“God said to Jacob, ‘Arise, go up to Bethel, and settle there. Make an altar there to the God who appeared to you when you fled from your brother Esau. So Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him. ‘Put away the foreign gods that are among you, and purify yourselves, and change your clothes; then come, let us go up to Bethel, that I may make an altar there to the God who answered me in the day of my distress and has been with me wherever I have gone.’ Genesis 35:1-3

In the midst of his family’s deceit of there neighbors in reaction to the abuse and rape of their sister, Jacob calls them to worship, to purify themselves and come intentionally to worship God. I pray I may lead my family with a pure and holy example; but when any of them decide to take matters in their own hands, when they act deceitfully or fall out of relationship with God, that I would encourage them to remember their baptism, to recognize their need for God’s grace, they would confess and repent. Oh that I do the same for myself……….