“I am the God of Bethel, where thou anointedst the pillar, and where thou vowedst a vow unto me: now arise...and return...”
(Gen. 31:13)
THE CHRISTIAN LIFE-A CONTINUAL COMING BACK
Studying the life of God’s people throughout the Scripture you are struck by one common thread in each of their personal histories - they all were habitually returning to God. God referring to His people as sheep should have alerted us to this. Characteristically, the woolly little creatures like to stray from their Shepherd. As the songwriter of old put it, “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, Prone to leave the God I love.”
WHEN THE SECOND THING TAKES THE PLACE OF THE FIRST THING
When the intellectual takes priority over the spiritual, it’s time to return to our all-knowing God. When service nudges out worship, we need to make an about face and fall to our knees. When the pleasure of this world takes the place of our pleasure of God, we need to head back home, to our Father's House. Bethel means the house of God whereas El-Bethel means the God of the house of God. As the writer of Hebrews puts it, “...He who hath builded the house hath more honour than the house.” It is not the place, it is the Person. Jacob had to learn this lesson and so do we!
GETTING BACK TO SQUARE ONE
Recently I heard that familiar call again in my life, as I have so often over these past sixty years, to return to Bethel; to come back to that blessed place where God first became a reality in my life - that sweet place of peace, comfort, joy, and contentment, along with all the other things our inner man longs for. O, to pillow one's head, not on a stone as Jacob of old, but on the bosom of Christ, as John the Beloved. And to listen to that great sympathetic heart repeat over and over, “I know, I know, my child, I know.”
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