Genesis 35!

Hey everyone,

First of all, I just wanted to apologize to each and every one of you for being a bad example and following through on my commitment of doing devotions daily on this forum! I have no excuse and I'm not just going to try, but I'm going to make it happen every day. So keep me accountable, as I will keep every one of you accountable!

I've noticed that since I've been slowing down, some of you have been as well. Please don't take the fact that the leader isn't keeping up with his devos as an indication that you have an excuse to not do it as well. That's not a good display of commitment and leadership on your part.

But to all of you who have kept up, thank you and it really shows your commitment to the team and your personal commitment in regards to your spiritual growth. I know Genesis can get dull sometimes, but it does contain may interesting stories and I hope you've been learning a lot from it! This book is kind of neat, compared to other books we read in the New Testament, b/c we have to get most of the meanings out ourselves and we're not being spoon-fed by Jesus directly teaching her things through parables and sermons.

You'll notice that through these chapters, there are shifts in main characters. There is a story about every single decendent (almost) of Adam and it goes down one by one. At this point, we've reached Jacob's life. You'll notice a pattern as well. Every single one of these guys struggle. But in the end, they die a good death, knowing that they will be with God forever. It's really encouraging to see that even these holy people that were supposed to carry out God's will as his leaders struggled so much. They were not perfect people and they did things that did not please God. But they also made up for many mistakes they committed and devoted their lives to God, sometimes multiple times. But another observation is that they didn't take advantage of God's grace. Just because God forgave them and gave them second chances almost every time they screwed up, they didn't commit multiple sins that they were aware of, just b/c of that fact. Instead, they got their act together and took drastic actions to turn away from their temptations and faults.

I read Genesis 36 too out of curiosity, and it's just a bunch of geneaology, but I'm looking forward to seeing whether or not some of you will get much out of it!

I've got a test in 2 1/2 hours. Wish me luck!


Roh

ps. Check your email and respond please!

EGAD. I have to sing at Bass Pro Shops on Sunday with my choir. Because that's exactly how I want to spend my Sunday afternoon. Hahaha. Apparently they're opening some mad Christmas display and need some seasonal selections. Well, there's nothing like getting into the Spirit of Christmas early...in November...Hahaha.

I need to apologize, as well, because I've been slacking for the past couple of days!

GENESIS 35

The last couple of days' chapters have had rather strange tales...haha.
I didn't draw much from the direct bits of today's chapter but I did make a similar observation as Roh in that there seems to be a pattern of personal journeys through this lineage of men, starting from Abraham. They all have that good streak of doing amazing things with God on their side, the downfall, and then they fall back in line with God and end their lives in a good place. Sam's been mentioning this an awful lot these days (that, or it just sticks out in my mind), about how many of the Kings in the bible did mighty things and suffered their critical downfalls when they began to believe that it was all of their own doing, and so I guess I just want to constantly remind myself that I am nothing without God in every aspect of my life, and never let pride get ahead of me..Hopefully kind of avoid those bouts of pain that some of these men had to endure because of this mistake..

Have a great Wednesday, guys!

- H

Hey hope you guys are doing well

Umm, so yah i didn't really get much fomr this chapter,,, but like how Roh and Hannah said, People falll right.
But already mentioned, i als wouldn't be here if it weren't for God.
In verse 11, God sais BE fruitful and increase in number.
When i read this, i interpreted it in this way, what does it mean to be fruitful. And i know God meant for Israel to increase as in children, but i see it as Christians in a modern perspective. God is telling me to be fruitful and increase the numbers to the christianity faith. There are many lost and i think it all starts from us...
There are those who are lost even in our ministry what can we do help them seek what they're loking for???

Ciao!

Whats up my hommies! Obama won today!!! history in the making huh?
I find it funny how they said "but his father named him Benjamin". Does that mean his father wasnt Jacob? wouldnt they say Jacob named his son? But thats a sick name.. Benjamin. I didnt know that was a Bible name. Im naming my son Benjamin. Its settled. Its also the name from "the Cleaner".
But didnt get much from this chapter. BUT after reading all the devos from today, i was reflecting on how much God moved through this praise team. Like i know we hear this a lot, BUT REALLY look how far we are since what 3 months ago? not even 3 months... Not only are we musically better but spiritually we are getting stronger with God everyday. Lets keep up these devos and be humble. One day i hope we will be very good at rocking but still be humble. Its easy to say that we wont get full of ourselves and say what Sam talked about a lot about "its all me! God had nothing to do with it!". We are here because of God. He gives and takes away and as easily as we got our musical gifts, he can take them away. Lets not forget!

Have a good wed-nes-day guys!
E-Sek OUT!

Ugghhh what a hectic crappy day , (sry guys not the best wat to start things off)


Well at least I pretty happy to do devotions only thing to calm me down today.

Reading throught this I didn't really get much out of it.

Well everyone has the point in their lives where they stumble, and it's obvious throughtout the bible. Even people like Peter, Jacob, etc (no offence to those unmentioned), all had points down the path where they fell; from that they also learned how to improve themselves. It's very humbling to get back up on your feet. Everyone is not perfect, and it will be weird if you never screwed up. We will all fall, it's a fact, but it;s what we do after that counts the most.

Well I did it last ime

Allan's top 3 pick

3. Levi
2.Gad
1. Asher (sick name)

Heyy guys
Hahha I think its pretty cool how Jacob's name becomes Israel
It would be like God changing my name to KOREA
how sick would that be
I'll keep it short today, since I couldnt really get much from this passage. Or maybe thats a lie and im really tired, i really dont knnow.
But I really liked the part where Jacob tells the household to get rid of all foreign gods, and tells them to change their clothes and purify themselves.
They did this and he took all of these thigns and buried them, in order to prepare for God who destroyed all of the towns aroudn them (again.)
When looking at this figuratively, Jacob and his household were saved from death because they got rid of all of their idols that stood in the way of God. This sort of foreshadwos the message that the New testament gives us, where it tells us that we need to believe in and love Jesus in order to be saved, and we do this by putting him first. Therefore, in our own lives, we need to get rid of all things that we may be putting ahead of God and making our 'foreign gods'. In this way we can be faithful and be pleasing in God's eyes: it'll allow us to shift our focus to God instead of other materialistic or worldy things that trick us into thinking we're happy.

PS congrats Obama

Genesis 35

I didn't get a lot out of this chapter, except for the fact that Jacob and God seem to have been always together. Jacob always confronts God about the decisions he needs to make, and God comes to Jacob to lead him in the right direction; Jacob faithfully obeys God.

I was thinking, a lot of the times, people ask "Where is God in bad times?", and I'm one of them who question. Whenever there's a struggle we going through, or if someone is sick at a young age, we all ask why God would do such a thing. From the relationship that Jacob has with God, I realized that we face hard times to be reminded to lean on to God for help. In the midst of the struggles, we tend to neglect the fact that God is still with us, and try to solve the problems all by ourselves. Just as Jacob depended on God in every aspect of his life, I hope that we can remember that He's always by our side no matter what situation we're in.

hello
In this chapter God is talking to Jacob and how he tells him to go back to Bethel. So Jacob goes to Bethel with Gods help
Also it talks about how Deborah has died and the death of Racheal. In this chapter its really weird because
it goes back and forth around random ppl.
From this I got that you should always listen to God.
If you are goin through a hard time you should pray about it


-Steven Hong

A few deaths in this Chapter... I wonder how it would feel like to bury someone you love into the ground and set up a tomb for them...
lament...
anyways, I learned from this Chapter that... one man (Jacob) can make a difference in people's faith; he converted all the people in his household to worship God. Even though he's the top dog of the family or the alpha male this does not mean he can convert people just like that, I'm sure he put a lot of effort into it.
Onto the next devo~