Emmanuel Okoro (aka MrLift)

Leave Bethel "Leaving Bethel, they traveled on toward Ephrath (that is, Bethlehem). But Rachel's pains of childbirth began while they were still some distance away." (Gen.35.16 NLT) One would wonder why God would ask Jacob to leave Bethel when He was the One that asked Jacob to go and stay there in the first place. We must understand that God is a God of purpose and that He never does anything without purpose. Purpose that may not be obvious to us at the time.  God sometimes takes us through, in order to bring us to. Bethel was a place Jacob needed to go through in order to come into the promises of God. Sometimes, God let's us go through stuff so He could reveal an aspect of Himself to us. He allows us go through those seeming difficult situations, only for Him to show us an aspect of Himself we would never find out otherwise.  They had to leave Bethel.  Why?  So that they can come into the age-long promise that God had handpicked him for.  "the land I gave Abra

Go back to Bethel "God spoke to Jacob: "Go back to Bethel. Stay there and build an altar to the God who revealed himself to you when you were running for your life from your brother Esau." (Gen.35.1)  This is a clarion call to all who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ - "Go back to Bethel". Bethel when translated means the house of God and God spoke to Jacob asking him to go back to the house of God. There at the house of God, Jacob encountered God personally, God revealed himself to Jacob at Bethel.  Bethel symbolically is that place where you find God for yourself. It is the place where God is real to you. Job, at some point came to this place and he said: "I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee." (Job.42.5 KJV) Bethel is the place where you experience God firsthand. God told Jacob not only to go back there but "to stay there and build an alter". He that dwells in the secret place of the Most High. If we

Don't marry for wealth "This is a very good deal for us--these people are very wealthy with great herds of livestock and we're going to get our hands on it. So let's do what they ask and have them settle down with us." Everyone who was anyone in the city agreed with Hamor and his son, Shechem; every male was circumcised." (Gen.34.23-24)  For many people, marriage is transactional. They said to themselves "this is a very good deal for us". They were not looking at what they were bringing to the table but what they were going to be taking away.  And then they added, "These people are very wealthy". This is a blinding factor for most people. They refuse to see the person for who the person is but for what the person has. The person's wealth now becomes a blindfold over their minds and eyes such that they cannot see his or her faults, failings and faltering.  "we are going to get our hands on it" they opined. Greed has replaced g