At the beginning of this year, I did not make New Year’s resolutions. I never do anymore. Instead, I spend a season in just focusing on hearing from the Lord about what it is that He has for me throughout the upcoming seasons. Some years, the message is clearer than other years. Some years though, I only get small bits and pieces. This year, I was in the middle of the biggest personal change of my life. I was getting married soon. So, as I told the Lord that I wanted this to be a special year, unlike any other one before, He reminded me that in order to experience the abundance only He could bring, I needed to remember Matthew 6:33. I love how the Passion Translation states it:
“So above all, constantly chase after the realm of God’s kingdom and the righteousness that proceeds from him. Then all these less important things will be given to you abundantly.”
God had given me the same scripture years ago, and it was a life-changing year, so I knew that when He brought to my attention that passage again, it was going to be another groundbreaker.
As the weeks went on, I began to realize more than ever that in order to seek first the Kingdom, we must know the King. If we have an intimate knowledge of the King, He will share His secrets of the Kingdom with us. There is no other way to accomplish this from a purely intellectual point of view. We can study all the passages about the Kingdom that we want. But alone, none of those will connect us directly to the heart of God. They will lead us into Kingdom principles, true. But it’s only by seeking the King Himself from the relationship aspect that we begin to know the intimate details.
As I continued to seek Him on a deeper level, He began teaching me about what it means to carry His name. I remember weeks before we married, my fiancé asked me if I was going to take His name or keep my own. It was a legitimate question. I have had a nineteen-year career in higher education. Students, faculty, and staff have only ever known me by one name. They all knew how to find me when they looked me up in the directory, and they knew how to find me online. In addition to this career, I have been a speaker and an author, and had only ever used the name I was given at birth. So after 42 years, it was definitely an interesting question to ponder. Should I change my name or keep my old one? But the answer was very apparent very quickly. If I was going to marry this man, I was going to take his name. It would mean an identity change to a degree, and it would mean that others would have to adjust as well. But in order to take on the identity of being his wife, I felt it only made sense that I should take on the identity of the name as well.
This concept really began to speak to me in the weeks that followed. After the marriage, there were papers to file in all different areas. All of them were legally and formally declaring the change. As I navigated through this process, I began to be acutely aware of a scripture that I believe has been vastly misinterpreted throughout the years.
“You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain.” — Exodus 20:7
My entire life, I was taught that this verse meant not attaching curse words to the name of the Lord. In truth, we should respect and revere the name of God by not attaching negative and nasty connotations to it.
But as I pondered, it became apparent that it means so much more!
In this passage, the word “take” is the Hebrew word, nasa. Translated, it means, “to lift, bear up, carry, take, sustain, exalt.” The term, “in vain,” is the Hebrew word, shav, and it means, “emptiness, vanity, falsehood, nothingness, emptiness of speech, lying, worthlessness.”
With this understanding, taking the Lord’s name in vain means to carry it worthlessly or to exalt it with emptiness.
Just as I took on my husband’s name when I entered covenant with him, when we become a part of the covenant family of the King, we take on His name. Aspects of our old identity must pass away in order to become the new version of ourselves.
When we dare to take on the name of the King, we are stepping into a place of power that we cannot walk in any other way. When Peter and John ministered healing to the lame beggar at the gate called Beautiful, upon being questioned, this is what they had to say:
“And on the basis of faith in His name, it is the name of Jesus which has strengthened this man whom you see and know; and the faith which comes through Him has given him this perfect health in the presence of you all.” — Acts 3:16
Going even further, in Romans 8:11, we read where Paul later said, “But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.”
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When we step into that new identity, certain things about us should change to indicate it. But the interesting thing is that these changes that start internally should become apparent on the outside. When a lion cub is born, it carries within it all it takes to become the “king of the jungle.” By the time it is grown, it doesn’t have to announce to the world that it’s a lion. The whole jungle knows it by the demonstration of its identity. All it has to do is be itself.
Likewise, when we take on the name of the King of the universe, we have all it takes within us to manifest the fullness of His power. It may take growth and it will take process, but eventually there should be clear evidence of the identity we carry.
It is a serious thing to identify ourselves as His own. Certain things are expected of us. So how do we demonstrate that we truly are His?
1) By our love for one another. In John 13:34–35, Jesus says, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
People will know us by our love for one another. In American “churchianity,” there are far too many stories of church politics, cliques, social status symbols and more. But those things don’t indicate to whom we belong. Our love for one another does.
2) By our treatment of the less fortunate. In James 1:26–27, James spells it out pretty plainly. Religion that is not tempered with compassion and humility is worthless.
“If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man’s religion is worthless. Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.”
3) By demonstration of our true belief.
“And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved; but he who has disbelieved shall be condemned. These signs will accompany those who have believed: in My name they will cast out demons, they will speak with new tongues; they will pick up serpents, and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.” — Mark 16:15–16
When we are disciples of Jesus, we are partakers in the promise of the Great Commission. What is that promise? That signs and wonders will follow those who have believe. So, if we truly believe in that promise, we should be able to choose lives of radical faith where we do what Jesus did, plus some! He said we would do greater works even than He did (John 14:12). The only thing stopping us from seeing those greater works is our willingness, or lack thereof, to just be obedient to preach the Gospel with power.
As I have meditated on these truths for several days now, I am internally convicted of my own watery presentation of the Gospel. I am compelled to pray for others and to simply BELIEVE that God is who He says He is and that He will do what He says He will do. I have become more convinced than ever that we must not take His name in vain. If we’re going to take His name at all, we need to be willing to allow our belief to represent it well.
Romans 8:19 (NASB) says, “For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God.”
All of Creation is waiting for us! How awesome is that reality? So let us take on the name of our Father and carry what comes with that identity to a world in need of the demonstrative power of the Good News!
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