10:2 - Take Notice

“When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he said, ‘Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.”

Genesis 28:16, CSB

Genesis 28 has an incredible story about Jacob when he left Beer-Sheba and reached a “certain place” that would soon be known as Bethel (meaning “the house of God”).

Jacob was fleeing from his home after deceiving his father to receive Esau’s blessing (which Esau had sold to him for a bowl of stew). As he fled toward Haran he encountered the living God. He was just on a camp out, running for his life, and using a rock as a pillow (v. 11). He dreamed, and in his dream the Living God (and more than a few angels) showed up. God promised to give Jacob land and offspring. He also promised that all the peoples on earth would be blessed through him and his offspring and that He, the Lord, would be with Jacob and would not leave until the promises were fulfilled (v. 13-14). Jacob woke up and proclaimed his campsite to be an awesome place, the house of God, and the very gate of Heaven.

It’s very easy for us to forget that God was working in our community and on campus long before we got here. The Psalmist said “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the expanse proclaims the work of His hands.” (Psalm 19:1)

It’s very easy for us to get used to our everyday lives, and forget that God is always at work in the ordinary, not just in the extraordinary. John Piper once said,

“God is always doing 10,000 things in your life, and you may be aware of three of them.”

The 10:2 Project is a way for us to invade the ordinary. We’re not putting together a big program of events. We aren’t having any high attendance Sundays. And we won’t be offering any prizes. We simply want to see God work in and through our lives in the ordinary. We want to be like Jacob, and take notice that the Living God is here with us…at work in us and through us…and giving His favor to us.

Will you join the 10:2 Project and commit yourself to pray, invite, and share from now until Christmas Day? What’s holding you back? The Lord is already at work. Let’s join Him!

“So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.”

Romans 12:1-2, The Message