Wrestling for Your God Given Name

By Love the Saints Ministries

Although born to this earth with a name that meant "Trickster" and a fitting reputation to follow, Jacob's God-given name was Israel. Join us as we walk you through twelve defining chapters in Jacob's life. Each one has a message of encouragement for you in your ministry, as you witness that struggle and pain are all part of Wrestling for Your God Given Name.
Wrestling for Your God Given Name is a project that we hope will be a resource of encouragement for Pastors. Inspired by the Old Testament character Jacob, the writers of this project are creating specific content that will relate to those that are serving in ministry. They are combining the historical aspect of Jacobs's story with what we can learn from the journey he endured along the way.

Just as Jacob had his ups and downs in life, we too have struggles that we must endure in our Journeys with God. Each of us has a God-given name that God has set aside for us, for Jacob it was Israel. For Saul of Tarsus, it was Paul the Apostle. For Simon the fisherman, it was Peter the Rock. The question remains how do we find that name.

This work is meant as a love letter to those in ministry. Though it will question your position, question your motive, and even possibly discourage you, in the beginning, let me assure you that every word is written with encouragement being our primary aim. I believe encouragement comes in many forms, some make us smile, some make us cry, but all are instruments God uses to mold us to reflect the beautiful image of His Son further.

In this little book, we hope to give you some answers. So Join us as we seek out our God-given names and together who knows what we may find.

• Language: English
• Publisher: M. J. Elliott
• Release date: Jun 4, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370564484

Book preview

Wrestling for Your God Given Name

Nate Allen

&

M.J. Elliott

DEDICATION

To Pastors Everywhere in need of Encouragement

IN MEMORY

Pastor Rick Hope was loved by many of those who wrote in to our website and offered himself to aid our cause in any way he could in the short time he was part of our ministry team. He will be missed but never forgotten. May all who find their way through this book be encouraged by its message and know Pastor Rick lived it…

To honor him we offer one of his articles as the Epilogue to this little book

Table of Contents

Forward 3

Part One 5

Your Decisions Do Matter 6

Responsibility in Making Mistakes 12

A Vision of God’s Promise 18

Is This the Perfect Match? 24

Deception is All Around You 30

The Desire & Your True Need 36

Leaving the Past Behind 42

Changing Your Perspective 48

The Battle for the Heart 54

Becoming The New Man 61

The Life Raft 67

Embracing God’s Promise 73

Part Two 80

Gen 28:18-22 81

Gen 31:44-55 82

Gen 33:18-20 83

Gen 35:1-7 84

Gen 35:14-15 85

About The Author’s 86

Nate Allen 87

Matthew J. Elliott 88

Epilogue 90

In Memory of Pastor Rick Hope 90

Forward

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be given a promise, only to have to wait for what seems like an eternity to have that promise come to fruition? This is what it was like for Jacob and the promise that God gave him. God gave Jacob the same promise that he gave his ancestors Abraham and Isaac.

We all can relate to Jacob's story. From beginning to end there are certain aspects of his story that we, ourselves, have experienced in our own ways. We have all doubted ourselves and God at some point in our lives. The struggles we have all faced in life and ministry can all compare to the struggles that Jacob endured in his lifetime. Who we are and who we want to be is nothing compared to what and whom God desires us to be, and we are all wrestling, waiting for the morning to come, waiting for the day when our lowly reputations are elevated to that long-sought-after place: the place of our God given name.

As you read through the pages of this book, we will walk you through twelve different milestones in Jacob's life and reveal the lessons we have learned through writing his life story down on paper. While these lessons can apply to everyday life, our intent is to show how those specific lessons can apply to those in ministry as well as those who are simply in need of spiritual encouragement.

The question remains though, How does a man whose name literally means Trickster become Israel, the father of nations, the culmination of God's promise to Abraham? You as the reader may be thinking I know this story, and there aren’t many connections to us today. Truthfully, they aren’t that easy to find, but they are indeed present in Jacob's story.

By carefully searching through the scriptures that teach Jacob’s story, this labor of love has produced many of these treasures, and we firmly believe God’s hand was present as we endeavored to bring these revelations to life. While we as individual authors have very distinct writing styles, God truly wove them together and produced this work.  It is our hope that you will see that and that you will embrace the Journey we are already on, the journey to finding Your God Given Name.

Part One

Twelve Milestones

Your Decisions Do Matter

Esau Sells His Birthright for

Lentils and Stew

Gen 25: 29-34

When you set the stage for one of the strangest forms of bartering found in the Bible, you have to do a double take. Who would sell their birthright for lentil stew? Who would give up something priceless for something temporary? It’s easy to approach the story of Jacob buying Esau’s birthright as almost laughable. But, when you look at the story, it becomes clear how much we can glean from this cautionary telling. God didn’t put it in the Bible as comic relief; He had something profound to say.

Let’s set the stage to find the meaning. Esau has been working tirelessly and enters his home exhausted to the point that common sense and good judgment have decided to take the day off. It only takes one good whiff of Jacob’s stew to entice Esau to make the biggest mistake of his life. When Jacob asks for Esau’s birthright as payment, it seems to be something said in passing, something similar to a man saying he’d sell his soul if only he could have this or that. What’s clear is that Esau doesn’t believe he is selling anything of worth. What’s in a name if I’m not alive to use it? his hunger spoke in hyperbole. Of course, Esau wasn’t a moment from death due to starvation.

It just felt like it at that moment…

Now, we can point fingers at Jacob as living up to what his name meant, which was Trickster. We can say that he should never have put his brother in such a compromising