Sat.’s Devo - The Power in a Name

Read: Gen. 16-18
My heart always goes out to Hagar. She was a servant doing what she was told to do and reaped rejection and mistreatment. When it got too hard she ran, but God met her in her darkest hour, comforted her then sent her back. There are certainly times when I feel overwhelmed and want to run away, but God does comfort me in those times and gives me strength to return and continue on. I thought it was noteworthy to see that God gave Hagar the name of Ishmael. From Ishmael we have the Arab nation that dwell in the midst of the Jews and have forever been enemies.
Abram gets a name change. His name goes from Abram: “high father”, to Abraham: “father of a multitude”. God said that He would make Abraham exceedingly fruitful and from his many offspring would come kings. The covenant God made with Abraham was everlasting. The only thing he asked of Abraham was to circumcise his sons and slaves on the eighth day. Anyone who doesn’t get circumcised is considered to have broken the covenant with God. Every time someone called him by his name, they were agreeing with God’s promise over him.
Sarai also gets a name change. Her name went from Sarai which means chief captain to Sarah which means princess. It almost sounds like she got a demotion but I’ll bet a princess was above a captain. She got the same blessing that Abraham got. Sarah gets a bad rap for laughing but I don’t think the angels were rebuking her for laughing. I think they were building up her faith to believe because if they could know that she laughed in her heart, then they knew she would have a son. Sarah is mentioned in the hall of faith in Hebrews 11 as believing God was faithful to do what he had promised her.
When we are born again, we are a new creation and get a new name - spiritually. I think that during our walk, God changes our names to fit our promotions. It would be nice to know them. (Food for thought.)
Abraham interceded for Sodom for Lot’s sake. He knew that Lot and his family was righteous and was hoping that there were a few other righteous people.
Lord, thank you for the name of Jesus which is the only name by which we are saved.