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by
Max Lucado
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April 1 - April 21, 2025
God used Jacob in spite of Jacob. Period.
God’s timing is always right. His plan is always best. His will never includes deception or manipulation. His strategy never destroys people or requires compromise. He never badgers, battles, belittles, or bruises people. If you are doing so, then you are not in God’s will. You may think he is slow to act, but he is not. Trust him . . . and wait.
The message of the vision could not be clearer: when we are at our lowest, God is watching over us from the highest.
God did not turn away from one who had turned away from him. He was faithful. He still is. “If we are faithless, he remains faithful” (2 Tim. 2:13 NIV).
Grace does this. It pursues. Persists. Shows up and speaks up. In our dreams. In our despair. In our guilt. Grace is God on the move saying, “I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go . . . . I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you” (Gen. 28:15 NIV).
“There is one God and one mediator so that human beings can reach God. That way is through Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5 NCV).
Jacob seemed more at home in a gambling casino than in a church sanctuary. He was a bit of a mess, this guy.
Our failures are great, but God’s grace is greater.
You determine the quality of tomorrow by the seeds you sow today.
Life with a Laban can leave us wondering if we are making a difference. The truth is, we aren’t, but God is!
Jacob didn’t like Laban. He wanted to leave Laban. Yet he was better because of Laban.
Laban was Jacob’s catfish. Research the phrase “catfish and codfish,” and you’ll find this apocryphal, yet insightful, tale. Fishermen struggled to find a way to deliver codfish to market. They tried freezing them, but the fish lost its flavor. They tried transporting them in a seawater tank. The codfish would be inactive too long, making it soft and mushy. Finally someone came up with a solution. Catfish and codfish are natural enemies. A catfish was placed in the tank. It chased the codfish during the transport, resulting in the delivery of healthy cod. Great story. While there’s no proof
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or future. I see it. I see you. And I am using this experience to train you.” God is prone to do this. Scripture explains, “This trouble you’re in isn’t punishment; it’s training, the normal experience of children . . . . God is doing what is best for us, training us to live God’s holy best” ...
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“When troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow” (James 1:2–3 NLT).
Yet God used them all. They chose to trust God with their futures and because they did, their pasts no longer had a hold on them.
God’s not put off by our ugly chapter(s). With his help we can soon say what Paul came to say: “But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:13–14
We can relate to the words of Paul. “No matter which way I turn I can’t make myself do right. I want to but I can’t. When I want to do good, I don’t; and when I try not to do wrong, I do it anyway . . . . Oh, what a terrible predicament I’m in! Who will free me from my slavery to this deadly lower nature?” (Rom. 7:18–19, 24 TLB).
Scripture is straightforward about the ugly underbelly of human nature. Left to our own devices, the human heart is a wicked thing.
“The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?”
“Out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander” (Matt. 15:19 NIV).
He took the punishment, and that made us whole. Through his bruises we get healed. (Isa. 53:5 THE MESSAGE) [Christ] never sinned, but he died for sinners to bring you safely home to God. (1 Peter 3:18 NLT)
“The blood of Jesus . . . purifies us from all sin” (1 John 1:7 NIV).
Sin cannot destroy you. But it can trip you, ensnare you, entangle you. It cannot take your salvation, but it can take your joy, peace of mind, and rest.
It’s not that God was not present. It is that God was not sought.
The Christian life is not difficult; it is impossible. Need proof? Consider the Everest-level standard set in the Sermon on the Mount.
Who has a chance? What hope do we have? The same hope that Jacob had. Grace.
This is the message of God, the aggressive promise of grace. Trust it.
His story exists for the times that the Jacob within us wonders, “Can God use a person like me?” The answer, the reassuring and resounding answer, is “Yes.” Pure grace.
Grace is God’s greatest idea. That he would treat us according to his heart and not ours.
God does not stand on a ladder and tell us to climb it and find him. He lowers a ladder in the wilderness of our lives and finds us.
He does not offer to use us if we behave. He pledges to use us, knowing all the while we will misbehave.
Grace is not a gift for those who avoid the shadows of Shechem. Grace exists because none...
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You are not the sum of your sins. You are the sum of Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection.
We don’t have to be strong to be saved. We don’t have to be perfect to be redeemed. We don’t have to score straight A’s. We simply need to trust the God of Jacob, believe in a God who sticks with the unworthy and underachievers until we are safely home. He is the God of second chances and new beginnings. The God of grace. And he never gives up on you.
