#DailyDevotion How Awesome Is This Place!
Gen. 28:15-17 15You see I am with you and watch over you everywhere you go and will bring you back to this country because I will not leave you until I do what I promised you.” 16Jacob woke up. And he said, “Certainly the LORD is here, and I didn’t know it.” 17A sense of awe came over him, and he said, “How awesome this place is! This is nothing less than God’s house. This is the gateway to heaven!”
Jacob was on the run for his life from his brother Esau because not only did get Esau to sell his birthright for a bowl of beans, but he stole his father’s blessing through deceit. Yet here the LORD is blessing Jacob purely out of grace with the blessing he had bestowed upon Abraham and Isaac. It was purely God’s choice to do. It was going to be through Jacob’s seed, the Messiah, the Savior of the world, the LORD himself would become flesh and be a blessing to all the nations of the earth.
On his way to his uncle Laban’s home the LORD blesses Jacob with the blessing of Abraham. Here he promises Jacob he would be with him, watch over him and bring him back to the house of his father and wouldn’t leave him until He accomplished what he had promised Jacob. It is fairly similar to the blessing the LORD Jesus Christ gave us at the end of Matthew, “Lo, I am with you always, even until the end of the age,” and in Hebrews, “I will never leave you or forsake you.” With the strength of these words Jacob would continue to his uncle’s house and eventually back home. With the promise of our LORD Jesus Christ, we too have the strength to endure all things with the LORD until such time as He brings us home into His eternal kingdom at the end of the age.
Having dreamed the dream and heard the blessing of the LORD in the dream Jacob wakes up and realized the awesomeness of that place he rested his head. It was called Luz but Jacob renames it Beth-El, House of God, the gateway to heaven. When the Israelites return from Egypt 450 years or so later, it would be a shrine they would worship the LORD at. “How awesome is this place,” Jacob says. It seems to me we probably could use a little more of that in our sanctuaries where we worship these days. There is more awe and wonder at state capitals, memorials to dead presidents and dead soldiers, and even courtrooms than there is where the LORD Jesus Christ himself descends from heaven to meet us. Indeed, Jesus promised, “Wherever two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of you.” Yes, at the place the LORD gathers His people in His name He is there to bless us even as He blessed Jacob. Jesus is there to proclaim His blessing of the forgiveness of sins. He is there to give us eternal life. He is there to bestow the kingdom of God upon us. He proclaims to us through the readings and the sermon His divine will for us. He humbles Himself, even as He did in the upper room, joining his body and blood to the bread and wine affirming for us by these tokens His covenant with us so we may receive the forgiveness of sins, life and salvation. Here as the Church, He blesses us with His name. Yet we act in the gathering sometimes like we’re meeting in the grocery store in a vulgar display of commonality. The LORD forgive our failing to recognize how awesome is this place. He is gracious and merciful to us, especially when we don’t deserve it.
Heavenly Father, we thank you for fulfilling your promise to Jacob and we ask you to remember your promise to us so we may live in the strength of that promise everyday. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.