Back to Bethel

And God said unto Jacob, Arise, go up to Bethel, and dwell there: and make there an altar unto God, that appeared unto thee when thou fleddest from the face of Esau thy brother. Then Jacob said unto his household, and to all that were with him, Put away the strange gods that are among you, and be clean, and change your garments: And let us arise, and go up to Bethel; and I will make there an altar unto God, who answered me in the day of my distress, and was with me in the way which I went. And they gave unto Jacob all the strange gods which were in their hand, and all their earrings which were in their ears; and Jacob hid them under the oak which was by Shechem. And they journeyed: and the terror of God was upon the cities that were round about them, and they did not pursue after the sons of Jacob.- Genesis 35.1-4

A few years later things were not going well for Jacob and his family. He had sons by various wives and concubines. Almost unbelievable sins had crept in. All kinds of weirdness were taking place. This relationship with God and Jacob and his people did not seem to be working out.

Something had to be done so God calls Jacob to go back to the time and place where he had first encountered God.

So God tells him what to do, and it an amazing picture of some things that we should do when we get there too because we are not immune. We can slowly drift away from God. In fact I think without regular growth there is where we are prone to go and we too need a course adjustment.

So God says:

Put away the things that have crept into your life and that you have put ahead of God. You need to deal with these idols
Cleanse yourselves of the sins that have taken over your lives
Change your garments, get rid of those tired old clothes and dress in righteousness

So Jacob says:

Let us rise up and go
Let us go back to Bethel
Let us build an altar there and worship God again

We can’t afford to get discouraged and caught in our sin and lethargy. When we find ourselves away from God we need to get ourselves sorted. We need to head back to ur own Bethel. We have moved away from Him because He has never moved away from us.