(Genesis 32:24 NKJV)
- Have you ever felt like you were wrestling with God?
- We see in Gen. 32:24 that Jacob wrestled with “A Man”
- This is no ordinary wrestling match.
- And this was no ordinary man that Jacob wrestled.
- This “man” is probably the “angel of the LORD” (Genesis 31:11) who is often identified as God himself.
- There Jacob was, “alone”. Wrestling with his past and fighting for His future.
- His future destiny hangs in the balance.
- If He is going to move forward He must shake off the past.
- He has to come face to face with who He really was.
- He was Jacob, and that name means “crafty deceiver”, and he had lived up to that name.
- But just like Jacob, you will never be able to move into your future unless you are honest and come face to face with your past.
- Face it, don’t burry it, don’t excuse it and don’t hide it.
- Come face to face with it and like the Psalmist, say, ““Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me, and know my anxieties; And see if there is any wicked way in me, And lead me in the way everlasting.” Psalm 139:23
- You can never get to where He wants to take you unless you are healed, forgiven and set free of your past.
- When the man asked Job his name, he was finally honest.
- He said, “Jacob” (verse 27)
- The last time His Father asked him that, He lied and said that He was his brother Esau.
- He now had an opportunity to lie but he said who he really was.
- Then the man said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel; for you have struggled with God and with men, and have prevailed.”(28)
- The name Israel means, “He struggled with God”
- As followers of Christ We are sometimes called the “Israel of God” or “The God strugglers”
- God doesn’t want His people to be passive but to earnestly seek Him for His blessing.
- But you can’t be blessed until you come face to face with the curse from the past and break it in Jesus’ name.
- Jesus said in Matthew 5:6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, For they shall be filled.”
- This is what it looks like to, hunger and thirst for righteousness”
- Today, examine your self. Like the Psalmist cry out to God and say “Search Me!”
- Ask Him to reveal to you anything that doesn’t belong there and remove it!
- Once you face your past, you then put yourself in position to be have a blessed future!
- At the end of the night and at the beginning of the new day, Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me”
- It was the “breaking of day.”
- Day Break - time to break from the old and break into the new.
- Make sure you leave with His blessing.
- Break into the new blessing that He has for you.
- Spend as much time as you need.
- Give God the time he needs to search you.
- And allow God to give you a new name and a blessed future.
- Have a great Monday!