For the honor of His name (1)

Summertime, for some bloggers a time to take a break, and for others time to pick up writing again. In the same way, for some readers time to take a break from social media, for others a time to catch up on reading.

Whatever the case, I decided to do a blog series 😀 on the topic: 'For the honor of His name'.  Where did I get that? Well, basically from the Lord's prayer, as can be found in Luke 11:2, Jesus said to them, “When you pray, say this: ‘Father: May your holy name be honored; may your Kingdom come.

To bring honor to the name of God is a prayer uttered by millions of believers... regularly (if all is well). It is one thing to pray those words, but how exactly can we bring honor to His name in our daily lives? 

We can read in the book of Deuteronomy for example that it was very important for the name of God to be honored in a specific place, a place where His presence dwelt. I wrote a book about that (In My Name). In this series, however, I do not want to look at where His name is being honored, but at how His name is being honored.

👉Let's get started with Psalm 23:3 (NLT), where it says: He renews my strength. He guides me along right paths, bringing honor to his name.

The NKJV says 'for His name's sake'. When we feel weary, when we feel weak or kind of off-track... God wants to renew our strength. He wants to guide us along the right way. When we ask Him and allow Him to fill us again, to redirect us again, to sustain us again, it brings honor to His name!

That is, if we give Him the glory and thanksgiving of course. Testifying about our recovery is important. We do it for the honor of His name!

A mandate to shine

The other day I came across a sentence in one of the books I am currently reading, that really stuck with me... I mean like glue. 

Shine where you are.

Shine where you are. Four simple words that made me wonder what would happen if we all did that? Just imagine... we would live in a different world!

What if we would shine exactly in the place or position we are in right now? Not when things get better, not when we have it all together, not when we are healed, not when we are out of trouble, not when our government changes... but now, right where we are.

Maybe you don't want to shine, maybe you prefer complaining and grumbling. 👉 But for believers it is different, we have a mandate to shine! Think about that.

Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may be innocent and pure as God's perfect children, who live in a world of corrupt and sinful people. You must shine among them like stars lighting up the sky (Philippians 2:14-15, GNT).

Just imagine...

Vanity and grasping for the wind

In my younger years, my friends and I often philosophized about the meaning of life. We regularly closed such discussions with the sigh: 'For all is vanity and grasping for the wind.'

We took those words from the Bible book of Ecclesiastes, in which the writer experiences that all human efforts, hard work, and pleasure ultimately lead to nothing; after all, we all have to die. It even made him depressed.

So I came to hate life because everything done here under the sun is so troubling. Everything is meaningless—like chasing the wind (Ecclesiastes 2:17).

There is nothing new under the sun indeed if this describes a phase in life you are currently experiencing; a phase many people go through. Chasing the wind is exhausting and yields nothing of value, we will all discover that at some point.

But how then, will we live the years that have been given to us? The desire to do something with our lives is surely in our blood. We don't want to spend our lives on the couch, do we?

Well, I can reassure you. The Bible clearly provide answers to the questions of life as they are exposed in the book of Ecclesiastes. For example in Psalm 34:14,

👉 Turn away from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it (go after it).

I read in that Psalm a call to repentance.... turn away from evil. But also to a new way of life... do good, do the right thing. And very specifically that means… seek peace. That is in reality a challenge to go on a quest to get to know Jesus (Prince of Peace) and His teachings better.

And that is not all. We are called to seek peace AND pursue it, chase after it. Now, that is an adventure much more satisfying than chasing after the wind!

Therefore let us pursue the things which make for peace and the things by which one may edify another (Romans 14:10).