandmother of David.
I know it feels like we are getting it all wrong sometimes. I know it feels like we can’t possibly be doing enough to earn God’s blessings. I know it feels like we are never good enough. I know. And yet, God isn’t asking us to be good enough. God isn’t ask us to do enough. God isn’t asking much from us at all. He isn’t expecting us to get it all right. He isn’t expecting us to be perfect. He is just expecting us to show up each day as we are and to spend some time with Him. He does the blessings, not us. There isn’t a way to earn blessings. God gives them freely to all who ask and to all who seek them.
The next time you are counting yourself out because you think you are not enough or because you think you have done too much wrong, think of Jacob. Think of how he first stole his brother’s birthright by telling Essau he can only have a bowl of soup if he gave up his birthright. Essau was starving, so he agreed. Then Jacob went in and pretended to be Essau to steal his blessing too. Whatever it is you did, God can still bless you. He is not counting you out, so don’t count yourself out. I heard a phrase in class last night and it really stuck with me. The teacher said, “When we believe the lie we empower the liar.” I love this. The enemy is the father of lies. When we believe these lies, we are empowering him and giving him authority in our lives. God loves you, he loves you just as you are. He made you and He is our good, good Father. Don’t count yourself out. God will use you if that is what you want. God will bless you. God isn’t looking for perfection. If you don’t believe me, go back and look at almost every bible story written. David was blessed beyond belief and yet he had an affair and then had the girl’s husband killed in battle. I could go on but I will leave the rest of the stories up to you. Hopefully you can already see whatever you did, it is not enough to count you out of God’s blessing. There is nothing you can do that would exclude your from God’s blessings. God is always waiting with open arms for us to turn back and repent. Don’t count yourself out!
Dear heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, help us to realize you love us right were we are. Help us to see you don’t need us to be perfect, you just need us to be us. Help us to not count ourselves out. Lord please bless us as abundantly as you blessed Jacob. Please bless our perfectly imperfect lives Lord. We love you Lord, you are truly amazing. We ask all of this in accordance with you will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen!
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I am not sure who our witness will be tomorrow but I am sure the Holy Spirit will provide one. Remember, Jesus loves you and so do I! Have a blessed day!