A New Name

 DEVOTION

THE LETTER TO THE EPHESIANS

A NEW NAME

Eph 3:14-19

14 For this reason I kneel before the Father, 15 from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. 16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge — that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

NIV

There is some division among the scholars of old as to what Paul is referring to when it is says “For this reason”. Rather than entering the fray on trying to make that connection, we think the idea of kneeling before the Father is of far more importance. Of course, whether we physically kneel or kneel in our hearts before the Father may not be any different. There are times of prayer, when it would not be possible to go to our knees, if fact, any public type of prayer, such as church, or when praying for someone at a store or at work. Nevertheless, kneeling before the Father with our inner being, with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength would always be appropriate. Even when we have the freedom and confidence to approach God, we still should approach kneeling before Him in spirit and truth. We do not think our kneeling before the Father in prayer is not so much connected with how many fine Christianize words we can use, but how deep our heart is bent toward Him. It seems there are some whose eloquent words are not meant for God as much as they are meant to impress others with how spiritual they are, although their hearts may well be bent toward the Father. It is not the type or the number of words that matter, but it does matter that we kneel before the Father. It is through the Father that we all derive our name, Christian, because it was the Father who sent the Son as His plan to redeem us from the wages of sin, death. We are the family of God, as we join together as a family with all the saints that have gone before us, and those we now live with, and those that will come after us, because we are all the children of God, all brothers, and sisters, all receiving the same inheritance, all being built into the temple of God, as living stones. Whatever name we went by in our past matters not for that name was not associated with our new name as one adopted into the family of God. Now our name is Christian, a member of God’s family. We are so thankful that we have a new name that has been written down in glory, yes its mine, yes its mine, we have met the author of our story and he’s mine, oh yes He’s mine, and we go by His name. Just call us Christian.