What’s in a Name?

 

Blessed be his glorious Name forever; may the whole earth be filled with his glory! Amen and Amen! Psalm 72:19

It moves me to the core of my being to hear God’s names sung.

There is a song that says, “He is the Holy One, The I AM.  The Beginning and the End.  The Infinite, all powerful, all-knowing, ever present, miracle-working God.  He is the Creator of the world.  The Righteous Judge! The King of kings and Lord of lords.  He is the Rewarder, the Healer, the Prince of Peace, the firm Foundation.”

Hopefully, you recognize that these are not the names of God that some song writer composed.  These are the Names that God has revealed in the Scripture about who He is.

I cringe when I hear people say,  “Well, I like to think of God as…” and then they fill in what they “like to think” about who He is. Some say, “Well I think that God loves us too much to judge us.” “My God would not allow disasters to happen.” “Well, I think that God understands that I can’t get to church because I work all week and Sunday is my only day to sleep.”

Just for the record, He does understand where our hearts are when we think like that!

Isaiah 55:8 says, For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. 

It is only by reading and learning what God says in His word that we can come to understand who He is. Even with the help of His Holy Spirit, our minds cannot fully grasp the depth and breadth of who God is and how much He loves us and hates sin.

The thing that is hard to understand without the scriptures is how much His acts of justice and wrath are equally as loving toward us as His acts of generosity and healing.  He does all things out of mercy for us, in our fallen spiritual condition before Him.  It is His desire to communicate to us our need for repentance and reconciliation to Him.

If we define Him by our own ideas about who He ought to be, or who we want Him to be, we will be caught in a trap of unconfessed sin that separates us from Him.

God tells us clearly who He is and how He will love us, so that we are without excuse to know it and live it .  If we choose to believe our own thoughts for our own comfort, we will not have the abundant life He promises and we can’t ask, “Where is God?,”  when He seems absent or distant because He isn’t doing what we think He ought to be doing.

He is the Holy One, The I AM.  The Beginning and the End.  The Infinite, all powerful, all-knowing, ever present, miracle-working God.

The Names of God describe our Him and His character. He is faithful to reveal these attributes to those whom He will.   I can “see” Him in the acts of love, mercy and even justice (in the conviction of sin) that He pours into my life.

This week we will celebrate Christ’s Resurrection from death.  He lives as Savior and Lord of our lives.

Do you know Him as Savior and Lord? Will you sing praises to His glorious Name?