EXPOSED AND DEFENSELESS

Heb.4:13 – TPT – There is not one person who can hide their thoughts from God, for nothing that we do remains a secret, and nothing created is concealed, but everything is exposed and defenseless before his eyes, to whom we must render an account.

This passage is describing a painful but necessary God encounter that we must all experience. It describes being stripped of all our own defense mechanisms until we are laying exposed before the Lord. Jacob experienced this moment when he was returning home to meet Esau after twenty years of exile. The night that Jacob wrestled with God, he came to the end of himself and found himself exposed and defenseless before God. Paul’s moment came on the Damascus Road when the Lord appeared to him and literally knocked Paul to the ground. All of us have to finally come before the Living God, no longer trusting in ourselves we now must trust in Him. Here is how Barclay describes this.

“Finally, the writer to the Hebrews sums things up. He says that everything is naked to God and compelled to meet his eyes. He uses two interesting words. The word for naked is the literal word (gumnos). What he is saying is that we may be able to wear our outward coverings and disguises; but in the presence of God these things are stripped away and we have to meet him as we are. The other word is even more vivid (tetrachēlismenos). This is not a common word, and its meaning is not quite certain. It seems to have been used like this. It was a wrestler’s word, and was used for seizing an opponent by the throat in such a way that he could not move. We may escape God for a while, but in the end he grips us in such a way that we cannot help meeting him face to face. God is one issue that no one can finally evade.”

So have you come to this place in your life where you are literally at the end of your own strength and have no choice but to yield to the Lord? Surrender is difficult for any of us but this sweet surrender is where we begin to live the life God had planned for us all along. Jacob had his name changed to Israel after his wrestling match with the Lord. Saul, the Pharisee became Paul the Apostle. Maybe the Lord has a plan for you and He may just give you another name.