What's in a Name?

When Jesus is asked which commandment is the greatest, He answers:

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.  And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.  On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.  Matthew 22:37–40

I love how Jesus summarizes the Ten Commandments into just two:  Love God and love your neighbor.

Every morning, when I'm writing out a prayer, I almost always end with, "Help me to love people."

The Ten Commandments really do come down to that, to loving people.

And to be able to love someone, it means that I must take the time and take the risk to get to know a person.  And that's not always easy, or foremost in my mind.

It takes an intentional effort to even ask and remember someone's name.  

The Bible often speaks about how the Lord knew prophets and called them by name, even before they were born.  And the Lord cares for us in the same way.

He determines the number of the stars; he gives to all of them their names.  Psalm 147:4

The implication is that the Lord also knows each one of us by name.  

The Psalmist writes:

For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb.  Psalm 139:13 

We aren't nameless entities to the Lord.  He loves and knows us, knows us even by name.  

And what's in a name?  A person of worth owns that name.  

You see, no matter a person's seemingly good or bad qualities, or that I may view someone as worthy to befriend or not, each person is still someone for whom Jesus died.  Each person has worth because of Jesus. 

What's in a name?  Love.  

A name is a big part of who a person is.  And when someone is called and known by a name, it means something to that person; it means someone cares.

And knowing someone's name, it's only the beginning of loving that person, because knowing and loving a person is never a "one and done" thing.  It takes sacrifice and commitment to continue to love.  

Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.  1 John 4:11

This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.  Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.  John 15:12–13