Genesis 31

Bible Passage:  Genesis 31

A few months back, I said something mean about a colleague whom I dislike immensely and another colleague of mine commented, “How could you say such a thing? Aren’t you a Christian?”

While I was embarrassed I felt ashamed too as I brought disgrace to the name of the Lord.

I am sure many of us have had encounters with Christians who do not behave like how a Christian should.

Sometimes we behave in less righteous ways than our non-Christian peers.

What sets a true Christian apart from the eyes of the world? How should a real Christian behave?

Are we viewed by the world as Jacob by Laban?

Many of us are no different from Jacob. We think that we are pious and holy because we do not smoke, club or swear and God is obliged to bless us.

Like Jacob, we may feel self righteous, but are others convinced?

In today’s chapter we read of Jacob trying to sneak off without Laban’s knowledge because he was afraid (v31). He trusted God, but not enough to act honorably.

It was time for Jacob to return to the land of promise and God commanded Jacob to do just that. (Gen 31:3)

Having the assurance from his wives that they were in support of this move, he hastily packed up all of their belongings and left, oh-so-coincidentally at the time when Laban was occupied in shearing his sheep.

Jacob was wrong in leaving without telling Laban about it, and at a time when it would have been inconvenient for Laban to prevent it.

Yes Jacob was doing God’s will in returning to the land of promise, but he was not doing so in God’s way.

In his fear he questioned the words that God has spoken to him at Bethel:

“Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have spoken to you.”

Genesis 28:15

SELF RIGHTEOUSNESS

After seven days Laban finally caught up with Jacob and his wives and confronted him.  At this point we saw his self defence mechanism kicking into high gear.

Jacob seemed to have emerged from this encounter with Laban as the unchallenged winner, but is Laban truly convinced?

Laban was still certain that Jacob was no good, but as God warned him, he could do little to harm him.

Jacob reveled in the fact that God’s protection was over him and he used that to his advantage.

A self righteous person is self-justified. He feels righteous based on his own works, as opposed to our Lord’s standards.

In our church context today, sometimes we feel that we do much more than others, or take more initiative to do church works.

Deep in our hearts we might grumble against others whom we feel do not do their share of work.

If we are self-righteous, chances are we don’t know it. We must pray that God opens up our eyes in this area, that we could be lowly in heart.

LACK OF FAITH

The bottomline for Jacob was the lack of faith.  He did not trust that God would spare him and his family under such circumstances.

A couple of days back, a sister called me up and while we were chatting, we talked about the hymn we sang last Sabbath “His Eye is on the Sparrow”. It is a simple yet meaningful hymn.

Indeed why should we feel discouraged when we know He watches over us?

For many of us today, we do not believe that God will continue to bless us under added restrictions, and we try to take over, often in ways that are offensive to God.

Sometimes we get caught up in the fact that what we are doing is right, but we neglect the how we are doing it.

Our methods must always be consistent with our Lord if we want our actions to be pleasing to Him.