THE LORD GIVES NAMES                                                                        Isaiah 62:1-5

And the Gentiles shall see thy righteousness, and all kings thy glory: and thou shalt be called by a new name, which the mouth of the Lord shall name. Isaiah 62:2

Jacob was his mother’s darling. It was probably she who had given him his name. He was what we would call a “momma’s boy.”…Jacob had learned how to be very manipulative and tricky. It was only when his trickery brought him to a dead end that he began to struggle with God for an answer.

Jacob, whose name meant “supplanter” or “trickster,” literally “con man,” was left alone with God. God cannot accomplish anything with us until we are left alone with Him. There, in the isolation of   our internal strife, God begins the process of transforming disgrace into grace. It only  took  a  midnight rendezvous and an encounter with a God he couldn’t “out slick” to bring Jacob’s leg to a   limp and his fist to a hand clasped in prayer. “I won’t let You go till You bless me,” he cries. God then tells him what he really needs to know. He tells Jacob that he is not who he thinks he is. In fact, he is really Israel, a prince. (See Genesis 32:24-30.) My friend, when we, like Jacob, seek to know God, He will inevitably show us our real identity. The greatest riches Jacob would ever receive were given  while he was alone with the Father. It was simply the Father’s telling him his name!

Imagine how shocking it was for this almost dysfunctional person to find that he was not who he  thought he was. Here everyone had been calling him something that he really wasn’t. Jacob simply acted out what everyone had said he was. But with the grip of a desperate man he  caught the horns of the altar of prayer and prayed until the Father  gave him his real identity. He      said to Jacob, “Your  name is Israel, and as a prince you have wrestled with God” (see Gen. 32:28). (T. D. Jakes)

PRAYER LINE: Father, You called Jacob Israel and not what people called him. Let Your Word have a new meaning in our lives.

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You could be a prince and not really know it.