Lena's Journalin' to Genesis 32 Today

WARNING WARNING !!!!
THIS is NOT a Devotional Journal. It is a study journal, over a whole chapter in the Bible. It is NOT a paragraph on a few scriptures. That means it is probably longer than the average devotional would be. (Today's is about 6 minutes worth of reading)

If you read, God Bless you as you do.

Have a Blessed day!
In Him, Lena

Encounters, life is full of them, each designed by God to enlighten us to who He is. Encounters are to reveal our life’s purposes which can only be found inside of His plans for each of us.
God is always giving man chances to find himself and then place himself inside of the will of God, inside of the plan of God. He uses each and every encounter we have in life, whether with man, or illness or tragedy. Each can be an opportunity to meet with His Spirit, to lead us back to our foundational purpose for being alive. As long as man is still alive on the earth, and has not completely rejected God, the Lord is after setting him inside of what it is He was created to become, a nation of peoples unto the Lord, engaged in the execution and perpetuation of His will, which can best be found in being a part of a greater body of peoples.
The passage begins with Jacob who again recognizes God is at this crossroads, and that God is pursuing him in order to set Jacob’s life inside of His will, but Jacob has not engaged his life into being in pursuit of the will of God yet. He gloats of his own pursuits and successes. Jacob had gone on with his own plans in life and had made a name for himself. He’d gained a lot. He had an idea that somehow building a nation unto, and for himself, was somehow what God had meant for him to do.
God was still waiting for a person such as Jacob to be changed and decide to build a nation for the Lord.
Jacob had ideas of his own about life, about wealth, about success, about family, about how to fight his enemy, etc. God wanted to change his perspective. God wanted to be his life, his wealth, success, family and conquer over his enemies. Until this happened, Jacob would fail at it miserably, without God’s Divine help. God wants us to see that our enemies are bigger than we can possibly defeat alone, yet no problem for Him at all. He wants our dependencies for everything from bread in a day, to relationships, to warfare, to be based on Him.
Jacob was prideful. “Look at me, look at what I’ve done and how far I’ve come, even without obeying the faith of my fathers. I’ve done well by myself independently”. It’s amazing how pride lies and tells us we could win favor by being independent of God, or our heritage of faith. So many of us have been lied to this way. We like wearing the badges of honor that show we’ve done well without any “help”, without having to pay the price of living inside of God’s box of rules and regulations. Pride offers us another way to live and then makes us feel like it is not half bad. It ends up self justifying, setting tits own standards of living and being its own god.
Man can never, ever save himself, ever. He will never ever get favor with God through good works or earthly successes, ever. What he’s done apart from dependency of God will never, ever please God, ever.
It is faith in God, who is unseen, that brings Him pleasure and complete and utter dependency upon His unseen Spirit that racks up the rewards. Those rewards may hardly be anything to boast of here, yet their treasury is great in the heavenly realm, a realm one cannot see without eternal vision.
Face to face with man and God is His design. God is all about relationship and bridging its gaps. That relational gap filling can make people very uncomfortable. It takes a tremendous amount of trust.
Your own gifts and talents do go before you, they were meant by God to open doors in the spirit for His truths to be shown and known. Not to protect you or make you a star.
Jacob is each of us in our flesh nature. Our flesh nature is awaiting change, everyday. We must encounter God – daily, in order to change and be changed. Our walk has to change, our perspectives need to become heavenly, our thoughts need to become whatever it is His thoughts are. That takes change.
The soul hates change, the spirit longs for it, and the body usually follows whoever is the true Master.
Who is the Master of you? It is what or whoever you follow after, really. What enslaves your body or soul? What is your body doing or where does it go? That shows who your Master is. Are you addicted to anything? That is bondage and you are the slave of whatever you depend on. Do you attend church regularly? Do you regard it as your spiritual family, contributing to its inner workings, or do you just go to get whatever it is you can to stay somewhat peaceful? You do whatever your Master tells you to do. Really? Take a look at your life, who/what is really leading you?
Time for change of Masters. A slave bears the name of His Master. This man bore the name “Deceiver & Conniver”, which showed who his Master was, he followed the one whom he bore the name of. That nature could and had to be changed, in order to engage in eternal life in the here and now living.
What would that take? An Encounter, with God.
Notice messengers of God are many times nameless. This is because they bear His name and that’s all that matters. Doing His will is all that matters. Being who he created them to be, is all that matters, really. Isn’t it?
One meaning of the name Israel is “Prince with God”. Jacob was the kind of person who desired to be the star, the leader, the successor, the master of himself. He was changed into a servant, who bore the name and mark of another. He was made to be a messenger of the Father’s will, one who follows. He went from being independent to being dependant on the King of kings. He was brought to a humbled place of submission and a life of the furtherance of obedient actions.
All of that brings God on the scene, everyday.
What about you? Do you still want things the way you want them and are going to do whatever you want, with no one telling you what to do? Are you prideful, proud of your own accomplishments in life? Are you your own master? Are you happy that you are independent?
Or
Are you completely dependant upon Him? Are you after the execution of His will? Do you live to be an integral part of the working out of His plans in the earth, spending everyday of your life in pursuits of serving others wills? Especially those He’s given vision to, in order to help others get done what God has shown them to do?
(He’d shown Jacob he wanted a nation of peoples out of him, Jacob could never present God this desired nation alone, Jacob would have to win a few people through loving servant hood and righteous leading. A people had to desire to follow him in order for God to have a nation through him, others had to see themselves with another dream to fulfill other than their own and put themselves in the place of helping that vision come true).
Who’s dream are you a part of making come true? Have you gone back and made repairs with your family? (the original nation God meant for you to be in) Have you gone back to win the very generations of peoples God set you on earth with? If you don’t have a natural family, have you been set up permanently in a spiritual household, of those who are after vision, and have you engaged wholeheartedly in it, as a true family member would?
Are you building on another man’s foundation or are you spending your life finding out how to erect your own, then beginning to lay yours, never winning anyone else over to the building of that foundation? Does building to you mean you are perpetuating the nation of you, as Jacob did? All that reproduces is more independence and God is not able to build anything with a nation like that, it is a waste of life and of time.
Vision is always generational. Have you gone back to a father Abraham generational visionary and begun to serve Him, so a nation can be made and vision carried through?
Then you are Israel.