"I will change your name. You will no longer be called wounded, outcast lonely or afraid. I will change your name. Your new shall be Confidence, Joyfulness, Overcoming One, Faithfulness, Friend of God, The one who seeks My Face."
"Since we are justified (acquitted, declared righteous, and given a right standing with God) through faith, let us [grasp the fact that we] have [the peace of reconciliation to hold and to enjoy] peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One). Romans 5:1, Amplified Bible
Those around me call me assertive and confident because people do not intimidate me. But is that the confidence that Abba talks about? I think He wants to build the kind of confidence in us that can't be moved or wavered.
This world is constantly changing and we are changing with it and as such the roots of our confidence must be planted in something far more permanent than this world or ourselves. I am not even going to comment on how perishable this world is, I have one word for it- dust. It is good to be able to pick yourself up and not be easily shaken, but what guarantee do you have that a day won't come along when you won't be able to pick yourself up, when a shock with the magnitude of an earthquake would hit you and you would just stay there not knowing what to do with yourself?
What does it mean to be justified, acquitted? I think the only way we could fully understand what it means would be to find ourselves one day in court with an accusation hanging over our heads. We would fully understand the joy and the peace of being acquitted when the judge's hammer would hit his desk and we would hear "not guilty". That's us before God, every time we do something stupid and we ask for forgiveness, the whole heaven hears the sentence "not guilty!" The trouble with us is that we didn't have to stay in court for our stupid things, sweating and shacking with the accusation hanging over our heads. Jesus stood there in our place. And because we didn't pay the price, we seem to forget that amazing feeling "I can breath again" an acquitted person feels.
What is true confidence? I believe it is "grasping the fact that we] have [the peace of reconciliation to hold and to enjoy] peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ". You face the judge with a completely different attitude after you heard the hammer hitting his desk, declaring "not guilty". You can almost start a conversation about the whether or last Saturday's football game, because you are a free man and the pressure of the accusation is no longer hanging between the two of you. This is what gives me confidence and joy. To me it is as if God decided one day nine years ago" OK, My girl lets remove all this from between us, so that we can actually begin to have a relationship. Do you believe I am your Redeemer, Emma, and I want you to truly live free from all this?" I said yes and it all started. And this Confidence will keep me standing at the end when I will face Him, because my confidence is based on His ability to remove any hindrance from between us, His ability to make me stand tall.
"Who shall bring any charge against God's elect [when it is] God Who justifies [that is, Who puts us in right relation to Himself? Who shall come forward and accuse or impeach those whom God has chosen? Will God, Who acquits us?] Who is there to condemn [us]? Will Christ Jesus (the Messiah), Who died, or rather Who was raised from the dead, Who is at the right hand of God actually pleading as He intercedes for us? Who shall ever separate us from Christ's love?" Romans 8:33-35a
"If you don't go all the way with me, through thick and thin you don't deserve me. If your first concern is to look after yourself, you'll never find yourself. But if you forget about yourself and look to me, you'll find both yourself and me." Matthew 10:38-39, The Message
I haven't written for a while now due to very practical reasons I'm afraid:-) some of them better than others. I have some problems with the internet so I can only connect through my phone:-( I also work many hours overtime so I am exhausted most of the time, and then I had my sister and my future sister-in-law, Sanda, over here for a week so those were good times. What matters though is that I had my Adonai close through the good and the bad, as always. In these last few weeks, I had a lot on my heart three things that keep repeating, so I will "dissect" here all my findings and you are welcomed to share your thoughts as well. My three things are the song above, which is a song very close to my heart for a few years now and which seems to "haunt" me a lot lately. Then it's the idea of identity and names and the power that they can have over all our life's domains. And the last thing that I keep focusing on is Romans 5:1-5.
We all love the idea of a fresh start once in a while and that is what Yeshua gave us wherever it is He met us- a fresh start "Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come." (2 Corinthians 5:17) But we don't always feel like we got a fresh start, there is always the old me with my actions and reactions, with my old battles... And the old me doesn't seem to want to budge. I find great comfort in apostle Peter, because I identify a lot with him, as I'm sure many others do. When it comes to Peter, one of the great moments for me, is when Jesus changes his name. He used to be Simon (in Hebrew "one who hears, one who listens, one who obeys"). But that didn't work too well for Simon, because many times he used to speak before thinking or before listening. He was impulsive and what Brits tend to call "a mouth". However, when Yeshua is asking His disciples "Who do you say I am?", God uses this Mouth to declare "“You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” (Matthew 16:16) And as a result Yeshua tells him: "And I tell you that you are Peter (Rock) and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades (realm of dead) will not overcome it." (Matthew 16:18) Yeshua changed his name to exactly the opposite of whatever Simon was before. He used to be impulsive, unstable and with a temper. God changed his name to the most stable unmovable thing there is in the created world- a rock. When Peter realised who Yeshua was, he not only found Yeshua he found his true self. The environment you're in and the people you came across throughout your life, might make you think you are someone you don't particularly like. But that doesn't mean that is the real you. The real you is the one God created and the only place you will find yourself is where He is.
I also love to read Revelations, chapters 2 and 3. They pick me up because they take my eyes from here and put them on the prize. If you read the rewards described in these two chapters the majority of them have to do with names, because names matter to God. They represent identity and destiny and have the power to lift your head up and make you say "NO. I won't bow down and I won't yield because I'm a child of God."
If you feel tired right now, whether it is in your spirit or in your body (like me:-)) and you find yourself not living to the best version of you, take courage. He will change your name and whatever it is that now brings you down and could be classed as your weakness will become your strength. My weakness has always been my emotions. I feel things with an intensity that sometimes exhausts me. That's why I take the song above as my own personal promise "I will change your name. You will no longer be called wounded, outcast, lonely or afraid. I will change your name. Your new name shall be Confidence, Joyfulness, Overcoming One, Faithfulness, Friend of God, The One who seeks My Face." And I see God making me become all this because I refuse to give up.
"I will change your name. You will no longer be called wounded, outcast lonely or afraid. I will change your name. Your new shall be Confidence, Joyfulness, Overcoming One, Faithfulness, Friend of God, The one who seeks My Face."
the pressure of the accusation is no longer hanging between the two of you.
