Today’s 333 Devotional: “No Transformation Without Confession”

We’re continuing through our study on how God transforms through a story in the life of Jacob.

We now come to probably one of the most important and difficult phases in the change process, and that is confession.

This phase is where we admit we’ve got a problem. It’s where we stop blaming everything and everybody else and say, “I’m the problem.” Until we get this there’ll be no change. The breakthrough is when we confess and admit that we’re the problem.

Look at this next verse and God’s question to Jacob.

“So He said to him, ‘What is your name?’ He said, ‘Jacob.’” (Genesis 32:27)

What a strange request. God knew his name, so why did He ask Jacob to say it? It wasn’t because God needed to know, but because Jacob had to fess up and own exactly who he was.

Names in those days are nothing like they are today. In ancient cultures a name represented who that person was.

And that’s Jacob’s problem. Jacob means deceiver. Jacob was a master manipulator, a con artist of the highest caliber. He got his brother Esau to sell his birthright for a bowl of Campbell’s soup. Later he conned his dad into giving him Esau’s first-born blessing.

So, by telling God his name, Jacob was confessing exactly who he was. He was saying, “I am a deceiver and master manipulator, and I’ve even been trying to manipulate You.”

If our name matched our greatest character flaw, what would it be: Bitterness, Anger, Prideful, Lustful, Adulterer, User, Depressed, Fearful, Afraid, or Gossip?

We will never be able to change until we openly and honestly admit our sins and confess them.

So, who are you? What’s your name? Before the day is over answer this question, “This Is Who I Am.”

We need to stop making excuses if we want to change. We need to stop rationalizing and justifying our sin and blaming others. We’ve got to come clean.