Reformed Doctrine Daily Devotions

Today’s devotion comes from Genesis 32:1-22 which covers Jacob’s fear of Esau and the anticipated meeting and Jacob’s prayer to God for deliverance. Here is a link to the chapter – http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+32&version=NASB

I will quote the following verses.

“The messengers returned to Jacob, saying, “We came to your brother Esau, and furthermore he is coming to meet you, and four hundred men are with him.” Then Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed; and he divided the people who were with him, and the flocks and the herds and the camels, into two companies; for he said, “If Esau comes to the one company and attacks it, then the company which is left will escape.”

Jacob said, “O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, O Lord, who said to me, ‘Return to your country and to your relatives, and I will prosper you,’ I am unworthy of all the lovingkindness and of all the faithfulness which You have shown to Your servant; for with my staff only I crossed this Jordan, and now I have become two companies. Deliver me, I pray, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau; for I fear him, that he will come and attack me and the mothers with the children. For You said, ‘I will surely prosper you and make your descendants as the sand of the sea, which is too great to be numbered.’”

So he spent the night there. Then he selected from what he had with him a present for his brother Esau:” Genesis 32:6-13.

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What strikes me about Jacob’s prayer is how Jacob treasured the promises of God and based his request of deliverance on them.

As Reformed believers, our faith and salvation are based on the promises of God summarized in “TULIP”, the Five Points of Calvinism, the Reformed Doctrine of Salvation. These promises are “Unconditional Election”, “Limited Atonement”, “Irresistable Grace”, and “Preservation of the Saints”, the “U”, “L”, “I”, and “P” of “TULIP”. And yet, too often, we neglect these glorious promises.

We should treasure these precious and magnificent promises of God and base our prayer requests on them.

“Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord; seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.” 2 Peter 1:2-4.