“So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him, male and female He created them. Then God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful; and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name. So Adam gave names to all cattle, to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him.” Genesis 1:26-27, 2:19-20.
As human beings, we have the distinct honor of being made in the likeness and image of God. God is a triune God, God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit The best way to explain how God is to look at an egg. While we call it an egg, it is made up of three very distinct parts, the shell, the yolk and the egg white. Even though they are unique and can be separated, they can be separated and used for different things. We know by scripture That God is three in one, the Bible starts out in Genesis 1:2-3 “And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. Then God said.” Clearly tell us we have God the Father, Jesus the Word (John 1:1-3 In the beginning was the Word and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him.) and the Spirit of God. We also see s demonstration of all three in Matthew 3:16 after Jesus was baptized, “When He had been baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water and behold, the heavens opened to Him and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting upon Him. And suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” Being made in the likeness of God, we also are triune, we have a body, soul and spirit. 1 Thessalonians 5:23, Paul wrote “Now may the God of peace Himself, sanctify you completely and may your whole spirit, soul and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” We are created in the likeness and image of God Comprised of three in one and He gave mankind dominion over the earth when He said, “Fill the earth and subdue it, have dominion.” Man was created in the likeness of God and commanded to have dominion over all the earth. When Adam sinned, he gave his God given authority to Satan. Jesus came to earth and lived a sinless life, died on an old rugged cross for our sins and spent three days in hell to take back the authority and dominion Adam carelessly gave away when he allowed Satan to tempted him to sin in the garden of Eden. In Matthew 28:18 just before Jesus ascended to heaven, He said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me.” In Luke 9:1 Jesus sent out the twelve and “gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases.” And in Luke 10:19 He said, “Behold I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpion and over all the power of the enemy and nothing shall by any way hurt you.”
During creation, God spoke and the things He spoke would come into existence, and then God would call them something, He named them: God called the light Day and the darkness He called night, God called the firmament Heaven, God called the dry land earth and the waters He called seas. One way of taking authority and dominion is naming something. Adam was told to have dominion over all the creatures, so God brought them to Adam and instructed him to name the animals. Adam noticed that each animal had a companion, one that looked like itself, and the Bible says that there was none comparable to Adam, so God put Adam into a deep sleep and took a rib out of him and created the first woman. When Adam woke up and he saw the gift from God he said. “This is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” Genesis 2:23. The Jewish word used for woman here means, feminine, to build upon. In essence Adam said the Woman was a feminine version something that came from him, she was a separate person who God started with part of him, a rib, and built someone suitable (made like) him. I wonder if every time he looked at her, he remembered that she was truly part of him, together they were complete. Instead of standing together and helping the woman resist the serpent in the garden, he stood back and watched her fall into temptation. When he realized that she did not die immediately, he ate the same fruit she did. The bible says Eve was deceived, but it never says that about Adam. God warned the woman her desire would be for her husband. After the fall, Adam changed her name from woman, being a part of me to Eve the mother of all living. Adam tried to change who Eve was by giving her a new name. She went from being part of Adam to being the mother of all things.
In Bible times names were not just something a person was called, there name signified a person’s identity, character, purpose and many times their relationship with God. Start with the name for God Jehovah which means I am the one who is (I am). The Jewish people would start with the name Jehovah and add a second name that identifies the name of God. For example, Jehovah Jireh, the I am the God who provides, Jehovah Raah I am the God your shepherd, Jehovah Rapha I am the God who heals and Jehovah Shalom, I am your peace. In the New Testament, Christ was not Jesus last name, it means the anointed one. So, when people say Jesus Christ, they are actually saying Jesus the anointed one. Names are so important, they represent some of the character of the person it is given to, many times in scripture after an encounter with God, He would change the person’s name. God changed Abram to Abrahm, Saria to Sarah, and Saul to Paul are few of the people who were given a new name when God gave them a new assignment. Someone who is born again and walking with God, can change the character of the things and people around us when we call it a newname. Let me explain, when we become with the spouse we prayed God to give us and we start labeling them when they do not do what we think they should we are changing their character, Say a husband looses his job due to economic problems of the company and he goes home to share his concerns with his wife, and she says something like “I knew you would not last long, you are just lazy.” She has just started changing him from being a good provider to being lazy. Then she wonders why he can no longer hold down a job. Ot maybe the children we felt so blessed to have hit a difficult stage in development and we just complain they are rebellious or stupid. The children who we once called a blessing become the new name or title we give them like a lot of work. Maybe you pray and ask God for a new promotion and with the new promotion comes ,ore responsibilities and problems to solve, you decide you do not want to make the changes to be good at the job God gave you so you begin to gripe and complain about how horrible the boss is and soon you hate your job. In the political arena too many people have prayed for God to change our nation and when it does not happen as fast as we think it should we complain that what is happening is not changing anything.
The Bible explains why this happens, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit.” Proverbs 18:21. Proverbs 6:2 “You have been trapped by what you said, ensnared by what you said.” In Deuteronomy 28 Moses told the people that God set before them life and death, blessing and cursing, then he said to choose life that them and their descendants should live. I wonder how many of the things we blame the devil for are actually the harvest of the words we have spoken. What would happen if we would call things what God calls them. The Bible says “He who finds a wife finds a good thing and we started calling our spouses a good thing instead of finding fault. The bible says that Children are a heritage of the Lord and what if we began to call them our heritage and treated them like they are truly a gift from God. When Abrahm was an old man and Sarah ‘s womb was dried up, Romans 4:When God called Abraham the father of many nations verse 17 says, “In the presence of Him who believed, God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did.” Abraham stood on the promise of God and called the situations to come into alignment with God’s word that does not come back void. Romans 4 goes on to say that Abraham did not waver but later received the promise God had made him. Calling things what God calls them may not seem to be productive, but we will be rewarded if we do not loose heart. I heard someone say this week that 80% of the things we say, and think is negative. At first, I was cocky and thought good thing I do not have that problem. Then as the week went on, I began to notice how tempting it is to call things something contrary to what I believe God has called them to be by complaining. Take a good inventory of your life and then honestly ask God to show you if you are calling the problems and challenges the wrong thing. If you are calling them something negative, perhaps you are eating the words you have sown. Ouch! I have some work to do.
Cathy Nesmith