God called the light Day
and the darkness He called night . . .
God called the expanse heaven
God called the dry land earth and the
gathering of the waters He called seas . . . .
Genesis 1:5-10 (emphasis mine)
 
God is a God of names.
What He created was given a name . . . .
Everything created was immediately given its name.

The beginning of time was set in order by names.
The very stars received their names.
Nothing was created without a name.
All things even now have a name.

HIS name for it.

God spreads truth through names.
He sets history within names.
He unveils reality by giving names.
Everything has a name
assigned to it . . . by God.

Ephesians 2:17 states with strange clarity
that "I bow my knees before the Father, from whom
every family in heaven and on earth derives its name."

In some secret dominion, does God give us each
our name, even our given name by inspiring our
parents? And our family name?
Are all names derived from and for
His sovereign plan?

The Bible makes it appear so . . . .
 
God called the first man, Adam.
He bestowed on him that name.
Adam means "man or heavens."

Adam's first assignment was to name the
animals . . . and what he named them,
explained them.

Then Adam named his partner, 'woman'
because she was taken out of man.

Eve - which means "mother of all living" -
was named by Adam
after the fall.

Gen. 3:20

To name a thing, implies authority over it.
Adam had dominion over plants and animals on earth
but not over earth. God named "earth."
Earth is God's, Adam only its steward.

So Adam bestowed names within his dominion.
He could name Eve
because he had authority over her.

But God alone has authority over the universe,
the heavens and all its parts, including earth.
God-Only named those elements, giving
no heavenly authority to Adam.
Adam, naming only things on the earth
in the sphere of his dominion
with no commission to rule heaven.
 
When something is named, it is identified . . .
and understood.

Eve wanted to "know" from her own mind,
the name of all things without the
work of listening
and the stress of waiting
for the Truth found in God's definition.

She wanted to put things into categories of
good and evil, right and wrong - by her own self.
Essentially, she wanted to name what was not
within her authority or
her knowledge to identify.

She forfeited the privilege of God's insight
as to the reality of a thing according to
His named understanding.

By eating of the Tree of Knowledge,
Eve - and then Adam -
asserted their confidence to name things and issues,
to declare them good or evil, independent of
God being the "Namer."
 
They wanted to "be as gods" with the power to
identify and call by name . . . to possess knowledge
superior to God and from that independent knowledge
to categorize every thing - heaven and earth -
assigning names of either good or evil, right or wrong.

God gave Adam only the command to name things
that grew on earth: plants, animals,
only the creatures under his human authority.
All other labels were God's to call.

The one who has authority gives the names
to those under.
God has All and Ultimate authority over
heavens, situations, nations.
It is HIS to say who they are by the name
hidden in His understanding.

When we name anything by a descriptive label,
we are confining that one to its name.
God must give names. He knows the name of
all things . . . by their true nature
and the hidden potential of His Exquisite Idea.
 
And when we know and speak God's name
of situations, of persons, of places,
we can see His implanted promise
and are bringing forth that very identity.

ONLY UNDER THE LIFE-TREE

The Tree of Life is where God names, out of
the Truth of His all-knowing, from
His unsurpassed knowledge as the Only One
who knows the name of anything.
His Mind, higher than the human mind
He formed from dust.
Dust! Remember?

When we live under the deliciousness of
the Tree of Life,
dependent on God's Fathering counsel,
we hear names, and then we know the reality
of all things.
It must be named for us, before we can know,
really know any entity, any event.

To bestow names from your own imagination
is to walk in ignorance and
the result is . . . death.

GOD GIVES NAMES

God alone names because God alone knows.

Some names shock. Some confirm our own suspicions.

Once God named a person in my life "evil."
"She is evil" was all He said.

I was devastated.
I had named her by the name she gave herself: "good."
I had said she was "confusing"
because of her double messages.
I had labeled her "loving"
because of her flattery.
I had called her "right"
because of her certainty that she was.

But when God named her "evil"
I understood all.

"Good, confusing, loving, right"
were all lies, not truth . . .
and lying labels are the hidden root of evil.

The wrong name brings the wrong response.

All my names and all her names were
swallowed up and explained when
God gave His name to it.

Once it was named by the Only One who could
(and when I accepted that name as Truth)
I was no longer captured by the Lying Names
that came from the Tree of Death
under whose dark shade she labeled her self
by a flattering advantage.


Another one came along my path.
God let me know the name:
"Treasure-belonging-to-God."
All persons in this one's path had
scorned, crushed,
named the treasure "worthless."

They gave a name by Adamic independence that
did not need God's personal explanation
but threw down a title with
careless condescension and condemning borders.

Humanity names names of cursing and death -
of delusion and idolatry.

God has a name for you, a name from His Dream.
But He also has a name for "where" you are,
full of blank reality and aching patience.
 

"Lord, won't you answer this one's prayer and
give a visitation of Your presence?"

No, this one is "yet-too-proud."

 

She said, "I am so distant from God, I am so
dull and so nothing."
God said, "She dwells-in-the-heavens with
quiet, regal dignity before Me."

 

I went to a church. I called it "church" because
it was 'named' church. Surely it was "church!"
But it left me puzzled and pained.

God said - when I finally listened for His name -
"This is not church!
This is: 'the murder of church.'"

 

Several believers heard God clearly name
this man "pastor."
He had no such label in his wildest imagination
and no remnant of ambition for it.
But as he absorbed the name, bowed to his God's title,
he became the name.
As one who observed him said, "the only
real pastor I have ever seen."



I said with exuberant anticipation of some
luscious name, "Lord, who am I?
What is my name to You?"

Answer: prisoner-of-the-Lord.

oh.

TO NAME IS TO JUDGE

We do not innately know . . . "names."
God names all things
and must give His names
before we know any name.

To "name" is to judge . . . to "label" is to kill.

When we name without hearing from God
the name of any situation,
it is judging by presumptuous flesh,
assuming the position of God . . .
who alone knows names.

And God will judge us by our "naming."

Copyright © 2001 Martha Kilpatrick