Wrestling match with God?

That's right. Maybe you didn't realize that, in the words of Mr. James Ballantyne, my advanced math/trig. teacher in high school, "the first sport mentioned in the Bible is wrestling."

Okay, so that's a bit of a stretcher. But we see a human being wrestling with the Almighty on one occasion in the Bible ... and the Lord proves Who is the all-Universe champion.

Anyhow, getting to the main point here, Genesis 32 (the latter part of that chapter) chronicles Jacob's match with God. Jacob, the "supplanter," one who used deception and manipulation to achieve his goals. In this chapter, we see the transformation of Jacob--->Israel, a new man. God makes a new covenant with a new man.

The renaming of Jacob signifies a new covenant.
What Jacob used to have to get by supplanting he would now inherit as a prince, a son, of God.

You see, the Jacob before and the Israel after signify two people within us. There is the flesh man (Jacob) scheming to get his own way, and our spirits (Israel) wanting to accept God's will. There is a battle between the old man and the spirit to serve God. We must allow God to remove the old and establish his new covenant. We must lose our grip and let Him take control...

When we wrestle with God and hold Him to His Word, we will enter into His new covenant. If we live in sin, we can only get blessings by our own scheming – and these are really just possessions, not blessings. But if we enter into perfect obedience (sonship), we will have power with God to receive our inheritance directly from Him as His sons and daughters…

…Genesis 32:28, “And he [God] said, ‘Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel [“A Prince of God”]: for as a prince thou hast power with God and with man, and hast prevailed.’”

This is what the prideful nature of humanity wants…power with God and man. Influence. Jacob represented the carnal man – a way of approaching life. Jacob is the self-made man. He holds onto life, and wants to make all his decisions.

Israel is just the opposite. It’s a mindset of dependence...dependence upon God for everything. Israel exists only because his Savior does. His Savior is also his King. If his King would cease to exist, he would cease to exist. Israel has power because he is submitted to God. The power and influence Jacob sought and could never attain to is posssessed by Israel because God can trust Israel with this power, knowing Israel will only use it in a way to benefit Christ and His kingdom.

We need to pray for the establishment of the new covenant between us and the Lord. We need to ask him to take our pride away...so that we become humble and bow down at His feet.

We may wrestle with God, but just remember: Jacob came out with a permanent limp.

Furthermore, once we fall in love with Jesus through knowing Him intimately through experiencing Him and His Word ...

...we will not desire anything but submission to our wonderful Judge/Savior.

--Josh