The following is very close to my heart.
When we choose names for our children, we take much care to choose names that would make them proud one day. The interesting thing is that every creature in human society has a name. Nobody is just called ‘human’. Imagine we didn’t have names and were called: “Human, could you please come here” or “how are you today, human?” Not even our pets are just called ‘dog’ or ‘cat’ or ‘bird’.
Something that has bothered me for some time is that many Christians call the Lord ‘God’. As we are human, so He is God, but that is no more His name than our name is ‘human’. He is in actual fact not the only god on earth. There are many gods. The Muslims’ god is called Allah, the Buddhists’ god is called Buddha, etc. At least these religions call their gods by their name. But when many Christians talk about the Lord, they talk about ‘God’ and when they talk to Him they call Him God. I regularly even hear Christians praying ‘in the name of God’, even though the Bible teaches us to pray in the name of Jesus.
Why is this important? What does it matter what we call Him and for that matter, what is His name then? It is all about intimacy, a personal relationship and a personal touch. We will never call someone ‘human’, since it does not happen, but there are many men who would disrespectfully call their wives ‘woman’ or a child would be called ‘child’. Until we know someone better we stick to the formal title, such as Mr. or Mrs. So-and-so, but when we become friends we usually call one another by name.
The Lord introduced Himself to Moses as follows: “God also said to Moses, "Say this to the people of Israel, ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations,” (Exodus 3:15). The Hebrew for ‘The LORD’ is ‘Jehovah’, which means (the) self Existent or eternal. His name is ‘the Lord’ and that is how we should address Him.
Calling the Lord ‘God’ is equally impersonal to calling one another ‘human’, ‘child’, ‘woman’ and ‘man’. If those serving dead gods have enough respect to call their gods by name, shouldn’t we love our Lord even more? Although the Lord Jesus is God, His name is Jesus which is the Greek version of the Hebrew, Joshua, and which means ‘Jehovah saves’ or ‘Saviour’. Therefore, every time we call Him Jesus, we call salvation. Jesus encouraged us on many occasions to ask in His name, for it will bring us salvation from whatever we need it from. It’s not only because Jesus is the son of God, but because His name is Jesus – Saviour.
Religion talks about God and do things in the name of God. A personal, intimate and loving relationship calls for intimate communication, i.e. to be on first-name basis, just as we as humans would do.
May I put a challenge before you? Unlearn the habit of calling the Lord ‘God’ and start calling Him ‘Lord’ or ‘the Lord’, depending on the sentence, and see what difference it makes to your relationship with Him and to your spiritual life.
Lord, I’d love to be intimate with you.
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