Patricia A. Conti

God loves each and everyone of His children. He keeps watch over them and calls each one by name to Himself. If only all will answer His call and follow. To the Pharises, tax collectors, the poor, the sick, the disabled...are considered sinners and are unclean. The unclean may not enter the house of God (the temple). If you associate with these people, you are considered unclean and you must go wash before you may associate with anyone else. To them, how could Jesus be a person of God and still associate with these sinners. Share your faith with others in your community. Live your faith so others will see and want to know about your faith. Invite your neighbors to fellowship with you. Be a light and walk by faith.

He describes God's Word as bearing fruit and growing. In our world here. I know God says love the person, hate the sin.e in the states, sometimes the Word seems to go be the wayside with the amorality of our country. God's Word seems to stagnate or fall be the wayside while the people turn toward the lull of the world - sex, materialism, me world, etc... What happens in some churches is that they try to adapt, They stretch the Gospel to include ideas that were never part of the Word. Example, several different churches have changed their standards to allow gay and lesbian marriage and activity. I know that God say love the person but hate the sin. Nowhere does that translate to hate the sin but allow it to grow in the church. Abortion is an issue that pertains to God's creative mystery and not a woman's right to choose. Those poor and homeless around us are still our brothers and sisters and we still must take care of them. I believe these churches are trying to make their own church grow by adapting to the changes in this world. I personally believe that as Christians in our Christ-centered churches, we need to stand strong in those beliefs handed down to us through our christian heritage beginning with Jesus and handed down through the apostles as they strove to keep Jesus alive in our church and our persons. I belive that a strong christian front (living as christians in our world and all that implies) eventually will be what brings the world back to its knees and the spreasing or bearing of this fruit, brought about by our christian faith and love in action, will cause growth in the church.

Jacob promises to tithe one tenth of al that God gives him. Tithing is an indication of authority over and submission to. Up til this time, Jacob has seen God as his famil's tradition. Now however, Jacob accepts God as his own One True God and trusts Him for all his needs and Submits to god's kingship over him.

Jacob set up the stone as an altar to God. Jacob promises God that her will be his God and his God alone. Jacob annoints this stone for the lane is con secrated to God for God is in that land. Jacob promises his devotion to God. God has become the One God that Jacob will follow.

In seeing the angels ascend and descend the stairway to heaven gave Jacob a glimpse of God's majest. God gives Jacob the blessing he has he has given to Abraham and Isaac. Jacob realizes that God is keeping the promises of old and He is using Jacob to further the fulfillment of those promises. Before this, God was the God of his father, Isaac and of Abraham, not necessaril him. After this experience, God becomes His God, the One he will follow. He now has a personal attachment to God and his spiritual side begins to grow.

Isaac came to believe that God's blessings would be fulfilled through Jacob. Isaac gives Jacob the same blessing God gave Abraham. The blessings are to have bumerouse descendents, take hold of the land in which he will live, and that his seed would become a nation.

Jacob's. I believe that God has control over life and the blessings bestowed. However, I am surprised at times how God goes about it. I have my own ideas in how to deal with certain things in life. Sometimes things go so far away from what I belive should be happening and there is no way things can turn out right. However, patience and an "attempt" at belief show that God had a better was. My was is definitely not God's ways. Although they may sometime agree, I must struggle at times believing that God's was will bring things to fruition in is own time.

First off, let me apologize for referring all through this tho Rachel and not Rebekkah. There is a difference in how you love your children. That is not the same as how much you love your children. I have several children. I love them all with my life. However, they are different and have different needs. I love my children, each one, in according to what they need. My children have accused me of loving one child more than the others - but the name of that child (or really who that child is) is not consisten throughout. Each child has been accused of being loved more than the rest at one time or another. How a person percieves a situation is not necessarily what the situation is.

The blessing was really a blessing from God and if it is a blessing from God, no one can change it. A blessing from God is a promise of fulfillment and it can not be undone. Isaac was deceived and, although he realizes that later, he cannot undo what God has done. He does however have a blessing for Esau which, it seems, is also from God. In this blessing, he provides for Esau to escape the domination of Jacob.