No one can be built up for the Lord who does not know a genuine encounter with the Lord, has laid down his all on the altar for the Lord. If fact God cannot use such a person. The Christian journey and christian service will painful, boring and not joyful to such a person.

*(So Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, “Get rid of the foreign gods you have with you, and purify yourselves and change your clothes. 3 Then come, let us go up to Bethel, where I will build an altar to God, who answered me in the day of my distress and who has been with me wherever I have gone.” 4 So they gave Jacob all the foreign gods they had and the rings in their ears, and Jacob buried them under the oak at Shechem. 5 Then they set out, and the terror of God fell upon the towns all around them so that no one pursued them.

This is the Gilgal and circumcision for Jacob's family.)*

Looking Ahead.

God has brought us this far!