[This is one in a series of devotional reflections prepared for Horley Baptist Church during July 2021]
Why do we have names?
To answer that, try referring to someone you know without using their name. Some references are straight-forward – you might mention ‘the guy who starts the church service each week’ and most members of the congregation would know who you mean. However, how would you refer to a specific member of the congregation without using their name? You can image the confusion arising from ‘the man with the bad back wants a large-print Bible’.
We all have a name but names might not be unique so we resort to using alpha-numeric codes instead. Whether we are dealing with the bank, the health services or the tax office we all need to be able to quote an appropriate number. In some countries the ability to be able to quote your personal identity code on demand is an everyday experience. To some people this is an ominous portent of things to come; in the 1960s TV series ‘The Prisoner’ the character played by Patrick McGoohan rebelled against the system, declaring “I am not a number; I am a free man!!!”
Names can be misleading. The great green greasy Limpopo is no more green than the Danube is blue and I cannot recall the Red Sea actually being that colour. There was even a report recently of a politician arguing that because Greenland is so called it must once have been tropical.
Names can be descriptive. Mention the Great Barrier Reef or the Snowy Mountains and most people will have a fair idea of what to expect. We expect people with certain names to have particular characteristics; this is often based on previous experiences of other people with that name. So what does a person expect when someone calls themselves a Christian? Are you, as a Christian, reinforcing or diverging from that expectation?
Many ventures have been undertaken in the name of Christ, including some that we might think Christ would never have put his name to. How can we be sure that what we do is bringing honour to his name? In 1749 Charley Wesley wrote a hymn that offers some advice:
Forth in your name, O Lord, I go, my daily labour to pursue,
you only, Lord, resolved to know in all I think or speak or do.Help me to bear your easy yoke, in ev’ry moment watch and pray,
and still to things eternal look and hasten to that glorious day.
It is a prayer, addressed to the Lord, committing to him our activities of the day and promising to focus on him in all our thoughts and words. Then it asks for help as we work for him, being alert and praying constantly, always aware of his coming kingdom and eagerly anticipating its eventual arrival.
Is that your prayer too?
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Contributed by Steve Humphreys; © the Author
