Today’s Scripture Reading- Genesis 31-32

This weeks Memory Verse:

(18) My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.

1 John 3:18

Highlight:

(28)  And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed.

Genesis 32:28

Explanation:
Here we read the description of Jacob’s wrestling with God. There is some mystery to the scene. God is represented as a theophany. They wrestle during the night until the morning. We see this as a changing point for Jacob that effects the rest of his life:

1. His walk is changed. God touches the hollow of his thigh and Jacob thus walks with a limp the rest of his life.
2. His name is changed. His name had been Jacob (“deceiver”) and now his name is “Israel” (wrestles with God). This was a pertinent name change for Jacob. His life was certainly one of struggle. He had struggles with Esau, with Laban, with his wives, and in this particular name-changing scene, he struggled with God.

The dialogue in this struggle included Jacob’s request that God bless him. It’s interesting that Jacob/Israel desired and even for Isaac’s blessing, and here he struggles for God’s blessing. God certainly had alrady blessed Jacob and God honored his request here in verse 29.

Israel named the place “face of God”. It was here he had an experience with God and was inevitably changed by it.

Application:
We can be changed by an experience with God. We can struggle and eventually submit as well. When we do have an experience with Him it can have the power to change our identity and our walk. Truly He is the source of our blessing and not our own hand.

Response:
Thank you, God, for blessing me. Help me to seek you first and foremost.