Jacob thought he was alone. He woke up and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it” (Genesis 28:16). God had been there the whole time.
God is everywhere. David asked, “Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence?” and answered his own question: “If I ascend into heaven, You are there… If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there Your hand shall lead me” (Psalm 139:7-10). There is no place where God is not.
But He is with His people in a special way. God is everywhere, but He promised Jacob something more: “I am with you and will keep you” (28:15). That means God is near to help, guard and guide. He said the same to Joshua: “the Lord your God is with you wherever you go” (Joshua 1:9).
Even when we cannot feel it. Jacob did not feel God near when he went to sleep on the hard ground. Feelings come and go. God's promise does not. Hebrews says, “He Himself has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you’” (Hebrews 13:5).
Even when we have messed up. Jacob was running away because of his own lie. God did not wait for him to fix his life first. Paul says nothing “shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39).
God is not only in special places. Jacob called Bethel “the house of God,” but God was not stuck there. He went with Jacob to Haran and back again. Christians sometimes think of God as being at church but not at school, or near when we pray but far when we play. That is not true. Wherever you go, you are in God's presence.
Jesus' promise. The last words of Jesus in Matthew's Gospel are “I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). Jesus' name Immanuel means “God with us” (Matthew 1:23).
What it means for you. You will have times when you feel alone: a new school, a hospital, a sad day, a night you cannot sleep. Remember Jacob. Say it like he did: “The Lord is in this place.” Then talk to Him. He is already there.
Jacob's dream showed a ladder “set up on the earth, and its top reached to heaven” (Genesis 28:12). For hundreds of years people wondered what it meant. Then Jesus explained it.
Jesus said it was about Him. When Jesus met a man named Nathanael, He said, “you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man” (John 1:51). “Son of Man” was the name Jesus used most often for Himself. He was saying, “I am the ladder.”
A way we could not build. Long before, people at Babel tried to build a tower to heaven (Genesis 11:4). It did not work. Jacob's ladder was different. Nobody built it. God showed it. The way to God has to come from God.
The only way. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6). Paul wrote, “There is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5). A mediator is someone who stands between two sides and brings them together.
How the way was opened. Our sin blocked the way. So Jesus died for it. “Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God” (1 Peter 3:18). Then He rose again, and the way is open: “through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father” (Ephesians 2:18).
Why this is good news. If the way to God depended on us, nobody would make it. Jacob certainly would not have. He was a liar on the run. But the ladder came down to exactly where he was lying. Jesus came down to exactly where we are, too. He did not wait for us to climb halfway.
So come near. Hebrews says we can “draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith” (Hebrews 10:22). We do not have to climb. We come through Jesus.
What it means for you. When you pray, you are not shouting up into an empty sky. Because of Jesus, heaven is open. You can talk to God as your Father, any time, because Jesus is the way.
Complete all sections to finish!
Read each section and answer the questions correctly.