“I am the LORD, I change not.” (Malachi 3:6) God is consistent, which is why He adds, “That’s why you sons of Jacob are not consumed.”
God renamed Jacob (“Trickster”) “Israel” (“A Prince of God”.) But whenever the people called by his name misbehaved, God referred to them as “Jacob”. This reversion to a former state is not unlike our reversion to “the old man” from the “new man” or “new creation” we are in Christ, when God does not do as we would wish.
Israel’s reversion to Jacob was a forerunner to that of a Christian who reverts to the ‘old self’ to gain an advantage by ungodly behaviour. This modus operandi was used by Israel, when the nation turned from YVWH to the pagan god Baal (“My Husband” or “Provider”) whenever the True God refused to grant His people what they desired.
This attitude is not unlike that of a person who decides to ‘punish’ God by refusing to pray to Him or to attend church whenever He does not respond to a misguided or ungodly request. The ‘threat’ implied: “Well, you won’t have me in your heaven!” is laughable — an adult ‘dummy spit’! It’s beyond that — it is pitiful. Nonetheless, it’s a petulant game that some of God’s people play at times. The answer? Grow up! That was the Apostle Paul’s instruction to the church at Ephesus.
Chapter 4 of his epistle to that church is largely remembered for Paul’s list of the five Ministry Gifts of Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist, Pastor and Teacher. These are not spiritual gifts (which are distributed by the Holy Spirit) but People Gifts given to the church by Jesus “for the perfecting of God’s people for the work of the ministry” (Ephesians 4:11). That we are “no longer children” but unified and so “no more tossed to and fro” by wrong doctrines taught by deceivers but “may grow up” into Christ who is the Head (verses 12-15).
It is when we “grow up” into spiritual maturity that we are able to be receive instruction from Christ, the Head of the Body, and it is from him that the unified working members of the body build it up in love (verse 16).
So, the work of the Ministry Gifts is to instruct the church as to how it can (a) “grow up”, (b) in its maturity, (c) think with the mind of Christ, (d) act as a unified working body of believers, and (e) build itself up. Every local church has this amazing growth potential! It might not — should not — have all of the Ministry Gifts in residence; the apostle and the evangelist will be out and about, and the prophet will leave and return, perhaps in a circuit.
My late father used to refer to petulant people as “Gimme Guys and Gimme Gals”. Today we would refer to behaviour of this kind as a Hissy Fit. A local church will have one from time to time, until that one grows up and out of immaturity, learns to think like Jesus, finds his or her part, and so becomes a blessing. Not everything is Instant There’s no “Just add water”, or in the case of a newly born again, zealous, and upwardly mobile believer, “Pour on proof texts!”)
Lord, give me strength!