A Promise

A Promise

He was a child of God, but you could hardly tell. Sinful thoughts led to sinful actions and relationships were broken. He had made a mess of things and now he was all alone. The family was in upheaval and it was all his fault. All he had left was regret, guilt, and uncertainty. He deserved everything he was getting and more. Jacob conspired with his mother, betrayed his brother, and deceived his father. Now he was on the run. What was worse, his conscience told him he wasn’t right with God. Ashamed and uncertain, he fell asleep.

God should have sent him a nightmare to literally scare him to death. Instead, he gave him a dream that filled him with life. That dream included an incredible promise that said as messed up as things were and as messed up as Jacob was, God still loved him. He would never leave him and always watch over him.

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God made that surprising promise because he saw Jacob through the lens of a Savior who would come centuries later. A Savior named Jesus, who was also God’s Son, would pay for Jacob’s sinful mess by giving his life on the cross and winning for Jacob an eternal place in the family of God.

I hope you’re not living with regret, guilt, and uncertainty, but as sinners it’s hard not to. We have a way of making a mess of our lives. But God’s grace in Jesus has a way of turning regret into resolve to act differently, it makes the guilt go away, and turns uncertainty to confidence.

The promise God spoke to Jacob applies to you because through faith in Jesus, he sees you through the lens of a Savior who died for you and brought you into the family. Np matter who you are or what mess you have made of things, God loves you. He forgives you in Jesus and will watch over you until he brings you home.

It’s his promise.

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 to.- Genesis 28:15