What's In a Name?

By Gobel Brockman


This week on Facebook I posted the story about how I got my first name, and how I'm often asked, 'What do you like to be called?' This got me to thinking about how many different things I've been called over the years: as a kid my family called me "Bub", a lot of people call me "Gobe", and I'm sure behind my back I've been called a lot of things! But I got to thinking about how we give nicknames to everything. I drive a Nissan Xterra that I sometimes call "Rex." BB King calls his guitar "Lucille". Spouses rarely call each other by their actual first names; if they do, they're probably mad.

I mention this because I was thinking about something that Jesus said in Matthew 7 - "Not everyone that calls me 'Lord' will enter the kingdom of heaven; only those who do the will of My Father." It's one thing to SAY something about someone, it's another thing entirely to DO something. We all want to say good things about Jesus, we want to convince Him, ourselves, and others that we believe in Him. But He said in another Scripture, "Why do you call me 'Lord' and not do the things I say?" We can call Jesus 'Lord', 'Savior', or anything else we want, but the proof of our belief isn't in our words, but our LIVES.

He told a parable once: "A father had two sons. He told the first, 'go work in the field today. The son said, 'I will', but didn't. He told the same to other, he said, "I won't', but later repented and went. Which of the two did the father's will?" The point? TALK'S CHEAP. Terms of affection are nice, but meaningless if our actions don't follow. Someone can call their spouse 'Honey' all they want, but if they're being unfaithful, it's not only meaningless, it's tragic. How much more if we call Jesus 'Lord', then completely ignore His commands?

'Jesus is the sweetest name on earth' is the opening line of an old Christian song. It's true. May His name have true, genuine meaning to us all.

This is Gobel-Bub-Gobe signing off....