The Confirmation

Transcript

Hello, my friend… so glad you're with me today. This is By God's Call — day 12, The Confirmation.

"And God said to him, 'Your name is Jacob; no longer shall your name be called Jacob, but Israel shall be your name.' So he called his name Israel." Genesis 35:10.

Pause on this scene for a moment, because it's stranger than it looks at first. Jacob had already received this name. You remember — it was the night of the wrestling match at the ford of the Jabbok, when he held onto the mysterious man and refused to let go until he was blessed. God had already said it there: "Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel." So why does God repeat it now, years later, at Bethel?

Because some truths need to be heard more than once.

Jacob had heard that in a night of crisis, in the middle of overwhelming fear, expecting to meet a brother who had sworn to kill him. It would have been easy, afterward, to assume that new name was just a moment — a passing emotion from a hard night, something that dissolves once life goes back to normal. So God insists on repeating it. Not in a crisis this time. At Bethel. In a moment of return, of altar-building, of worship. God confirms what He had already said, so Jacob would know: this was not a one-night thing. This is who you are. Forever.

Notice also how God begins: "Your name is Jacob." He does not pretend the old story never happened. He does not erase the past, the deceiver, the heel-grabber, the one who fled his home, the one who lied to his father. God names what was before declaring what is becoming. And that is a tremendous relief, my friend, because it means God knows your entire story — the parts you're ashamed of — and still chooses to speak about who you are becoming.

And why would God say the same thing twice, at two such different moments in Jacob's life? Because we forget. Our memory is too short to hold a new identity without reinforcement. We hear a good word about who we are, and two weeks later we are already living as if we never heard it. God knows this about us. And He never tires of repeating it. His repetition is not a lack of creativity — it is patience. It is a Father who knows His child needs to hear it again.

And it is no accident this happens at Bethel. It was there, years earlier, fleeing home, alone and afraid, that Jacob first dreamed the dream — the stairway connecting earth to heaven, angels ascending and descending, the promise that God would be with him. God brings him back to that exact place to confirm everything that came after. The beginning and the confirmation meet on the same ground.

So, my friend, maybe you too need to hear again a truth God already told you once. Maybe you received, in a hard night of prayer, a certainty about who you are in Christ — and time passed, and life got loud, and you forgot. Today is a day to hear it again.

Before breakfast, get a piece of paper. Write down one truth God has already spoken over you — it could be "I am loved," it could be "I am forgiven," it could be a specific word you received in prayer. And read it out loud. Slowly. As though hearing it for the first time. Because that is exactly how God wants you to receive it today: new, confirmed, forever yours.

Stay close to God. Pray — then act. I'll see you tomorrow, my friend.