A Name That God Honors!

Friday's Devotion (1-21-05)

"A [good] name [is] rather to be chosen than great riches, [and] loving favour rather than silver and gold." Proverbs 22:1 (KJV)

A good name is better than great riches. When this scripture says, "A good name" it doesn't mean a name that sounds pretty, but a name that you can trust, a name with integrity. When you think of good names, naturally you think of the name of Jesus. The name of Jesus, is a name of value and trust. He keeps his words and he lives with honor and without sin. Our names will never be as great as the name of Jesus, but we should always have our goal that high. There was a song called, "Mistaken" the song says, "I want to be mistaken for you Jesus!'. This should be our goal and when people hear our names the first thing that comes into their mind should be, "Oh it's that great person who is a Christian.". This is my goal, when people hear my name I want them to say, "Oh you mean that person who is really being used by the Lord?". That is what I want to be known by, but I also want it to be truth... I don't want to deceive people to say it or to think it.

The trust and things that you receive with a good name is really awesome. When I talk to people a lot of people put their trust in me. That is such a good feeling and a rewarding feeling. I wouldn't give that up for all the gold, silver or riches in the world. Jesus, honors a good name and a trust-worthy person. I play an online game where several accounts have been stolen from people by hackers or etc and I have people giving me their passwords all the time to help them fix problems or whatever. I have a good trust-worthy name and these people trust me to give their passwords and etc to. I know some of you say, "Well it's just a game, who cares about that?". Well the thing is a lot of people put a lot of time into this game and if someone takes their account they lose all their hard earned work and have to start over or quit and they really enjoy this game. The point of this story is that people should be able to come to you and put their trust in you and believe that you will do them right! Your name should have some value.

I'm going to tell you straight up, as someone who wrote a lot of poetry one company with a bad name with me is a poetry book company. They have a bad name, I can't trust them and really won't have any dealings with them again. Why? Every so often I would receive a letter from them saying, "You've been selected as a semi-finalist!" the letter would always say the same thing and this letter was sent to everyone who ever submitted a poem to them. I knew it was a scam, but I figured, "I'm promoting the gospel, I don't care who scams me.". It turns out that I should've stopped doing business with a company with such low values because all the books that I thought I was going in... I wasn't! It was all a scam to get me to buy a book from them. This company was investigated and everything, they were proven a fraud on television, but yet they're still in business. The point of this is that a company lost a lot of their customers because they didn't have a good name, they couldn't be trusted. Of course they made a lot of money from selling their souls, but if they had been trust-worthy and legit then they would've made a lot more and above all they'd have a name that God honors.

Prayer: Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for this message and for all things. Please forgive us of all our sins and we forgive all those who've wronged us. Please help us to have honorable and trust-worthy names. May we be a bright shining light for you Jesus. In Jesus, name. A-men!

God bless!

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