THE NAMES OF GOD

DAY 195 OF 365 IN 2021

Exodus 3:6 Moreover he said, I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look upon God.

I once heard that when we go shopping, we don’t actually buy items, we buy ‘names’. Think about this for a second. Many companies therefore strive to carve out a niche brand name and go the extra mile to protect them. So we readily see big firms distancing their brand names from anything that has trouble written all over it to preserve their “name” we may refer to as ‘trouble’.

There is however another dimension to a name, look at this situation:
“If you had a lump sum of money to buy a vehicle right now, without any research, between a Mercedes and a Zotye, which would be your choice?
You probably made the obvious choice and asked yourself ‘what brand is Zotye? What then at all is in a name?

Today, we read God’s introduction to Moses ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob’. He was not concerned about attaching His identity, His power and His glory to the name of men. It was almost certain that by this introduction, Moses would know who He was because surely, He would have heard about Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

What God was therefore, what He offered had been encapsulated in names and given to His people. Who then is the God of Abraham? Among many things, He is the God who promised to make Abraham’s descendants like the stars of heaven, and that He fulfilled. He is the God who would do nothing without consulting Abraham, the God who granted Him the faith to dare to offer His own son as a burnt offering, He is the Lord who provides.

For one thing then, knowing a name suggests familiarity, in the very least, it instills a foundation level of trust.
God was in effect saying to Moses and to us ‘look at those men, those men whom you admire and hold in high esteem, I am the hand behind their visible exploits; I am the one they looked up to, the one who lifted and established them. I am their God and today, if you will let me, I want to your God.

#sly