No Holds Barred

Then Jacob was left alone.

Genesis 32:24

Jacob was first a man of the flesh—he was Jacob the deceiver. He is now a man fighting and struggling within himself, and he sends everyone across the stream and is left alone. Soon he will encounter God in a way he never has before.

Jacob had encountered God at Bethel. At this encounter, Jacob responded to God by giving him a test: “If God will be with me and will keep me on this journey that I take, and will give me food to eat and garments to wear, and I return to my father’s house in safety, then the Lord will be my God” (Genesis 28:20–21).

Jacob then encountered God at Mahanaim in Genesis 32:1–12, and he called on Him to get him out of the mess he was in with Esau.

Now Jacob will encounter God again, and this time Jacob will encounter God with his heart. I believe God has been waiting for Jacob’s heart to finally call upon Him.

We all are first born of the flesh. We are all also born with God evident within us and around us (Romans 1:19). God blesses us all with encounters of His truth and with the reality of His presence (Psalm 19:1). We all have struggled in some way, wrestling with the idea of God.

Jacob now is alone with God. Here across the ford of Jabbok he goes toe to toe with a man, a man that I believe to be an angel, possibly even the pre-incarnate Christ. He wrestles with this angel. The angel allows Jacob to keep struggling with him, but he reaches out and dislocates Jacob’s thigh with just a touch of his hand. I believe he did this just to remind Jacob that he was in control the whole time.

Jacob did not let go after the touch. He held on tight. Jacob had finally come to realize that he needed God. He now understood that he could go no farther without God. He knew that he did not just want what God had to offer him; he did not just want God to get him out of trouble. He just wanted God.

Know, precious one, that if you are wrestling with God, He wrestles you as a lifeguard wrestles someone drowning in the water. Oftentimes when a person is drowning, he fights the one who is trying to save him as much as he fights the water that he is drowning in.

A lifeguard is trained to knock out a drowning victim if he continues to fight him so that he may safely bring him out of the water. God wrestles with us to bring us life and save us from this body of death. Sometimes God has to knock us out to save us. Sometimes He has to dislocate our thigh so that we remember that He is in control.

Ultimately we have to choose to either submit to Him and honor Him as God, or to keep fighting and become harder in heart and die without Him, eternally separated.

There comes a time in every person’s life when he or she is left alone, alone with God. The time will come in all our lives when the wrestling match will go toe-to-toe, no holds barred.

Have you been in the wrestling match?

Are you struggling with the reality of God?

Are you struggling with understanding that God desires all of you?

Are you fighting and struggling within yourself?

Have you realized that you agree with the law of God in your inner man but see that the members of your body do not want to obey His law?

Do you see that evil is present within you?

Is there a wrestling match going on between the law of your mind that knows what is right and this body of flesh that wants to do wrong?

Oh, precious one, have you cried out as Paul cried out, “Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death” (Romans 7:24)?

Have you cried out as Jacob did, “I will not let you go unless you bless me” (Genesis 32:26)?

This war, this wrestling match, does not end at salvation. While we remain here in this body of flesh, we will wage war. When we submit and hold on to God just as Jacob did, we too will become men and women obedient to the faith (Romans 16:25–27).

Have you been toe-to-toe with God?

Remember this, my friend: “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ has set you free from the law of sin and death” (Romans 8:2).

Remember that “in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us” (Romans 8:37).

Don’t let go, my friend.

Hold on to God; cling to Him; He will bless you.

Oh Father,

How I love You. You are my God. Oh Father, thank You that Your relationship with me is intimate and personal. Oh, thank You for Your Word, so that I may speak to You face-to-face. I can go toe-to-toe with You through Your Word. Then I must choose to either submit to You and Your Word and order my life accordingly or suffer the consequences of disobedience and unbelief. Oh Father, when times come that I wrestle with You, help me to tap out quickly. Oh Father, I believe in You and I trust in Your every word. Continue to transform me into the image of You from glory to glory
(2 Corinthians 3:18).

My Jesus, it is in Your name I pray,

Amen.