It's All About the Name

Pay attention sometime to all the times in the Bible when God says he will do something or not do something for "his name's sake" or "because of his great name."

Do you ever stop to wonder why God does what he does? What is his motivation? What is the primary motive behind everything?

It is his Name.

God's Name is his fame. It is his reputation. It is that by which he is known in the universe. You and I use language like this all the time. We may say of someone, "So-n-so is an honest man. He has a good name in this community." Of course we are talking about someone's reputation.

Well, God's primary focus is his own reputation--his own name. And if you think about it, God's name is the most important thing that there is.

Just as it is our primary duty (and love's great longing) to give all glory, praise, and honor to God . . . and it is, you know . . . so it is God's primary righteousness to give all glory, honor, and praise to himself. It would be sinful for him to do anything less. And by very definition God cannot sin.

This is a lot to chew on. A whole lot. And it's pretty chewy stuff. It's not milk, it's meat. But I want us to meditate on it because it is truth and it is the kind of truth that can mean a paradigm shift in our lives and in our thinking once we grasp it. Yeah, it's a game-changer. Why? Because, if we're honest, we're all naturally self-absorbed people and we tend to think everything is about us. It is so ingrained we tend not to even notice it.

But it's not about us, it's about his Name.

Consider again: for us, it is wrong to be self-absorbed. Why? Because we are not God and there are more important things than us in the world. Can that be said about God? No. So for God, it is the opposite. If anything were to be more important to God than his own glory it would be sinful on his part.

God will not act contrary to his name, nor will he act in a way to defame his name. Conversely, everything God does brings honor and glory to his name and was designed for that purpose.

I will give one example and let it go for now. But look for me to give many, many examples in the near future. I won't even take the time to break this passage down right now, but I promise to in the next day or so. Here it is:

Isaiah 48: (ESV)
[9] “For my name's sake I defer my anger,
for the sake of my praise I restrain it for you,
that I may not cut you off.
[10] Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver;
I have tried you in the furnace of affliction.
[11] For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it,
for how should my name be profaned?
My glory I will not give to another.