The Name Change

 DEVOTION

GENESIS

THE NAME CHANGE

Gen 35:8-15

8 Now Deborah, Rebekah's nurse, died and was buried under the oak below Bethel. So it was named Allon Bacuth. 9 After Jacob returned from Paddan Aram, God appeared to him again and blessed him. 10 God said to him, "Your name is Jacob, but you will no longer be called Jacob; your name will be Israel." So he named him Israel. 11 And God said to him, "I am God Almighty; be fruitful and increase in number. A nation and a community of nations will come from you, and kings will come from your body. 12 The land I gave to Abraham and Isaac I also give to you, and I will give this land to your descendants after you." 13 Then God went up from him at the place where he had talked with him. 14 Jacob set up a stone pillar at the place where God had talked with him, and he poured out a drink offering on it; he also poured oil on it. 15 Jacob called the place where God had talked with him Bethel.  

NIV

Although we are told about the nurse of Rebekah’s death and her burial, the story here is about God appearing to Jacob once more. As we travel through the life of Jacob we have already seen God appearing to him, his struggle with God, God bless him, speaking to him, and once again God shows up and reestablishes this new name of Jacob as Israel. God did that before back when Jacob struggled with God. But now it appears God wants Jacob to go by the name Israel, to have people refer to him as Israel. This is a game changer because, as we know, Jacob means “heal grabber” or “Supplanter” and Israel means, “Struggle with God”. Of course, we too have been given a new name when we turned our lives over to God, accepting Jesus as our Lord and Savior. That moment that happened, the event in our lives caused us to have a new change from, “Sinner, which is the Greek word that means, devoted to sin, while the Hebrew word means to miss, as in miss the mark, sinfully wicked, or new name is, child of God. It does not matter when in our lives that moment happened, as when we were born, we entered this world a sinner, and God intervened along our way through life and caused that name change the moment we heard him speak to us and bless us, as we see he did change Jacob to Israel. We see that this new name happened as God appeared and talked to Jacob. We would think that is the only way we can have this new name as well. We cannot change our name. We cannot decide we will be called a child of God, just as Jacob could not decide his name would be Israel. We cannot decide to change the way we live, that is from being a sinner to being righteous. All of this change must be due to the work of God within us. It must be due to God showing up in our lives, perhaps even appearing to us, speaking to us, or performing a miracle before us, but definitely intervening in our lives somehow, telling us of our new name. We may not set up a pillar and pour oil over it, but we must make some sign of our encounter with God, however, we do that could be within our hearts, or of the new direction of our lives. Maybe we have to set up a pillar in our hearts and pour oil on it, dedicating that place to God. Surely, God has poured the blood of Jesus over the doorpost of our hearts, and He calls our hearts his place where he speaks with us. As we have this new name, we too, like Israel's meaning, struggle with God. We struggle with Him because of our old nature, our human nature, wanting our way, but at the same time wanting His way within us. It can be a struggle living with God, having Him direct our ways, and order our footsteps. Yet, we make that effort to follow him, to listen to him, to desire his blessing in our lives, as we walk with God, with our new name.