Finding The Diamond In You!
By Abraham Israel
"51 And He [i.e. Jesus the Christ] said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, hereafter you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.” " (John 1:51).
Our salvation we receive from Jesus can be compared to an escalator on which once we stand it takes us to our destination without any effort on our part (Eph 2:8-9), but the Jacob's ladder which Jesus explains to Nathanael is showing an open heaven and the angels of God ascending and descending upon Jesus the Son of Man. This does mean that this parable of Jacob's ladder is not speaking about the salvation, but rather the benefits of salvation which we receive after we are saved (Heb 6:9). So once Nathanael came to receive Jesus and his salvation to follow Him whole heartedly, heaven has opened upon his life because of Jesus opening it and bringing it near to him on earth, so that those who inherit salvation and become a child of God like him are watched over with protection by the angels of heaven who are created and assigned for such a salvation mission as this which the Scripture clearly reveals (Heb 1:14).
The above verse is a astonishing fulfillment of a Old Testament prophecy that was show to operate in the life of a sinful saint who failed God again and again, but on whose behalf whatever prophecy God has given did not fail because of the faithfulness of God. His name was 'Jacob'. Jacob was born holding his twin brother Esau's heel, and his name is explained as meaning "holder of the heel" or "supplanter" (i.e.) to trip up or overthrow, because he twice deprived his brother of his rights as the firstborn son (see Genesis 27:36). 'May God protect us from all evil!' in His sovereign will and keep us for the future kingdom of His in eternity for which we are prepared now by Him, is the theme that runs through out this dream parable that brings heaven always close to the earth, rather than the place of faraway which we think it is (Matt 22:32; 8:11; 2 Tim 4:18). The hero of this parable is not Jacob dreaming, but the God who gave the dream to Jacob the unworthy sinner, and the truth of how he will deliver him from all the evil of this world and keep him alive and well in holiness for the sake of His great name and for His Kingdom.
Here is the one of the most important incident of his Millenium right from the Bible: "10 Now Jacob went out from Beersheba and went toward Haran. 11 So he came to a certain place and stayed there all night, because the sun had set. And he took one of the stones of that place and put it at his head, and he lay down in that place to sleep. 12 Then he dreamed, and behold, a ladder was set up on the earth, and its top reached to heaven; and there the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. 13 And behold, the LORD stood above it and said: “I am the LORD God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and your descendants. 14 Also your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth; you shall spread abroad to the west and the east, to the north and the south; and in you and in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed. 15 Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have spoken to you.” 16 Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the LORD is in this place, and I did not know it.” 17 And he was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven!” " (Gen 28:10-17).
Jacob life has gone on for a toss and turmoil to follow. As the Scripture reveals it as a real life story with a spiritual meaning behind it, we can take this as a parable that is thrown alongside the real story to reveal heavenly meaning to it. Jacob's fight with his brother Esau made his life chaotic to make him flee from his own mother, father, birthplace and all the comforts of his home. Actually Jacob left everything in obedience to his father and mother, who told him to go to their ancestral native place to take a wife from among them (Gen 28:6-7). So in search of a better future, he leaves in search of a prosperous life. But God had something greater for Jacob, as Jacob was looking for earthly temporal survival, God was looking at his eternal life for which the earthly is just a training ground. Praise the Lord!
Do Not Worry About Sunset And Darkness Thereafter, God Is In Control!
So the sun has set upon Jacob and his comfortable self! The comfort of keeping his head on a pillow was no more there for him, as he was away from home in a wilderness of the night time, where every possible lurking danger from evil men and wild beasts was sounding forth in to his young heart bringing fear of being away from the security of the father, mother and home. When we submit and obey to our parents words, actually we are submitting to the God who is above their lives. That is the reason even in this step of selfish survival, the favor of God followed this man Jacob the sinner. May we always learn to obey our elders, parents and others whom the Lord has put over our physical and spiritual life. Thus receive the favor of God in our lives.
Then we see in the midst of turmoil in his life and depressive circumstances of the sunset of Jacob's life where his whole world was heading in to darkness of the night and of the soul, but supernaturally he stopped in a place of God's appointment where out of all the fears and burdens of his soul, he took a stone and placed it under his head to sleep. He had no comfortable pillow of his home, but only a stone that was lying there. Jacob as God's little child was protected by a sovereign God which he did not even realize in his life at that point of time. God as a loving Father knew that in order to bless Jacob the sinner, he has a tough job at hand to break the sinner in Jacob in order to make him a living saint, and then empty his self life in order that He may fill it with Himself and His own life of heaven. So God has to remind Jacob that it is in His will, that a sunset has come not to destroy him but to make him a blessed person on earth. So Jacob did not really know his value in the sight of God at that time, his value was nothing for himself at that point of time as he was performing for acceptance, he was fearful having been depressed for having left his loving home and all the comfort of the home for nothing but for a obedience to the word of his father and mother.
So Jacob takes a stone from that place to keep under his head to sleep (Gen 28:11), which he might have thought was a useless stone, but can be used with his strength to hit some predator if it ever comes towards him in the darkness of the night. Yet it must have been only a faint hope for this man who knows all tricks to deceive all people, but now he is finding himself as helpless and hopeless. But God has to first has to break Jacob in his school of the Spirit and then teach him to deny self and love Him for him to be blessed as his child. The great Man of God A.W. Tozer said, “It is doubtful whether God can bless a man greatly until He has hurt him deeply.” How true this is with Jacob at this point of his life.
God then shows to Jacob the deceiver and sinner in a night dream, how an open heaven is operating in his life without him even realising it in the midst of darkness that surrounds him. Have we ever have realized, how God has chosen us as his child to break us and train us to empty ourselves in order to make us realize the value of our lives in His sight, to bless us and make us a blessing to the world around us? Have we ever thought, how God in His sovereignty has protected us in the midst of the darkness of sin, sickness and Satanic world, or else we have would have been no more today? Praise Him saints! GLORY!
It Is Not Just Jacob, It Is For You And Me!
God's teaching to Jacob was not just a dream to him, but to us who are his child in Christ Jesus, because later we see Jesus telling Nathanael the same thing God told to Jacob, "...“Most assuredly, I say to you, hereafter you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.” (John 1:51). In other words, Nathanael was excited of how Jesus could see his life far in to the past before he could ever meet him face to face, and therefore accepted Him as his Messiah the Son of God. The answer of Jesus was something that must have astonished this young man. Because Jesus told him that He is not just his Messiah at that point of time, but the very ladder which connects heaven to earth which was shown to his ancestor Jacob, and so it was a declaration of Jesus that Nathanael's life has been chosen by God and it was not by chance or luck that He knew him, but He has know him from the foundation of the world when he chose to come and die for all humanity which includes him. So that sinners can become saints, sin cursed people of earth can become heaven blessed and trained prince of God to live with God in friendship forever and ever in the new heaven and new earth, which God has prepared for all those who have become His child and have learned to love Him on earth (Eph 1:4). O what a wonder o saints of God! We along with Nathanael the disciple of Jesus, can experience an open heaven and the angels of God operating under the clear instruction of God to keep us secure for the Kingdom of God that is coming very soon on this earth for a thousand years, and also continues after that for eternity ahead (2 Tim 4:18; Jude 1:24-25).
Do you know saints, that all the promises of God in the Bible are yes and amen to all of us who believe it all in our heart and look forward to its fulfillment in our lives (2 Cor 1:20). Do you know, that the same God who declared to Jacob saying, "Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have spoken to you," is the same God who is also declaring to us his children the same just as he has told to him? Perhaps, we might not have been shown the dream of Jacob in our lives, but the same God does not have to show in a dream because He has already revealed and have applied it to us through his Word which is his love letter written towards us his children to know more about his will and wish for our lives, (i.e.) "to reveal his good thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give us not just a temporal future but a eternal one full of excitement filled with hope." (Jer 29:11). Have you realized how great the thoughts of God are towards you? O saint, o saint, how many times, the devil has told you to make you believe that you are of no value at all to anybody including yourself? How many times he has told that God does not care for you, and has only a future of evil and hopelessness? Repent today of all such thoughts, because our Father God if a good God and will never do or allow anything in your life except for your good (Rom 8:28).
So I am coming back in to the story again to reveal the precious stone which Jacob kept under his head as a security in the midst of danger, it was the stone which the world of human builders who rejected it just as Jacob thought initially, that he himself can do it all in his life, but has somehow kept it as a security cover for himself, but that very stone has become the corner of his life later through which Jacob life was transformed in to a heavenly testimony for all the world to hear and see (Gen 28:19-22; 32:1-2, 31; Matt 21:42). That precious stone was the corner stone of Jesus who connected the earth to heaven. Actually this revelation brought heaven close to Jacob and also can bring heaven close to us in our lives too. In other words, God has to teach us how all those who think us as worthless including ourselves, need a revelation of Jesus the worthless stone to the world to be instead a precious cornerstone of heaven itself to the child of God without whom heaven would fall in to disrepute and void of meaning (Prov 3:15). So let me move you in to story through which we can understand it better in our lives like Jacob:
Father, What Is My Value?
One day a young boy asked his father... what is the value of his life?
Instead of answering... the father told his son to take a rock from his hand and go sell it at the market .
Then he told him that if anybody asks for the price of it, raise two fingers and don't say anything.
The boy then went to the market excitedly, and there lo and behold a woman asked..."How much is this rock, I want to put it in my Garden?"
The boy did'nt say anything, but only raised up his two fingers just as he has been told by his father, the woman said in reply, "2 Dollars, I'll take it!"
The boy ran to his home and told his father about the woman who wanted to buy the stone for two dollars...
The father then said..."Son, I want you to take this rock again to a museum."
There if anybody wants to buy it, don't say a word, but just put up your two fingers.
The boy then went to the museum, and there a man wanted to buy the rock.
The boy didn't say a word, but just raised up his two fingers just as he has been told by his father.
The man said, "200 Dollars? I will take it!"
The boy was shocked and went to his home running, and told his father, "A man wants to buy this rock for $200!"
His father with a calm but collective demeanour said to his son, "The last place I want you to take this rock...is to a precious stone store."
Then the father said, "Go and show this rock to the owner, but don't say a word and if he asks for the price, just put up your two fingers as usual!"
The son then went to a precious stone store, there he showed the rock to the owner.
The owner asked the little boy immediately, "Where did you find this precious stone, this is one of the rarest stones in the world, and I must have it, how much would you sell it for?"
The boy put up two fingers as usual, and the man said, "Ok,...I'll take this for $200,000!"
The boy not knowing what to say, ran home with great excitement and told his father, "Father!, there is a man who wants to buy this stone for 200,000 Dollars!"
His father then said..."Son!, Do you know the value of your life now?"
You see, it doesn't matter where you come from, where you are born, the color of your skin...or how much money you are born in to, it matters where you decide to place yourself...the people you surround youself with, and how you choose to carry yourself.
You may have lived your whole life...thinking that you were just a 2 dollar stone. You may have lived your whole life surrounded by people that saw your worth for only $2. We can choose to put ourselves in a market or a museum where people see our meager worth, and value our worth so cheaply without reality of who we really are as a child of the Most High God.
But believe me, everybody has a diamond inside them which God has put in place for His Glory. And we can choose to surround our self with people and angels of heaven, that see our value and see the diamond inside of us! When we know our own value as the child of the Most High God, created in His likeness, then we can know to value in the same way other people who surround us. We too as the child of the Most High God, can help other people who suffer with no self-worth, to see the diamond inside them which God has placed if they are ready to place what they have [i.e. gifts, talents and their very life] in their hands to the One who values them so much more than they can ever imagine, (i.e.) and that One and only One is Our dear Heavenly Father. God sees you in Christ Jesus as one who is worthy of priceless worth and value!
So choose the people you surround yourself with wisely, it will decide what difference you can make in this world with your life.
Do Not Use God, Instead Let God Use You!
Jacob agreed that a revelation from God was real, but began to negotiate out of his deceitful earthly wisdom that if God gives him security and protection like he had given overnight to Him in the midst of darkness, and provide him with bread and clothing, and if he would return back to his father's house in peace, then he would be his God. What a cheap vow of works Jacob made to God! God foretold his promise, so that Jacob could believe it by faith. But Jacob was not ready to receive the promise of God by faith, because he had none of it within but only the fleshly self of himself and his human trickery and wisdom. When God wanted to treat him like a diamond of His to make him know his real value (Isa 62:3; 28:5; Ezek 16:12), Jacob was treating God like a personal watchman for his earthly survival, security and wellbeing, because his mind was not set on heavenly things but only on earthly things (Col 3:2-3).
So thereafter suffering in the life of Jacob began to increase, it began to break his life apart. His very father in law became a tool of God to break and rip Jacob apart of his self life, the woman whom he loved was barren but the one whom the great deceiver his father in-law gave in marriage through deceit actually prospered much to the frustration of Jacob. Finally God shows that Jacob needs to again find that open heaven over his life in order to prosper supernaturally in life. Then Jacob again was able to see his value in God and began obeying him for His faithfulness, soon all the insidious deceit of his father in law was completely arrested and the heavenly blessing over his life began to be realized even by the same father in law who had deceived him many a times. Then a encounter with God happened as a crisis point again reached the highest in his life, on one side his father in law pursued him as he left his house with his wives and all his belongings towards Jacob's fathers house, and God rebuked him and sent him back again to his own place. But the greater crisis before reaching his own father's place was his brother Esau with whom he had a long standing fight, at that time God met him and asked Jacob his name, why? Because at a certain time when he was young, his earthly father asked his name to give the birthright of the firstborn, at that time Jacob lied. But this time when God met him and asked his name, with faith about his identity in God intact, he confessed his name as Jacob the deceiver in himself. Thus God at that point of time made him a prince with Himself working through Him, by declaring that he will be thereafter be called as Israel the prince of God. O what a privilege! But without wrestling with God and limping without self, we cannot make the sun of God's destiny rise up in our life, or become a friend of God and be a prince with Him as Israel (Gen 32:31). Now with God in Jacob, acting through him and empowering upon him, Jacob has become ready as a diamond to face any trial in life because he knew the eternal power of God operating in him is supernatural enough to overcome any earthly temporal power of this life (1 John 4:4)!
Suffering Can Break You, But It Does Make You Realize God's Diamond In You!
So if suffering has come to your life to harden you with God's Presence and make you depend on God, willingly submit to the Father in heaven to break you with all the pressure of the world, but with the Presence of heaven to harden you in to a diamond. You cannot realize your value in God, until you are broken by God and emptied of yourself to be filled with Himself and his heavenly vision (Acts 22:6-21). So do not run away from suffering, instead embrace it for the Glory of God!
Do you know that Jesus Himself learned obedience through suffering in his life (Heb 5:8), if our Master has to suffer to learn to be broken and be filled with heaven for us, then why should we not follow his foot step? Because we can only be like our Master at the max being fully trained in suffering by our Heavenly Father, and not greater than him forever because He deserves the honor as God above us (John 13:14-17; Luke 6:40; Isa 42:8; John 8:58).
Thus God wants us to willingly obey him and given in to the life of suffering he has ordained for us (Heb 5:7-8), to each one of us the type of suffering may differ but the same self denial, yoke and cross-carrying and sin-resisting will all be part of the curriculum in God's training in His school of suffering (Heb 12:4; Luke 9:23-26; Matt 11:28-30). But all of it will take us to a place where we will come to realize more and more of our value in God. By the time we are emptied of our self fully being trained by the Lord in the school of suffering, we come to know that the stone of Jesus we hold in our heart within us is not just a stone of $2 or $200, but a stone of $200000 worth of diamond which is invaluably great and therefore our very value in life becomes the value of the cornerstone of heaven as we come to end of this earthly life to enter the heavenly life which God has prepared beforehand for all his children in all the world just like he has done for Jacob (Matt 8:11; Luke 13:29; 2 Peter 1:19; Gal 4:19; 1 John 3:2-3; Eph 2:6-7, 10).
God is with you and will fulfill all His promises made to you, He will never leave you nor forsake you. And because He is faithful and just, he will forgive all your sins and will empty you of yourself and will fill you with Himself to make you so valuable like a diamond at the end of your life (1 John 1:7, 9; Heb 13:5; 1 Thess 5:24). So keep purifying yourself from sin and its deceitfulness, and you will find the diamond in you! Hallelujah!
Much Blessings....
The above verse is a astonishing fulfillment of a Old Testament prophecy that was show to operate in the life of a sinful saint who failed God again and again, but on whose behalf whatever prophecy God has given did not fail because of the faithfulness of God. His name was 'Jacob'. Jacob was born holding his twin brother Esau's heel, and his name is explained as meaning "holder of the heel" or "supplanter" (i.e.) to trip up or overthrow, because he twice deprived his brother of his rights as the firstborn son (see Genesis 27:36). 'May God protect us from all evil!' in His sovereign will and keep us for the future kingdom of His in eternity for which we are prepared now by Him, is the theme that runs through out this dream parable that brings heaven always close to the earth, rather than the place of faraway which we think it is (Matt 22:32; 8:11; 2 Tim 4:18). The hero of this parable is not Jacob dreaming, but the God who gave the dream to Jacob the unworthy sinner, and the truth of how he will deliver him from all the evil of this world and keep him alive and well in holiness for the sake of His great name and for His Kingdom.
Here is the one of the most important incident of his Millenium right from the Bible: "10 Now Jacob went out from Beersheba and went toward Haran. 11 So he came to a certain place and stayed there all night, because the sun had set. And he took one of the stones of that place and put it at his head, and he lay down in that place to sleep. 12 Then he dreamed, and behold, a ladder was set up on the earth, and its top reached to heaven; and there the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. 13 And behold, the LORD stood above it and said: “I am the LORD God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and your descendants. 14 Also your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth; you shall spread abroad to the west and the east, to the north and the south; and in you and in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed. 15 Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have spoken to you.” 16 Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the LORD is in this place, and I did not know it.” 17 And he was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven!” " (Gen 28:10-17).
Jacob life has gone on for a toss and turmoil to follow. As the Scripture reveals it as a real life story with a spiritual meaning behind it, we can take this as a parable that is thrown alongside the real story to reveal heavenly meaning to it. Jacob's fight with his brother Esau made his life chaotic to make him flee from his own mother, father, birthplace and all the comforts of his home. Actually Jacob left everything in obedience to his father and mother, who told him to go to their ancestral native place to take a wife from among them (Gen 28:6-7). So in search of a better future, he leaves in search of a prosperous life. But God had something greater for Jacob, as Jacob was looking for earthly temporal survival, God was looking at his eternal life for which the earthly is just a training ground. Praise the Lord!
Do Not Worry About Sunset And Darkness Thereafter, God Is In Control!
So the sun has set upon Jacob and his comfortable self! The comfort of keeping his head on a pillow was no more there for him, as he was away from home in a wilderness of the night time, where every possible lurking danger from evil men and wild beasts was sounding forth in to his young heart bringing fear of being away from the security of the father, mother and home. When we submit and obey to our parents words, actually we are submitting to the God who is above their lives. That is the reason even in this step of selfish survival, the favor of God followed this man Jacob the sinner. May we always learn to obey our elders, parents and others whom the Lord has put over our physical and spiritual life. Thus receive the favor of God in our lives.
Then we see in the midst of turmoil in his life and depressive circumstances of the sunset of Jacob's life where his whole world was heading in to darkness of the night and of the soul, but supernaturally he stopped in a place of God's appointment where out of all the fears and burdens of his soul, he took a stone and placed it under his head to sleep. He had no comfortable pillow of his home, but only a stone that was lying there. Jacob as God's little child was protected by a sovereign God which he did not even realize in his life at that point of time. God as a loving Father knew that in order to bless Jacob the sinner, he has a tough job at hand to break the sinner in Jacob in order to make him a living saint, and then empty his self life in order that He may fill it with Himself and His own life of heaven. So God has to remind Jacob that it is in His will, that a sunset has come not to destroy him but to make him a blessed person on earth. So Jacob did not really know his value in the sight of God at that time, his value was nothing for himself at that point of time as he was performing for acceptance, he was fearful having been depressed for having left his loving home and all the comfort of the home for nothing but for a obedience to the word of his father and mother.
So Jacob takes a stone from that place to keep under his head to sleep (Gen 28:11), which he might have thought was a useless stone, but can be used with his strength to hit some predator if it ever comes towards him in the darkness of the night. Yet it must have been only a faint hope for this man who knows all tricks to deceive all people, but now he is finding himself as helpless and hopeless. But God has to first has to break Jacob in his school of the Spirit and then teach him to deny self and love Him for him to be blessed as his child. The great Man of God A.W. Tozer said, “It is doubtful whether God can bless a man greatly until He has hurt him deeply.” How true this is with Jacob at this point of his life.
God then shows to Jacob the deceiver and sinner in a night dream, how an open heaven is operating in his life without him even realising it in the midst of darkness that surrounds him. Have we ever have realized, how God has chosen us as his child to break us and train us to empty ourselves in order to make us realize the value of our lives in His sight, to bless us and make us a blessing to the world around us? Have we ever thought, how God in His sovereignty has protected us in the midst of the darkness of sin, sickness and Satanic world, or else we have would have been no more today? Praise Him saints! GLORY!
It Is Not Just Jacob, It Is For You And Me!
God's teaching to Jacob was not just a dream to him, but to us who are his child in Christ Jesus, because later we see Jesus telling Nathanael the same thing God told to Jacob, "...“Most assuredly, I say to you, hereafter you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.” (John 1:51). In other words, Nathanael was excited of how Jesus could see his life far in to the past before he could ever meet him face to face, and therefore accepted Him as his Messiah the Son of God. The answer of Jesus was something that must have astonished this young man. Because Jesus told him that He is not just his Messiah at that point of time, but the very ladder which connects heaven to earth which was shown to his ancestor Jacob, and so it was a declaration of Jesus that Nathanael's life has been chosen by God and it was not by chance or luck that He knew him, but He has know him from the foundation of the world when he chose to come and die for all humanity which includes him. So that sinners can become saints, sin cursed people of earth can become heaven blessed and trained prince of God to live with God in friendship forever and ever in the new heaven and new earth, which God has prepared for all those who have become His child and have learned to love Him on earth (Eph 1:4). O what a wonder o saints of God! We along with Nathanael the disciple of Jesus, can experience an open heaven and the angels of God operating under the clear instruction of God to keep us secure for the Kingdom of God that is coming very soon on this earth for a thousand years, and also continues after that for eternity ahead (2 Tim 4:18; Jude 1:24-25).
Do you know saints, that all the promises of God in the Bible are yes and amen to all of us who believe it all in our heart and look forward to its fulfillment in our lives (2 Cor 1:20). Do you know, that the same God who declared to Jacob saying, "Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have spoken to you," is the same God who is also declaring to us his children the same just as he has told to him? Perhaps, we might not have been shown the dream of Jacob in our lives, but the same God does not have to show in a dream because He has already revealed and have applied it to us through his Word which is his love letter written towards us his children to know more about his will and wish for our lives, (i.e.) "to reveal his good thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give us not just a temporal future but a eternal one full of excitement filled with hope." (Jer 29:11). Have you realized how great the thoughts of God are towards you? O saint, o saint, how many times, the devil has told you to make you believe that you are of no value at all to anybody including yourself? How many times he has told that God does not care for you, and has only a future of evil and hopelessness? Repent today of all such thoughts, because our Father God if a good God and will never do or allow anything in your life except for your good (Rom 8:28).
So I am coming back in to the story again to reveal the precious stone which Jacob kept under his head as a security in the midst of danger, it was the stone which the world of human builders who rejected it just as Jacob thought initially, that he himself can do it all in his life, but has somehow kept it as a security cover for himself, but that very stone has become the corner of his life later through which Jacob life was transformed in to a heavenly testimony for all the world to hear and see (Gen 28:19-22; 32:1-2, 31; Matt 21:42). That precious stone was the corner stone of Jesus who connected the earth to heaven. Actually this revelation brought heaven close to Jacob and also can bring heaven close to us in our lives too. In other words, God has to teach us how all those who think us as worthless including ourselves, need a revelation of Jesus the worthless stone to the world to be instead a precious cornerstone of heaven itself to the child of God without whom heaven would fall in to disrepute and void of meaning (Prov 3:15). So let me move you in to story through which we can understand it better in our lives like Jacob:
Father, What Is My Value?
One day a young boy asked his father... what is the value of his life?
Instead of answering... the father told his son to take a rock from his hand and go sell it at the market .
Then he told him that if anybody asks for the price of it, raise two fingers and don't say anything.
The boy then went to the market excitedly, and there lo and behold a woman asked..."How much is this rock, I want to put it in my Garden?"
The boy did'nt say anything, but only raised up his two fingers just as he has been told by his father, the woman said in reply, "2 Dollars, I'll take it!"
The boy ran to his home and told his father about the woman who wanted to buy the stone for two dollars...
The father then said..."Son, I want you to take this rock again to a museum."
There if anybody wants to buy it, don't say a word, but just put up your two fingers.
The boy then went to the museum, and there a man wanted to buy the rock.
The boy didn't say a word, but just raised up his two fingers just as he has been told by his father.
The man said, "200 Dollars? I will take it!"
The boy was shocked and went to his home running, and told his father, "A man wants to buy this rock for $200!"
His father with a calm but collective demeanour said to his son, "The last place I want you to take this rock...is to a precious stone store."
Then the father said, "Go and show this rock to the owner, but don't say a word and if he asks for the price, just put up your two fingers as usual!"
The son then went to a precious stone store, there he showed the rock to the owner.
The owner asked the little boy immediately, "Where did you find this precious stone, this is one of the rarest stones in the world, and I must have it, how much would you sell it for?"
The boy put up two fingers as usual, and the man said, "Ok,...I'll take this for $200,000!"
The boy not knowing what to say, ran home with great excitement and told his father, "Father!, there is a man who wants to buy this stone for 200,000 Dollars!"
His father then said..."Son!, Do you know the value of your life now?"
You see, it doesn't matter where you come from, where you are born, the color of your skin...or how much money you are born in to, it matters where you decide to place yourself...the people you surround youself with, and how you choose to carry yourself.
You may have lived your whole life...thinking that you were just a 2 dollar stone. You may have lived your whole life surrounded by people that saw your worth for only $2. We can choose to put ourselves in a market or a museum where people see our meager worth, and value our worth so cheaply without reality of who we really are as a child of the Most High God.
But believe me, everybody has a diamond inside them which God has put in place for His Glory. And we can choose to surround our self with people and angels of heaven, that see our value and see the diamond inside of us! When we know our own value as the child of the Most High God, created in His likeness, then we can know to value in the same way other people who surround us. We too as the child of the Most High God, can help other people who suffer with no self-worth, to see the diamond inside them which God has placed if they are ready to place what they have [i.e. gifts, talents and their very life] in their hands to the One who values them so much more than they can ever imagine, (i.e.) and that One and only One is Our dear Heavenly Father. God sees you in Christ Jesus as one who is worthy of priceless worth and value!
So choose the people you surround yourself with wisely, it will decide what difference you can make in this world with your life.
Do Not Use God, Instead Let God Use You!
Jacob agreed that a revelation from God was real, but began to negotiate out of his deceitful earthly wisdom that if God gives him security and protection like he had given overnight to Him in the midst of darkness, and provide him with bread and clothing, and if he would return back to his father's house in peace, then he would be his God. What a cheap vow of works Jacob made to God! God foretold his promise, so that Jacob could believe it by faith. But Jacob was not ready to receive the promise of God by faith, because he had none of it within but only the fleshly self of himself and his human trickery and wisdom. When God wanted to treat him like a diamond of His to make him know his real value (Isa 62:3; 28:5; Ezek 16:12), Jacob was treating God like a personal watchman for his earthly survival, security and wellbeing, because his mind was not set on heavenly things but only on earthly things (Col 3:2-3).
So thereafter suffering in the life of Jacob began to increase, it began to break his life apart. His very father in law became a tool of God to break and rip Jacob apart of his self life, the woman whom he loved was barren but the one whom the great deceiver his father in-law gave in marriage through deceit actually prospered much to the frustration of Jacob. Finally God shows that Jacob needs to again find that open heaven over his life in order to prosper supernaturally in life. Then Jacob again was able to see his value in God and began obeying him for His faithfulness, soon all the insidious deceit of his father in law was completely arrested and the heavenly blessing over his life began to be realized even by the same father in law who had deceived him many a times. Then a encounter with God happened as a crisis point again reached the highest in his life, on one side his father in law pursued him as he left his house with his wives and all his belongings towards Jacob's fathers house, and God rebuked him and sent him back again to his own place. But the greater crisis before reaching his own father's place was his brother Esau with whom he had a long standing fight, at that time God met him and asked Jacob his name, why? Because at a certain time when he was young, his earthly father asked his name to give the birthright of the firstborn, at that time Jacob lied. But this time when God met him and asked his name, with faith about his identity in God intact, he confessed his name as Jacob the deceiver in himself. Thus God at that point of time made him a prince with Himself working through Him, by declaring that he will be thereafter be called as Israel the prince of God. O what a privilege! But without wrestling with God and limping without self, we cannot make the sun of God's destiny rise up in our life, or become a friend of God and be a prince with Him as Israel (Gen 32:31). Now with God in Jacob, acting through him and empowering upon him, Jacob has become ready as a diamond to face any trial in life because he knew the eternal power of God operating in him is supernatural enough to overcome any earthly temporal power of this life (1 John 4:4)!
Suffering Can Break You, But It Does Make You Realize God's Diamond In You!
So if suffering has come to your life to harden you with God's Presence and make you depend on God, willingly submit to the Father in heaven to break you with all the pressure of the world, but with the Presence of heaven to harden you in to a diamond. You cannot realize your value in God, until you are broken by God and emptied of yourself to be filled with Himself and his heavenly vision (Acts 22:6-21). So do not run away from suffering, instead embrace it for the Glory of God!
Do you know that Jesus Himself learned obedience through suffering in his life (Heb 5:8), if our Master has to suffer to learn to be broken and be filled with heaven for us, then why should we not follow his foot step? Because we can only be like our Master at the max being fully trained in suffering by our Heavenly Father, and not greater than him forever because He deserves the honor as God above us (John 13:14-17; Luke 6:40; Isa 42:8; John 8:58).
Thus God wants us to willingly obey him and given in to the life of suffering he has ordained for us (Heb 5:7-8), to each one of us the type of suffering may differ but the same self denial, yoke and cross-carrying and sin-resisting will all be part of the curriculum in God's training in His school of suffering (Heb 12:4; Luke 9:23-26; Matt 11:28-30). But all of it will take us to a place where we will come to realize more and more of our value in God. By the time we are emptied of our self fully being trained by the Lord in the school of suffering, we come to know that the stone of Jesus we hold in our heart within us is not just a stone of $2 or $200, but a stone of $200000 worth of diamond which is invaluably great and therefore our very value in life becomes the value of the cornerstone of heaven as we come to end of this earthly life to enter the heavenly life which God has prepared beforehand for all his children in all the world just like he has done for Jacob (Matt 8:11; Luke 13:29; 2 Peter 1:19; Gal 4:19; 1 John 3:2-3; Eph 2:6-7, 10).
God is with you and will fulfill all His promises made to you, He will never leave you nor forsake you. And because He is faithful and just, he will forgive all your sins and will empty you of yourself and will fill you with Himself to make you so valuable like a diamond at the end of your life (1 John 1:7, 9; Heb 13:5; 1 Thess 5:24). So keep purifying yourself from sin and its deceitfulness, and you will find the diamond in you! Hallelujah!
Much Blessings....
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