What's in a Name?

I actually love how our names define us. I love how when you meet someone, the first thing you learn about them is their name and then those letters sort of become them.

God thinks names are important too. Why else do you think he has so many of them? Jehovah, Yahweh, The Great I am, Jesus, Christ, Messiah, Savior, Lord and God. God also thinks that our names have value. He made it so that our names define us. Jacob, from the Bible, was a guy who lived up to his name. Jacob means trickster (or something along that line), and he literally tricked his brother out of his inheritance and his uncle out of his own fortune! But then God decided that he wanted to use Jacob. So the first thing that God did was to rename Jacob. Jacob couldn't be following God while still trying to live up to his old name. So he had to be renamed Israel. Simple as that.

And while we don't really do this, to that extent, in our culture we do it too. When a girl gets married she changes her last name. Her identity is not quite the same because she has chosen to be defined along with someone else, as part of who she is. Another example is how in hip hop or music culture in general how people get names for what they do (ex. Tight Eyez or Lights.. sort of....).  God wants to rename us too, to an extent. Our names define us, and God doesn't want us to be defined by our old ways. When we become Christians, he calls us by a new name. He calls us his. He calls us his sons and daughters.

Rev. 2:17 says "To him who overcomes, I will give some of the hidden manna. I will also give him a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to him who receives it."

While this was originally written to the church in Pergamum, I believe that this is a promise for us too. God knows the power in a name and he wants to bless us with names that show the power we have in Christ.

A sort of, kinda, not really, example of this would be my name.

Victoria Grace.

Before I was even born God had picked out my name for me. God had shown my mom this verse.

"My grace is sufficient towards you, and my power is made perfect in weakness. 2 Cor 12:9

From the word sufficient my mom was somehow lead to the word victorious. My name is me, as well as who I want to be. I can be victorious in all things because of Christ in me and I want to show the world that grace that God has given it. I also love how although my name is Victoria, how I get to be Tori as well.

Not to be bragging or anything, but I feel like my name describes me perfectly.