Your New Name

Your New Name

Your name will no longer be Jacob. From now on you will be called Israel, because you have fought with God and with men and have won.

Genesis 32:28

The nations will see your righteousness. World leaders will be blinded by your glory. And you will be given a new name by the LORD’s own mouth.

Isaiah 62:2

I will give to each one a white stone, and on the stone will be engraved a new name that no one understands except the one who receives it.

Revelation 2:17

Have you ever met someone who has changed his or her name? Many women change their names when they get married to take their husbands’ last names. Some people change their names because they don’t like their birth names or because they want to officially go by their nicknames instead.

One of the early followers of God was named Abram, which means “father of many.” Now if you think about it, Abram had a name that just didn’t fit. He had only one son, and his wife was way past the age of having children. People probably laughed at the irony of his name. But then God changed his name to one that seemed even more ridiculous: Abraham, which means “father of many nations.”

In Hebrew there is a single shortened character that represents the name of God. When God changed Abram to Abraham, he simply added the character for his own name into Abram’s name. He did the same thing with Abram’s wife when he changed her name from Sarai to Sarah. When God gave them new names, he literally placed his own name in theirs.

This is an outward sign of what God does on the inside of people. He changed Jacob’s name to Israel, and he changed Simon’s name to Peter. God puts his personal stamp on us and his Spirit in us so we are not the same people we once were apart from his power. When you are truly in Christ, he puts himself in you.

DISCUSSION STARTERS

If you were going to change your name, what would you change it to? Why?

How was God’s power evident in the lives of other people whose names were changed by God? (Think of Jacob and Simon.)

Revelation 2:17 says that God is going to give all of us new names in heaven. What do you think that might mean?