God doesn’t speak willy-nilly. He doesn’t speak words just to fill the silence or awkward moments. No, when God speaks, anything and everything He says, has significant meaning and power…. Everything God says has the power to change the world… has the power to change us.
Look through the Bible, starting from the very beginning… Genesis 1, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth… God SAID…” God’s word changed the world… it created the world… and every time God speaks, it is for the purpose of changing the world… and changing us.
Amazing! You want to change? Read the Word of God. You want your circumstances to change, speak the Word of God. You want to understand things, read the Word of God. You want to be blessed in your life, read, know and speak the Word of God over your life, your family, and whatever else needs change. Healing? Speak God’s Word… because the purpose of God’s Word is to change you.
Take a look at Genesis 17:1
"When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to him and said, “I am God Almighty[fn]; walk before me faithfully and be blameless."
Notice here that this isn’t the beginning of Abram and Sarai’s story. Abram is 99 yrs old at this point. He already knows God. He already walks with God. He already trusts God.. so much so that when God told him to leave his family and go to a new place and he went. God didn’t give him a map or travel directions. Yet, Abram knew and trusted God well enough to go.
Notice also, that God comes to Abram and introduces Himself to Abram, but He introduces Himself with a different name than one that's been mentioned before.
If you know me, you know me as Shauna. If I were to come to you and introduce myself to you using another of my names, "Ray," I would be showing you more of who I am. I'm showing you that I'm not just, "Shauna." I'm "Shauna Ray." If one of my long time friends did this to me, I’d definitely be wondering what’s up, wouldn’t you?
This is what I believe is taking place. God introduces himself to Abram as, “El Shaddai" (God Almighty). The one who holds all the power in the world. The power to do whatever, whenever and no one and no thing can do anything about it. He is THE one who holds ABSOLUTE power.
God didn’t change who He was. He just introduced another aspect of who he is. He introduced another of His names.
If I introduced myself to my long-time friend using another of my names, “Ray,” I’m not changing who I am, I’m just showing her more of me. I’m not just Shauna, I’m Shauna Ray. God isn’t just God. He is God “ALMIGHTY!” He holds all of earth.
The Bible shows us many names of God. Do you know names have purpose and play a significant role whether we know the meaning of our names or not. Even Science has shown that names play a significant part in the trajectory of one’s life.
For instance, call someone something negative like "stupid" or "ugly," and that's what they become. Call the ugliest or stupidest person, beautiful or smart, and that’s what they become.
In the Bible days and even still in some cultures, babies names are chosen based on what their parents hope their children become.Names play a significant role… and here’s why… your words bring life or death.
Prov. 18:21
The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit
Every time your name is spoken, either by you or someone else, it's bringing the meaning of your name into existence…whether you understand the meaning of it ornot. Every time you say something hurtful, negative or contrary to the Word of God or what you've prayed for, you are negating God's promises over you and your prayers you spoke previously.
El Shaddai means the most powerful, but look at this... it comes from the root word: Shadad (shaw-dad) and it means to deal violently with, despoil, devastate, ruin, destroy, spoil.
God had already shown Himself to Abram, but it’s here, when Abram is 99 yrs old and has already lived his life following God, and he’s already even received the promise of a child by now, that God introduces himself with another named aspect of himself.
Abram follows, trusts, and believes God, but there is still something not quite right yet. Abram still has some things in his life or mind that need to be tweaked.
Abram and Sarai had already received the promise and they took matters into their own hands and made a huge mess of things.
And yet, God is still true to his word… because His Word always does what it was spoken to do. And his mercy on us is new every day.
God steps in to do some tweaking… He steps in as the Almighty, to detroy Abram’s wrong, hindering, thinking. To UNDO, so to say, his thinking. Introducing Himself as El Shaddai, God- Almighty, the destroyer.
God almighty, the destroyer of everything you think you know.
It's also here that God gives them new names.
v.5-7 "No longer will you be called Abram[fn]; your name will be Abraham,[fn] for I have made you a father of many nations.I will make you very fruitful; I will make nations of you, and kings will come from you.
I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you."
v. 15-16 "God also said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you are no longer to call her Sarai; her name will be Sarah.
I will bless her and will surely give you a son by her. I will bless her so that she will be the mother of nations; kings of peoples will come from her.”
Take a look at this word, “call/called.”
It means: to call, call out, recite, read, cry out, proclaim
Look at Genesis 1:5
"God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day."
God named it… First he spoke the day into existence and then he named it… he proclaimed.
God had to tweak some things in their lives, their thinking, and their speaking. God has given us so many promises in the Bible, but unless our minds are changed and renewed and our words start matching his promises, God’s hands are tied. He doesn’t force anything on us.
God “destroyed” who they had been all those years. He changed their names. He gave them a new identity. He gave them new names to speak/proclaim. He made them something new, calling them by their new names. He proclaimed that they were now something totally different.Abram wan’t to be just a great father, but now the father of Many Nations. Not just one kid, but WHOLE NATIONS!
Sarai goes from being called, “princess,” to being called, “ a royal mother of nations.”
Not only that, it's here that God inserts His name into their names, changing their identity. It's a show of adoption or marriage… this is like when a child is adopted into a family… they are now “one of the family.” Or when a woman marries and takes the name of her husband. She’s now part of his family. Or when a child is born and receives the family's name.
God also destroyed their speaking… every time they call each other from the other tent or across the way, introduce themselves to someone, or someone else calls/proclaims their new names, they are calling into existence the meaning of their names.
“Hi, I’m Father of Many Nations. Nice to meet you.”
“Hey, Mother of Nations! What’s for dinner?”
“Hi, I’m Mother of Nations. Nice to meet you.” Picture that one! This old lady introducing herself and calling herself this every single day…with everyone she meets.” Can you tell me that names and what we speak don’t matter?
It’s three months after El Shaddai, God Almighty, the most powerful one, introduces himself in a new way and destroys or undoes everything that they think they know and everything they speak, that Sarah, the Royal Mother of NATIONS, becomes pregnant at 90 years old!
You know, It doesn’t matter how we are. Or how long we’ve been following Jesus. Or how well we know the Word of God… there is something in our lives, our thinking, or our speaking that needs to be undone, destroyed, ruined, dealt violently with by El Shaddai, God Almighty.
And that's not a bad thing. I went through and wrote down what came about when God as, “El Shaddai," is mentioned in the Bible, and it’s mostly in conjunction with blessing. God does everything with purpose. Nothing he does is “just because.”
The Bible says He has good plans for us…good plans for the ones that follow Him and are called by HIS name… just like God gave Abraham and Sarah news names, putting a piece of himself in their new identities, so God has given each one who believes in Jesus and does the will of God, new names.
Revelation 2:17 says this, "Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who is victorious, I will give some of the hidden manna. I will also give that person a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to the one who receives it."
2 Corinthians 5:17
Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
I believe God calls you by this new name, even now. He speaks your new identity into existence… just like he did with Abram, Sarai, Saul and so many others who messed up. God Almighty, El Shaddai, came in and undid the so much stuff that was keeping them from entering into all that He had for them.
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