Prospective potentials!
Verse for Today: Wednesday, July 31, 2013
Genesis 35:10 – God said to
Jacob, “Your name is Jacob, but you will no longer be called Jacob; your name
will be Israel.” So He named him Israel.
God’s dealings with his choice
servants are not based on their past failures, defeats and losses, but on possibilities
and prospects in the future. In His grace, God forgives our past and in His
mercy, He works in our future to turn our lives into great accomplishments for
Him with eternal implications. Jacob was a true supplanter who took his destiny
into his own hands and secured blessings from his father and wealth from the
business of his father-in-law. He put good use of his powerful legs to run away
twice to escape his situations. He had conflicts with his and in-laws. He had a
family of twelve children and their four mothers in a highly conflicting
spiritual environment. But God in His grace forgave Jacob of his past failures,
conflicts and worldly wisdom as he tried to be smart on his own accord. His
past life as a schemer and cheater was put behind him by God and opened a new
chapter in his life by changing his name from Jacob to Israel which meant
‘prince with God’. As a prince he was to become a ruler and the head of a clan
of twelve tribes of Israel. As the prince with God, one day he will be the
great grandfather of the King of kings who is the Prince of Peace. In God’s
foreknowledge, the great grandfather of the Prince of Peace and King of kings
must be at least be a prince and hence the change of his name. It gives us hope
to see that just as in the case of Jacob, our God can change our name,
character and destiny to re-build us to be what He wants us to be.
Dear friend, are you dwelling on
the failures, defeats and losses in your past life and do you think that it has
taken away your usefulness to God? Do you feel distressed about the stigma
attached to you because of your past sins of commission and omission? But if
you confess your failures to God, He will forgive you in His grace and rewrite
your life as He did for Jacob. You will have to meet God at your Peniel and
allow Him to break and remold you as He did in the case of Jacob. At Peniel God
wiped away the past life of Jacob as a schemer and made him a person who would
become a blessing even to heathen emperors like Pharaoh. When God recreated his
life, Jacob’s life became a platform from which God rewrote the entire course
of the earth and the world. Today God speaks to us through His new naming
ceremony for Jacob that we do not need to wallow over our past failures and
sins, but hand our lives over to God to break us, rebuild and remold us to become
fit instruments in His hands to accomplish His purpose in the world. As we
become new creation through Jesus Christ and His death on the cross, we will
become salt and light for the people around us to experience and taste God’s
love. We do not need to lead a defeatist life and dwell in our past failures,
but must emerge from it victorious because of the futuristic implications of
our salvation. Great possibilities and prospects await us as God takes control
of our lives. Thus we can look into the unknown future where God will roll out His
plan for us a day at a time.
John 1:42 – Jesus looked at
Simon and said, “You are Simon, son of John. You will be called Cephas” (which
when translated, is Peter)
Thought for Today
Our new name as ‘God’s child’ with
new character and prospects will give us a new beginning for new possibilities
for God’s glory.
Prayer for Today
Lord: Help me to surrender myself
for you to build me up and make me a blessing. Amen!
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