"Liar...Thief...Twister...Cheat, that is my name..."

What was the birthright that Esau despised and that Jacob was to inherit? The birthright was this—the promise that God had given to Abraham that in his seed all the families of the earth should be blessed... the birthright involved the birth of Christ—the Seed of Abraham...the One who would redeem man from his lost condition and restore him to his true relationship to God, making him dependent once more upon the One whose presence is life and who alone can enable man to behave as man, as God intended man to be.

This was the birthright: that God was prepared in the person of His incarnate Son, to make man man again and to restore him to his true humanity—and Esau despised the birthright! Esau said in his heart, “Sunday school talk! I don’t need this kind of kid’s stuff! I have all that it takes to be man—apart from God!” There was perpetuated in him the basic lie perpetuated by Satan in Adam: “You are what you are, by virtue of what you are and not by virtue of what God is. You can lose God and lose nothing!”

Esau had no time for any birthright that was calculated to leave him anything other than completely self-sufficient and completely independent; and God can do nothing for a man like that.

But Jacob, the twister—God could do something for him. God could do something for Jacob when He could do nothing for Esau, for although men might legitimately despise Jacob, they did not despise him any more than he despised himself. There were times maybe, when in the darkness and when he was desperately lonely, the tears would course down his cheeks, and he would cry out in his heart, “God, if there is any kind of blessing that you can give to a person like me, that can make me different from what I am—that is what I need, and that is what I want!”

God can get in and God can begin with a man when he comes to the place of total despair, when he ceases to be impressed with what he is and jettisons all expectation in himself. God loved Jacob! He did not love him for what he was—He loved him for what He could make of him; and God never loved you for what you were. He loved you and He loves you still for what He can make of you.

God does not love you for what the flesh makes of your human personality, but He does love you for what Christ can make of your human personality—but God can only begin when you admit your need of Christ. Esau never admitted his need...

Jacob wanted everything he could get from God, and although it was twenty weary years before he entered into the fullness of that purpose for which he had been called, God could at least begin with Jacob. He began first at Bethel, “the house of God,” and continued twenty years later at Peniel, “the face of God,” where, graduating from the school of despair, Jacob wrestled with a man who touched his thigh, and asked him, “What is your name?”

And Jacob whispered hoarsely, “Cheat—Sneak—Twister—Thief— Supplanter—that is my name!”

And God said, in effect, “Jacob, that is all I have been waiting for; I have been waiting for you to call yourself by your own name—and now I will change it! You shall be called Israel—Prince of God!”

Given the opportunity, God can take the most beggarly elements of humanity and make a prince out of them. Did you ever get down on your knees and tell God what you know yourself to be? Have you ever called yourself by your own name? If you have learned to do that, you have learned the secret of blessing—and God will change your name.

The Saving Life of Christ, Major W. Ian Thomas