FEBRUARY 9
In John 10:10, Jesus says, “The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy.”
The thief is Satan, and one of the things he seeks to steal is your position before God.
Self-esteem is defined as confidence in your own merit as a person, the quality of feeling worthy of esteem and respect by yourself and others. Low self-esteem is when you feel unworthy, alienated, and incompetent. But there is a difference between self-esteem and Christ-centered esteem. It is not who you are, but who He is and what He has done in your life. “Let him who boasts boast in the Lord. For it is not the one who commends himself who is approved, but the one whom the Lord commends” (2 Corinthians 10:17-18). Apart from Christ, you can do nothing and are nothing (John 15:5). Because Christ is in you, you are programmed for success. When you see yourself as a failure, however, your unbelief shuts you out of the promises of God just as Israel’s unbelief prevented them from claiming their Promised Land.
Like Jacob, many believers have not come to the place where they fully comprehend their position in God. In Genesis 32, Jacob is involved in a wrestling match. The match is taking place between a physical human being and a spirit being. The Bible says “man” but we know from the text that Jacob’s opponent was an angelic being. Isn’t it strange that an angelic being has to ask Jacob, a human being, for permission to leave? (Genesis 32:26) Can you imagine yourself right now wrestling with a heavenly being and suddenly having that being ask you, “Would you please let go of me?”–and yet that is exactly what happened to Jacob. The impact of this is compounded when you realize that the Angel of the Lord had such tremendous power that he touched the hollow of Jacob’s thigh and made him a cripple. Jacob’s thigh came out of joint and he walked with a limp for the rest of his life. The angelic being had that much power over Jacob, yet he was not able to leave the presence of this man without his permission. Jacob didn’t wrestle to get God’s power. He already had God’s power. Jacob already had the resident power of God within him, although he didn’t realize it for years. Finally, through this encounter with the angel, Jacob realized who he really was in God and that he had power to be an overcomer.
When the angel said, “Let me go, for the day breaks,” Jacob declared, “I will not let you go, except you bless me.” The angelic being blesses Jacob, but before he does, he tells him, “Jacob, you have power with God and with man and you have prevailed.” After making that statement, the angel blessed him. The blessing did not give him the power, because Jacob already had it lying dormant within him. The angel recognized something that Jacob himself did not realize. He recognized that Jacob had power with God. He certainly wasn’t acting like it. He wasn’t using it, nor was he demonstrating it in the circumstance of his life.
Could this be a picture of your life? God has given you supernatural power–just as He did Jacob. Do you really understand that you have power with God and man? That is your position in God. Start acting from this position of authority as you face the circumstances of life today.