My Name Is

As is Your name, O God,
So is Your praise to the ends of the earth;
Your right hand is full of righteousness. Psalm 48:10 English NASB (Hebrew Bible 48:11)

As is Your name – What is your name? Ah, but I am not asking about the appellation you received at birth. I am asking about the name that God gave you, the name that expresses your purpose and being in this world and the next. George MacDonald rightly suggests that the name God’s gives is our true identity.

Based on the words of Yeshua to the Church in Pergamum, recorded in Revelation 2:17b: “…I will also give him a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to him who receives it,” MacDonald writes:

“The giving of the white stone with the new name is the communication of what God thinks about the man to the man. It is the divine judgment, the solemn holy doom of the righteous man, the ‘Come, thou blessed’, spoken to the individual…The true name is the one which expresses the character, the nature, the meaning of the person who bears it. It is the man’s own symbol – his soul’s picture, in a word – the sign which belongs to him and to no one else. Who can give a man this, his own name? God alone. For no one but God sees what the man is…It is only when the man has become his name that God gives him the stone with his name upon it, for then first can he understand what his name signifies. It is the blossom, the perfection, the completeness that determines the name: and God foresees that from the first because he made it so: but the tree of the soul, before its blossom comes, cannot understand what blossom it is to bear and could not know what the word meant…Such a name cannot be given until the man is the name. God’s name for the man must be the expression of His own idea of the man, that being whom He had in his thought when He began to make the child, and whom He kept in His thought through the long process of creation that went to realize the idea. To tell the name is to seal the success – to say ‘In thee also I am well pleased’.”[1]

MacDonald continues this theme when he writes: “Not only then has each man his individual relation to God, but each man has his peculiar relation to God. He is to God a peculiar being, made after his own fashion, and that of no one else. Hence he can worship God as no man else can worship Him…For each, God has a different response. With every man He has a secret – the secret of a new name. In every man there is a loneliness, an inner chamber of peculiar life into which God only can enter…There is a chamber also…in God Himself, into which none can enter but the one, the individual, the peculiar man – out of which chamber that man has to bring revelation and strength for his brethren. This is that for which he was made – to reveal the secret things of the Father.

My friend, John Adam, pointed me to this MacDonald insight. It brings me to tears. I don’t know my name. Perhaps you don’t either. I am a man who lives without an identity, a wanderer far from the home where I am known as myself. I am sure God knows my name but I have not grown to the place where He has revealed it to me. I have not yet become what He envisioned. I am not yet His thought of my fulfillment. And it grieves me beyond words. How I long to be known by the name only He knows! The tears are streaming from my face as I write these words. Now, at this moment, no one knows me—not even myself. I need my name, desperately! Then, and only then, will I know His name. Some days the “glass darkly” is just too much to bear.

Topical Index: name, George MacDonald, Revelation 2:17, Psalm 48:10

 

[1]George MacDonald, Unspoken Sermons, “The New Name,” p. 67 of the 1867 edition.

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Michael Stanley

Deep calls unto deep and I live in Flatland. I, too, strain to hear that small still voice call me out by my name. Too long have I answered to every title and label that was pronounced upon me thinking that others knew me better than I knew myself. Too long have I followed the thunder when I should have sought the whisper of my creator. Yeshua’s name means salvation and so He knew who He was and why He came from the beginning. We have to find our name and our calling before our end so that we can really begin to live. Thanks _______ for the reminder.

Pamela

Yes, the tears flow freely….the emptiness within my aching heart heaves with heaviness as the deepest part of me longs desperately for that ‘name’ that the Holy One has chosen for me. How do I hear that special touch? How do I listen so as to hear – how do I listen hard enough, or long enough or desperately enough in order to ‘hear’?

Where do I go to hear?

The thunder of ‘life’ in my ears drowns out the stillness in the quiet voice….maybe ‘my’ name…is simply found ‘in Him’…..

Theresa Truran

Skip, your words have often been painful and challenging for me. There are plenty of heads and rulers that have called out shalom, shalom. Yet, that false teaching steals our covering and our strength. You have helped me understand that the lies have been, are, and will be more costly than the truth. Faithful are the wounds of a friend comes to mind when I think of you. I didn’t even know there were others who had the kind of thoughts that you so courageously share. Mic 3:5 “princes” vibrate their lies so loudly that it’s hard to hear a still small voice like yours, I believe that you seek to follow and lead in a Way that brings life rather than personal gain. Does a tattoo cover nakedness? You ask me to examine the reason I wanted to be covered in the first place. It is about “shame” isn’t it?

Pamela

‘without a name, I am not sure how to live’ …. that pretty much stops one in their tracks, slaps one in the face, and kicks the breath out of you! Surely, surely there must be a way to ‘hear your name’? Time waits for no one and we need to ‘live’ before we wither away!

Marsha

Your heart is precious in His Sight and precious to His Heart. We are…you are Skip, a desire in His Heart that nothing else will ever fill. Some years ago, as I searched desperately for “cleft” in Him to press into…a prayer was born in the deepest part of my being….”Walk my life into Yours.” It is still my prayer over all prayers…”Please-walk my life into Yours.” My focus is stayed on Him alone-I cannot do it myself, in every circumstance, my prayer remains, “Walk my life into Yours.”

Darleene

What a beautiful thing this is to learn. May I make a suggestion, please?
Instead of spending time and heartache over not knowing this wonderful thing
Called your name from God, why not be in awe over all that he is bringing you through, all the paths you have taken, all the lives you have touched, all the people you have shared Jesus with, all the valleys you have been in and the mountains you have climed and crested getting out of the valleys, in short,
look and realize what our. Holy God has done and is doing to be able to give
that name that we are in the process of earning. Look at who we are now as apposed to who we wre when The Lord started us on this journey which leads us to become what that new name means. Rejoice in the journey we have taken
and not miss one instant of the process just to get to the end, we might miss helping someone to receive their name also.

Praise Him for the journey,

In His loving service,

Darleene

Pam

AHHH but you do have a name. Your father exercised his image bearing work by naming you.

In Celtic the meaning of the name Arthur is: Strong as a bear.

The name Skip is English, short for Skipper or Skippere which means: Captian
And the name Skipton (also English) literally means: Taken from the sheepfolds.
Pretty cool names if you ask me.

As I recall Elohim called Abram by the name Terrah gave him from birth for 24? years. When he received a new name it was a glorified version of the same name. Abraham didn’t long for a new name because of shame and he didn’t strive to make a name for himself. He walked in the name that his earthly father had placed upon him. God gave him the first part of the covenant and a promise while he bore that name.

The change of name marked a fulfillment of that promise and the beginning of his receiving the eternal promise through a glorified/better covenant that contained and perpetuated the first.

Avinu will change your name when He has seen that you are ready for it. Until then you must simply have faith that He is able to perform all that He has promised.

Dear brother there is no shame in your present calling.

Pam

“When he received a new name it was a glorified version of the same name.”

Could that be what YHVH meant when He told Abram that He would make his name “Great”?

That would be a really interesting word study.

Carol and Clarence Mattice

I am now NOT as an orphan..I have a FATHER who cares for me and has given me my name and over HIS HOUSEHOLD AND IN HIS HOUSEHOLD the name is written over the DOOR that is blood stained…”MINE”

Peter Alexander

Whenever someone was given a new name in Scripture, it was often a promotion and prophetic in nature. Abram to Abraham, Sarai to Sarah, Jacob to Israel, Simon to Peter.

Suzanne

Michael Stanley wrote, “Too long have I answered to every title and label that was pronounced upon me thinking that others knew me better than I knew myself.”
Thank you, Michael. That phrase really speaks to me. I’ve been listening to Skip’s series on prayer again and what strikes me here (after reading all of these comments and having my own weeping session), is that it is like standing next to each of you during corporate prayer. I am hearing your hearts as if, no maybe better than I might have if we standing in a circle and praying. That is so precious to me. Thank you for praying with me today and everyday.

Donna R.

Skip,
Ask Him. I did several years ago. He told me! I don’t fully comprehend what it all entails but I seeing it unraveling and developing:) Hallelu Yah!

Sherri Rogers

I too, asked if I could know the name He gave me and was told what it was. The fact that you do not know what it is does not mean you are nameless and without purpose. One with a heart after YHVH will fulfill their intended purpose and by extension the name that defines that purpose by virtue of the fact that it is HIS will you seek.

Donna R.

Amen!

Alicia

This might be my favorite TW that you have ever written. It speaks to my heart and my own longings.

keith-dolan

When one is baptised and saved one is to give up your surname and only go by your given christian name. If you research surnames, it is just a title, say if you are a carpenter, then that became your surname, if you were a blacksmith, then your surname became blacksmith or smith. In fact the word “title” in hebrew translates to “surname”, I am no authority on subject but have done much study and research on names and meanings of names and history of names. In the bible everyone has a name. So and so begot so and so and so on and no surname, family name, clan name, ect… followed them.
May the Lord bring you many more blessings.

sharon

He wrote your name in the book of life, so that is your name. You just haven’t heard Him call you by your name.
Father, I ask you to speak as the voice of many waters over Skip Moen and reveal His eternal identity, and may he know you as he is known by you.

Ester

This TW is profound
IMO, knowing my name is knowing who I am, what I stand for, what my life is really about, Whom I believe/trust in, and most of all, how I will stand before YHWH, to be known by Him.
All of which is coming from the lonely journey I was on, from learning the hard way in expressing/with-holding my emotions that were/are essential in relationships, not being a chatty sort of person, until I know the other person/s well enough to open up, allowing others to know me in a clearer light.
Yet in that loneliness, there was a sense of His marvelous Presence and warmth, and security from childhood days. That made life a whole lot easier as I grew up, knowing that ABBA has always been with me in a tough life journey. We are never alone! YHWH watches over us who are His. HE feels for us, our pain, sufferings, trials and prunnings essential for abundant growth.
ABBA knows my name, and that is THE most vital reason for me not just to cling onto Him, but to trust in Him completely, walking in all His ways.
Shalom!