WHAT HAPPENS IN YOUR LIFE WHEN GOD MEETS YOU?
Read from the bible: Genesis 32:22-32
INTRODUCTON
Have you ever met God? What happened to you when he met you? When God in his great love meets one of his children, certain things will definitely happen in that person’s life. We can see that clearly in this story of how God met Jacob at Peniel. We shall see that when God meets you four things usually happen:
It leads you to prayer.
You realize your weakness.
You confess your sin and receive God’s forgiveness.
You change your ways.
IT LEADS YOU TO PRAYER
When God meets his children, it deepens their prayer life. Ask any mature Christian and he will tell you that the time and place of blessing in his life were time and place of prayer. God has no dumb children. Whenever they have difficult time, they talk with him in prayer. This also happened to Jacob. In the dark night he met this stranger and they started wrestling with one another. Very soon Jacob realized that this was a meeting with more than an ordinary man. The wrestling became a wrestling in prayer. The prophet Hosea says Jacob wept and asked for a blessing. And God blessed him and made him a new person.
This is victorious prayer: to talk with God and to continue praying until you know that your prayer have been heard in heaven; to remain in close contact with God, as two people are when wrestling with each other. Do you know this kind of prayer? Have you ever experienced it? Or are you too busy for this kind of prayer? When you pray, do you quickly rattle off a prayer just to complete a duty? Have you ever burst out in tears of amazement and joy in your prayers when you realized something of the greatness and holiness and love of God? If you do not know what this kind of prayer is, it is doubtful whether you have ever met God.
YOU REALIZE YOUR WEAKNESS
When God meets you, you will realize your utter weakness before him. Jacob understood this very well. We read that the angel of God struck Jacob’s hip and knocked it out of joint at the socket, so that his thigh was paralyzed (became lame).
Remember, they were wrestling. When a person’s thigh is paralyzed while wrestling, he has lost the fight. In wrestling, you cannot throw your opponent without using the power of you thighs are paralyzed, you can do And only one thing and that is to throw both your arms around your opponent and pull him towards you as hard as you can. Then you learn over and let the weight of your body hang on your opponent. The outcome of the fight then does not depend on the strength of your own things any more, but on the strength of your opponent’s thing.
When this happens, your opponent can only do the same. He also throws his arms around you. And that is what happened at Peniel. Jacob threw his arms around the angel of God and the angel threw his eternal arms around Jacob.
At Peniel Jacob discovered the same truth as the apostle Paul when God said to him in 2corinthians 12: 9: “My power is strongest when you are weak.” just like Paul, Jacob realized: “When I am weak, then I am strong.” Has that ever happened to you? Or do you still think that your own strength can do something in the eye of God?
Sometimes God has to strike us to show us our weakness before him. But when that does happen, when God strike you with a painful blow, remember, he wants to draw you closer to himself. He wants you to throw your arms around him in faith and prayer.
YOU CONFESS YOUR SINS
When God really meet you, you will always realize how many sins you have before God. This also happened to Jacob .When he cried out to the angel of God: “I am Esau, your first born; I have done as you told me” (Genesis 27:19).
When his farther asked him: “How were you able to find it so quickly my son?” he even used God’s Name when he lied and said, “Because the Lord your God brought it to me”.
But now he cannot do it again. When the living God meets you there is no place for lies and falsehood any more. He must confess: “I am Jacob.” The name Jacob means “liar” or “thief” or “crook”.
And then God says: “God struggles” or “he struggles with God”. That always happens when God meets one of his children. He will bring you to confess your sins, even if you committed those sins many years ago. But then God will fully give you forgiveness and make you one of his people
YOUR LIFE WILL BE CHANGED
When Jacob walked away he limped for the rest of his life. You can imagine “what happened when his grandfather Jacob? Why is he limping?” The parents: would then answer: “Children, God met Jacob. He is showing the results of his meeting God.”
When God has met you, it will be seen in the way you live and conduct yourself every day. People will see humility and love for God in your life. The apostle Paul said: “In the lord’s name, then, I warn you: do not continue to live like the heathen, whose thoughts are worthless and whose minds are in the dark” (Ephesians 4: 17).
But now you must know: God only meets us in the person of his son Jesus Christ. The angel of God whom Jacob met, was Jesus Christ appearing in the Old Testament. Only when you come to him in faith, confess your sins with sorrow to him and receive him as your own Saviour, will you meet God. He alone makes peace between us and God.
I urge you. Turn to him in prayer. Cry out to him. “O God, please work with me. Even if it is necessary to strike me or break me, do it, Lord. I will not let you go until you bless me.” Amen.
