No other Name

This morning I woke up with a golden-oldie worship song playing in my head: “No other Name”
I confess I’ve been fighting frustration again recently with the “me” focus of many of the ‘worship’ songs being released – like when we sing about how blessed we are, how much we love God, or sometimes not even mentioning Him at all! Sometimes these songs can be encouraging and uplifting, and I don’t want to tear down anything that is helping anyone draw closer to God – but today I just wanted to enter into pure (ie God-focused) worship. So I did a search through my playlist for songs on the Name of Jesus, and worshipped. Singing about how blessed I am and how much I love God can be encouraging, but I know no greater worship than just focusing on how good God is (and not how good I am). There is nothing more effective at transporting us into the presence of Jesus than focusing on Him, not ourselves.

Over the last week God’s been reminding me of Genesis 11:1-9 – the account of the tower of Babel. And especially v 4, which reads, “Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.””

I don’t believe building a really tall tower was sinful in itself – I don’t think God is fazed by how big our structures are! The real issue was what it exposed of their hearts: they were doing it to “make a name for themselves” – to elevate themselves in their own eyes and put themselves on a level with God. And that is a subtle trap that anyone can fall into, whether we are building shamelessly worldly businesses or desperately worthy churches/ ministries for God

See, mankind is prone to empire-building. The sin-nature drives us to become like God (Gen 3:5); to “make a name for ourselves”. And yes, that’s even us good Christians who know pride is a sin. If we do not recognise that desire within ourselves – even those of us who are sanctified – we will fall back into it even while convincing ourselves that we are building a ministry for God, or “co-labouring with Jesus”. We are very good at latching on to the latest key phrases and rejecting old ‘religious’ terminology, but not so good at renewing our minds, which takes a lot longer. In fact, sometimes the speed at which we pick up on the latest catchphrase holds us back because we convince ourselves that we’ve caught the latest revelation, and we miss the deeper conviction that the Holy Spirit wants to do to uproot ALL of our old attitudes. Why else do you think we are still in lockdown, 10 months after we thought we’d learned our lesson?!

Anyway, back to the point: we have to recognise the persistent temptation to build a name for ourselves. In some people it is obvious – they love the idea of fame. But for others like me, the very idea of being famous makes me shudder! I had to overcome huge internal obstacles when God asked me to lead a church, and even more when He asked me to record YouTube messages for my church in lockdown – I did NOT want to be seen. And even this blog is – to the best of my ability – anonymous, because I really try to avoid recognition. So you and I could be tempted to think that I’m fairly safe from the empire-building tendency. But no – not so! I may not want to be famous, but I think that’s because of my own issues, as well as because of the high value I place on privacy. But do I want to be significant? Absolutely! Do I want to ‘do great things for God’? You bet! I’d love to live a life marked by miracles and soul-winning! And let’s be brutally honest: that’s not just because of altruistic devotion to God – a good deal of it is because I want to feel that I count: it’s the human need for significance (as if Father God designing and creating me, and His Son dying to save me didn’t make me significant enough). And that, my friends, equals self-importance, the root of empire-building.
When all that actually matters is His significance – His fame – His Name!

All of which brings me full-circle to where I started this post this morning. As we press in to God in prayer, fasting, crying out for His will to be done in the manifestation of His promised revival, we must examine ourselves and repent of all the empire-building that tries to co-habit with our very real desire for God to be glorified. We don’t have to beat ourselves up or despair about our perpetual failings. God knew about them when He chose us – and He chose us anyway. But still – we must keep pressing in for conviction so that we can repent and lay down our foolishness, and be transformed little by little into the image of Christ… for HIS glory, and not the merest hint of making a name for ourselves.

And so I have been asking myself this week, whose name am I concerned about? Mine, or Jesus’? If I fast, do I do it for my name’s sake, or His? If I tithe, do I do it to make me a good Christian or to see His Kingdom come? If I study His Word, do I do it for my benefit or His? If I pray, do I seek my will or His? Honestly, if we take the time to do more than pay lip-service to those questions, we’ll realise there’s probably a bit of both in each of those scenarios. We do genuinely seek His glory. But we also have a subconscious drive for significance, so we have to choose again – and again – and again – to lay it down, that Jesus’ Name would be exalted far above our own.

As that lovely old worship song goes, “No other Name but the Name of Jesus… is worthy of glory, worthy of honour, worthy of power and of praise”

Lord, bring us to the place where we no longer think of ourselves, but simply live for the glory of Your Name…