HE MAKES ALL THINGS NEW 4 (OVERCOMING GOD)
While we are already saints, we are also in the process of sanctification or the nurturing of our nature because God is completely, relentlessly and lovingly committed to our lives. When we look at the history of Jacob, we see an example of God’s nurturing or sanctification of an individual. Even before Jacob’s birth, God had promised Rebecca, his mother that he, the younger, would be served by his older brother. Jacob was named a conniver from his birth and throughout his life we see him (and his mother), conniving to get a hold of this promised blessing of God – this was all a work of the flesh, and he had to undergo some nurturing or sanctification of his nature, to get him to the place where he would stop conniving and give over to God completely. Jacob went through the experiences of having to flee from his home, chaotic and complicated marriage situations and an uncle with the same conniving nature as him. Although it seemed like God was absent in Jacob’s life throughout all of this, He was there all the time, nurturing Jacob. When Jacob returned home, he had reached a time-sensitive, critical hour in his life. There at the brook Jabbok, at night, and all by himself, he wrestled with God. This was the place where he cried out, weeping, travailing and wailing unto God for His blessing and favour. They wrestled until daybreak, when God had Jacob admitting who he was. God then admitted defeat and blessed Jacob, which blessing revealed who God was, and He changed Jacob’s name or nature from being independent and manipulative to being dependent upon God, a prince of God, a God-overcomer. The Church as a whole and many individuals are also at a dark, time-sensitive hour, a Jabbok time. We are at a place where we need a greater revelation of God, wrestling and overcoming Him, seeking to meet with Him face to face, in order to become partakers of God’s blessing. We need to get to the place where we have a revelation that He is OUR God, even as Jacob did. When you overcome God, you actually overcome yourself and everything around you will change. God is nurturing the Church, preparing us, enabling us to contain that which He is going to bring to pass in the earth.
