Genesis 28:16 “And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said, Surely the LORD is in this place; and I knew it not.”

Christian, take courage! This is for you! Don’t sleep on Christ… he’s right in this thing, even if you can’t see him yet!

Because whatever place you’re at in life… no matter how stony, no matter how sleepless, no matter how woeful, pitiful and pathetic, no matter how uncertain, no matter how despairing, no matter how dark, no matter how “factual”… no matter how much you may even deserve the pit you’ve dug for yourself which you now seem indefinitely assigned to…

… God is in THIS PLACE in your life! And above it all Amen! …and with power to redeem, an outstretched arm to save, with promises to keep, an eternal purpose and plan for your life in Christ… even if you “I knew it not” yet.

In Genesis 28, Jacob has a meeting with God… his first meeting… I hope there has been a first time in your life between you and Jesus Christ bringing you to God… it’s a wonderful experience… but at a place you had not the slightest idea he was at before it all happened right!? Salvation is not something born out of the will of man or will of the flesh… it takes the power of God, God revealing himself to you personally.

Well… Jacob sure didn’t book it in! When he arrived at the place he would later call “Bethel” all he knew was that his life was in a mess. But it was in THIS PLACE of all places where God would promise him “And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land”

God became Jacob’s “I am” that night at Bethel. And to that intent, God will do the most incredible revealing of himself to you in your life in places you didn’t know he was at. …Because in some places of life, it can seem like God is nowhere “I knew it not”

…I’ve been in places I wasn’t aware God was at. Even right now I’ve been in a place in my life God does not seem to be in, but he has promised me.

Maybe you’re not saved yet. Maybe you don’t even know what that means. Maybe you’ve heard of “God” and a “Jesus Christ”… but there has never been a personal introduction yet, well this place could but just the time for it! I hope and pray that for you.

No, you won’t find God at your leisure, appointment and the place of your choosing… he will find you at his time and a place you didn’t even realize he was or could be! “For great is thy mercy toward me: and thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell.”

If you don’t know the context for this verse yet, well, when Jacob laid down to sleep that night in Genesis 28… he was on the run from his brother wanting to kill him. He did not know God himself yet. And he definitely didn’t know this was divine appointment… God was in this place, this rough tough horrid place in life that he’d gotten himself into!!! … his fault, his sin… yet God’s grace!

In this place, which he knew not, there God stood above all his life’s woes and dramas and sin, and in this place, God revealed who he was, and promised him “And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land”

Who could bring you again in life? Who could give you new life? Who could give you a second chance? Who could redeem, restore and save to the uttermost? Only the Lord Jesus Christ.

God is pretty good hey. Jacob’s rotten situation massive to him, was nothing to God, as God graciously reached to him in his hapless state. Maybe you just haven’t gotten low and desperate enough yet for God to save you! Maybe you aren’t miserable enough in sin yet.

But when God reaches to you, don’t knock him back! It truly is blessed to be saved by Christ Jesus, to be in his arms, and held by his hand no matter what you’re going through, no matter what place you’re at.

Today, I want to encourage you that God isn’t just God when it’s all going well, and you’re in favorable places in life… but he is also very much just as God, and even more special and blessed, in the worst times of our lives. In some places God wont feel as godly, and that’s part of life… but his promises are ever true.

When your head hurts, when life is clouded over and beyond you, when you can’t see anything, when you’re reaping what you sowed, when friends forsake you, when people lie about you, when the waves keep beating into your little ship and you just can’t take it anymore, and when you’ve got that sinking feeling… God is still God! Amen! “The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms”

If it was anything of ourselves that his promises were contingent upon, we would sink, but guess what, he promised himself, he provided himself, and everything he does comes out of his own power and riches, not our own. We are just bankrupt beggars that found bread, lifted up from the dunghill… while he not only owns the cattle on a thousand hills… but the heathen is his inheritance who he especially asked his Father for (that’s little old me!), his enemies his footstool, the keys of heaven, hell and death in his backpocket. That qualifies him as our great Saviour!

And he is the friend of sinners. A true friend… all seasons, all places, ready and willing to save, seal, secure and sanctify. If you’re a sinner, full of stuff ups, at fault, in a mess… good thing for you that’s exactly who Jesus was sent to save! Jacob was no saint, he’d made his own mess good and proper… but God changed his life and made him a saint in Christ Jesus… in THIS PLACE, the worst place of his life.

… And this whole life, in all places, including IN THIS PLACE even those that it doesn’t seem like God is at… right there, is where God establishes our personal testimony just like he did for Jacob… so we could finally truly sing aloud ourselves with his praises “nearer, my God, to Thee”.

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