A New Name

This post goes out to the men and women, boys and girls, all those across the globe who feel like they need a fresh start in life.  Sometimes along the way, we somehow fall into the sticky pit of experiences that bog us down and prevent us from seeing what shining light is ahead and in front of us. Sometimes our past haunts us, mistakes we’ve made, reaching out and pulling us backwards with every forward step. Many things in life can lurk in the proverbial skeleton closet, a deep chest full of secrets we try to hide from the rest of the world.  Hey, we all make mistakes.  We all have fallen short of our own expectations, and we have all fallen short of God’s.  In fact, the book of Romans says it very straight forwardly.

Romans 3:23

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

But there is tremendous news, and that is the reason I am writing today.

Have you ever wished you could just wipe the slate clean and get a fresh start in life?  

I was recently reading my morning devotion and came across the account of Jacob who was wrestling with God. In Genesis, there are many things that if you truly read the Bible for what it says you will find it is a very mysterious book.  Many things are written that don’t make sense to the modern, intellectual, and sophisticated mind.  We find Jacob, who had a very hard life up to this point, wrestling with a man.  Most scholars believe this to be a Christophony, or an appearance of God in man form before the virgin birth of the new testament. 

Genesis 32:22-26

The same night he arose and took his two wives, his two female servants, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream, and everything else that he had. And Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip socket, and Jacob's hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, “Let me go, for the day has broken.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

So, please, let’s take off our theological glasses and put on our real-life ones.  Have you ever been in such struggle in life that you felt like even God himself was wrestling against you?  Have you ever been hit by so many sideline punches along life’s journey that you felt everything was an exhaustive wrestling match?

One of our sons has a good friend who is a wrestler.  Hopefully he gets to enjoy his senior year of high school wrestling in front of actual people in the stands and not just cardboard cutouts.  We are hoping that Covid restrictions are lifted before the season starts.  Anyways, months, years of training go into a six-minute match.  The amount of effort and strain, energy and determination, stamina and grit that go into one match is impossible to understand unless you have gone into strict training yourself.

And that is just six minutes.

Jacob wrestled God until the breaking of day.

Exhausting?  Many of us feel that way right now.

Many of us feel as though we have wrestled life, the struggles of life, or the hardships that come with it all our lives.  But I, for one, am not giving up.  

Jacob wrestled with God until the breaking of day.  I’m not sure why they were wrestling, or why Jacob even thought he could win.  I’m not here to discuss the theology behind how or why something like that would even make sense.  All I know is that Jacob wasn’t going to give up until God blessed him. What happens next is amazing.

Genesis 32:27-31

And he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” Then he said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.” Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him. So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.” The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip.

Jacob wasn’t giving up, and because of it, God gave him a new start.

You see, Jacob had a rough life.  His brother wanted to kill him.  He was fleeing for his life.  He had been betrayed by a father-in-law, deceived in his wages ten times.  He was shocked to find out he had married a different woman than he intended (wouldn’t that be a surprise) and had dissention in his house as his wives fought and quarreled among themselves over him.  His name was associated with deception, he didn’t have the best reputation.

Until he got a new name.

Do you want a new name?

If you are someone who needs a new name, a clean slate, a fresh start in life, I have wonderful news for you.  Not only can God give that to you, but he will.  

Many people stop reading too soon with the wildly popular verse I opened this blog post up with. We know that all have fallen short of God’s glory.  The single greatest part about Romans 3:23 is that it ends with a comma, not a period. Yes, we have fallen short.  But if you keep reading, you hear the best part is still to come.

Romans 3:24

and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.

Now that is good news.

We get a fresh start.  We get a clean slate.  We have been redeemed, purchased by his blood, saved by what Jesus did.  It isn’t dependent on us.  We will never live up to the expectations we have for ourselves, and God himself doesn’t expect us to live a perfect life.  He already knows we are going to mess up before we even do.  

He just wants you to accept what he did.

One day, a glorious and wonderful day, I will receive a new name too.

Let me divulge into this for a minute.

One day, when I stand with Jesus himself, when none of the former things that I have done are remembered any longer, when the struggles of the world are forgotten, when I stand in light indescribable, when I am given a new body, new clothes, and a new image, I will also be given a new name.  What does this mean to me?  Everything.

Revelation 2:17

He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it.’

I will have wrestled in the former world and will have won.  On that day, I will see that the struggles of life couldn’t hold me down. The afflictions, the heat of the fire, the raging of the ocean waves, the dark of night, no, none of them will have any hold on me.  I will have fought the good fight and won, not because I was worthy of it, but because Christ won it for me.  

And then the most precious thing will be done for me, a thing that I will in no wise be worthy of in the least.  Jesus himself will give me a stone, a white stone, and on that stone will be a new name, one that only Jesus and I know.

In that moment an incredible, inexplainable intimacy will occur between the creator of the universe and little-old me.  We will have something to share that nobody else is privy to.

And I can hardly wait to see what name I’ll be given.

Life do-overs do occur. Jacob got one.  And so will you and I.

Meet Jesus where you are today.  I challenge you to find him, no matter where you are, no matter what the cost.  He alone is the way of salvation.  He is worth the fight, the wrestle, the exhaustion. He will give you that new start, a fresh change of clothes, and a new name.

And then, it will mean everything.

By Chuck Carr