I've always loved learning the meaning of names. I think its neat that you could name someone Wisdom (Sophia), Beloved (David) or 'God Rescues' (Joshua), as in a real-live allegory. However, most people never really live up to their name. Think about it. Peter in the Bible, whose name means "the Rock", steady, sure --- was everything BUT what his name meant. One moment, he tells Jesus that he would never deny him and then the next ---- those very words he lived to regret came out three times! Peter, the one who stepped out of the boat -- confidently keeping his eyes on Jesus -- walked on water! However, the moment he looked down and drew his gaze from Jesus -- that's when he began to sink. Peter was up and down, up and down -- and yet Jesus still saw something in him.
Jesus doesn't treat us as our sins deserve. Jesus didn't just toss Peter to the side. He even met with him on the beach after his death -- "Peter, do you love me?" --"Do you love me?" -- "Do you love me?" ~ "Then feed my lambs"
It was exactly what Peter needed though - to be forgiven, to see that Jesus still saw potential in him, purpose in him, despite his fearful heart and actions. Peter deserved to be left! He deserved to be abandoned and just left alone. But Jesus didn't do that. Its amazing what we will do and how we really step up when people believe that we still have good in us or potential. Its like when that bar is raised, we rise to the occasion. Peter eventually did.
If you know anything about my personal testimony, you'll know that there came a point where going solo wasn't possible anymore, hiding under my parents Christian mantra was too difficult, and that fake Christian mask I wore in high school was melting away because my sin was taking more and more ground. There was deep sin in my life and it was rotting out the core of my being. It was like the more I lived in that sin, it continued to consume more and more of me - and the me that God intended for me to be couldn't ever grow and take shape.
I remember having some of those really deep conversations with my dad. After confessing some sins that I had been committing, I waited to see the anger dispatch across his face like a tactical war order. However, as I stood before him, quite shorter at the time than I am now, I watched as his face distorted into this soft, wrinkled mirror of pain, reflecting my own. Truly, I waited for him to scold me and go over all the "You know's", but he didn't. He just held me as I cried.
Why do I get so far from where God first saved me? Why do I, like the Israelites, forget the stones? The stones they set up ON PURPOSE to remember what God had done for them. Those stones were meant for the Israelites to help keep them steady and sure. To keep them focused and driven, to meet the bar, to remember WHO they WERE.
The NAME of Christian that we were given isn't possible to live up to on our own. If I'm trying to do it in my strength, I will fail. And I have. Recently. We can never truly live up to our names or the name of Christian without His grace, without His power and without our surrendered will. Am I a "little Christ" ? Am I living out my name, Papa?
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"If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land..." ~2 Chrn. 7:14
"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God--" ~Ephesians 2:8
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