When you seek the Lord, tell him that you will be his. Do it today, and persist in it tomorrow. This is a decision for life, for eternity, and not just for a moment. Jacob is involved in a struggle of desire. So too is the seeker after God. The battle may seem to be finely balanced. Which way will the seeker go? Will he allow the old desires to overcome him again, and that light that has been given be darkened again as sin wraps itself round him and smothers any spiritual life? Or will he, in a desperate exertion of the soul, break free and succeed in putting sin to death. Will the new desires that the Spirit has begun to plant in his heart bear fruit and set him free from the captivity of the devil? I must yield my life to him. When you do, your soul will come to life and there will be no doubt about the transformation that has taken place within your soul. Pray to the God who is, not imagine God. In response to the gospel.
‘What is thy name?’ This change of name so wonderfully matches the change in character which takes place at conversion. Jacob was already converted, but God made this encounter a picture of the change that every seeker experiences when he finds the Lord. At conversion he receives a new name, a new character, for he is made a new creature in Christ. ‘Old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new’ (2 Corinthians 5:17). Your name will not longer represent the old fallen nature, but it will describe the new nature that Christ creates in us. Each one receives a new name. ‘To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it’ (Revelation 2:17).