A New Name, Part 2

For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent,

For Jerusalem’s sake I will not remain quiet,

till her vindication shines out like the dawn,

her salvation like a blazing torch.

The nations will see your vindication,

and all kings your glory;

you will be called by a new name

that the mouth of the Lord will bestow.

You will be a crown of splendor in the Lord’s hand,

a royal diadem in the hand of your God.

No longer will they call you Deserted,

or name your land Desolate.

But you will be called Hephzibah,

and your land Beulah;

for the Lord will take delight in you,

and your land will be married (Isaiah 62:1-4, NIV).

As we saw yesterday, we have new names. God gives us new names in His presence. By taking authority over the spirit of rejection in our life, God removes the desolation caused by rejection brought on by the wrong names. We don’t have to live abandoned, alone, and destroyed. Our history is not the main source of our identity. We are not who our past, or our family, or the broken places say we are. God doesn’t care how long we have been struggling, He’s here to tell us who we are really. He re-names us and gives us a positive identity.

God replaces the old with the new by showing us and speaking to us about the new more than the old. God takes the most intimate and loving terms and relationships that we relate to, and declares His for us. He says He loves and delights in us “for the Lord will take delight in you, and your land will be married” (Isaiah 62:4). If we allow it to, His love will drive out rejection and pain, and it will introduce us to great love.

Through Jesus’ work, the intimacy of God’s great love, God first resolves our past. We are forgiven. Then He adopts us and gives us a new future—the family of God. If we want to overcome our sinful old nature and live free from the curses we are breaking, we have to keep putting on the new nature.