January 26, 2021

“But I trusted in thee, O LORD: I said, Thou art my God.” Psalms 31:14

In Genesis 28, Jacob has a dream where the angels of God were descending and ascending on a ladder that reached to heaven. And the LORD stood above it and said, “I am the LORD God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac…” (Genesis 28:13). But was He the God of Jacob?

Continuing on with the passage we surprisingly find that Jacob made some conditions that if God met them, “…then shall the LORD be my God.” (Genesis 28:21). In fact, we continue to see throughout the narrative that whenever Jacob refers to God, he refers to Him being the God of his fathers. (See Genesis 31:5, 31:42, 32:9)

Then in Genesis 33:20 we find something interesting. After Israel (formerly Jacob) settles back in the land of Canaan, “…he erected there an altar and called it El-Elohe-Israel,” which in Hebrew means God [is] the God of Israel. God is no longer just the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac. He is now the God of Israel (Jacob)! A transformation in the heart of Jacob has taken place where he has claimed God as his God.

How is your relationship with God today? Is He merely the God of your father or mother where you have yet to commit your life to Him? Have you made Him Lord and Savior of your life? What a blessing it is when we can say as David in Psalms 31:14 “But I trusted in thee, O LORD: I said, Thou art my God.”

If you have made that commitment and surrendered your heart and life to Jesus Christ, you can sing that well-known hymn by Fanny Crosby, “Blessed Assurance”, emphasizing those wonderful possessive pronouns “my/mine”.

“Blessed assurance Jesus is mine! O what a foretaste of glory divine! Heir of salvation, purchase of God, Born of His Sprit, washed in His blood.
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior all the day long:
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior all the day long”