The Prophetic Word - Day 180: Knowing God, doesn’t happen by “osmosis.”

“Meanwhile, Jacob left Beersheba and traveled toward Haran. At sundown he arrived at a good place to set up camp and stopped there for the night. Jacob found a stone to rest his head against and lay down to sleep. As he slept, he dreamed of a stairway that reached from the earth up to heaven. And he saw the angels of God going up and down the stairway. At the top of the stairway stood the Lord, and he said, “I am the Lord, the God of your grandfather Abraham, and the God of your father, Isaac. The ground you are lying on belongs to you. I am giving it to you and your descendants. Your descendants will be as numerous as the dust of the earth! They will spread out in all directions—to the west and the east, to the north and the south. And all the families of the earth will be blessed through you and your descendants. What’s more, I am with you, and I will protect you wherever you go. One day I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have finished giving you everything I have promised you.” Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I wasn’t even aware of it!””

‭‭Genesis‬ ‭28‬:‭10‬-‭16‬ ‭NLT‬‬

There are some things you wouldn’t believe unless you see it for yourself. One of those things I have seen that I wouldn’t have otherwise believed, are interviews with young people being asked questions about our country, questions, people of my generation would assume everybody knew. The questions asked were things like who the first president was, who fought in the Civil War, who was at the first thanksgiving, and so on.

I watched in disbelief as I saw numerous young people struggling to come up with even an educated guess, as to the answer of some very “easy” questions.

What happened? Now, I understand that there are many dynamics culminating in such a phenomenon; but, for our purposes here we will look at one particular cause of this apparent ignorance concerning our country’s history.

You see, our public education has turned to either distorting our country’s history, or ignoring it, choosing rather to teach information that fits a societal goal.

So, we are shocked to see that today’s young people have no clue about many of the things we took for granted as being commonly known.

As well, we see “skills” we didn’t realize were skills, completely lacking. Skills, such as common courtesy, or respect for authority.

Sadly, the attributes lacking in the younger generation goes beyond certain knowledge, or even to ways of being, to the level of what we think of as being common decency.

We see writ large, the peril of assuming that, because you knew something, because you were taught something, because something mattered to you, that it will be the case in those who come after you.

Tragically, the assumption that the way you feel, the things you know, will be shared by those who follow, extends into the knowledge of God. As a result, the very pillars of our Christian faith are crumbling from neglect and abuse. Our society is even being referenced as being “post Christian.”

Sadly, over the years, I have seen the families, the children and grandchildren, of people who were very strong in the faith, falling away from faith completely.

Again, there are many reasons for that, including very real and very persistent, spiritual warfare. But again, for our purposes, let us consider that if we assume our family, our children, our grandchildren, are going to feel the way we do about the Lord, we will fail to make sure that they are exposed to the very elements that led us to faith.

In our opening passage we see Joseph, who is now running from his angry brother, coming to a point of being introduced to the God of his father and the God of his grandfather.

You see, the Lord was not yet the God of Jacob. Indeed, Jacob did not receive the knowledge of God, or the blessing of God, by osmosis. Yes, he had to meet God head-on; and, this confrontation would align him with the blessing that flowed from Abraham to Isaac. Yes, now it would flow from Isaac to Jacob!

A couple of points I will leave you with today.

First of all, don’t assume that your children, or grandchildren, or those over whom you have responsibility/authority, will know about the Lord, what you know about the Lord, or even care about the Lord, the way you care about the Lord. We must keep them covered in prayer, and, to the best of our ability, make sure they are exposed to those things that brought us to faith.

As well, looking at this issue more personally, let us make sure we don’t assume that just because our family before us served the Lord, that we somehow know what we need to know about the Lord and to faithfully serve Him.

God wants to be very up-close and personal with each of us. And, make no mistake, it’s the only way that we will receive the blessings of God.

We will talk more about this tomorrow.

Peace to you.

Jesus is coming! Get ready for Him!

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