Today's Devotional

October 2, 2003

Subject:  Which Name Does He Call You By?

Matthew 16:17 - 18 "And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.  And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."

You really can find out some interesting things in a deeper bible study than just wandering through the word alone at times.  One of the most interesting things I found out was from a book on the disciples by John MacArthur, how God did the "name thing" like parents do with their kids.  He points out that the disciple Peter was named Simon but God changed his name to Peter to identify that he was to be a leader of the church.  Then later on as you know, Peter had a few failures in the leadership realm.  MacArthur points out that whenever Peter messes up, God uses the Simon name for Peter and as you read through the scripture, you will find that this is true.

I call it the "name game" because it reminds me of things that parents do with their kids.  Often parents will assign nicknames to their children and that's what they go by, however, when trouble comes calling, often the nickname comes off.  Say your child is named John and his middle name is Paul.  The parents might call him Johnny or something like that, but when little Johnny just broke a window outside by throwing a baseball and he hears the parents say, "John Paul get in this house," it's probably because he messed up.

Well this appears to be what God did with Peter.  However MacArthur also points out that giving Simon the name Peter was so that Peter could see the clear distinction between what God wanted him to be and how he often acted.  

So what name has He given you and which one is He calling you by today? 

Carlen