Jeremiah20:3 And it came to pass on the morrow, that Pashur brought forth Jeremiah out of the stocks. Then said Jeremiah unto him, The LORD hath not called thy name Pashur, but Magormissabib.
Are you Living your Name?
It has been my observation that in any group of people who spend time together, nicknames very quickly spring to life. I recall that when I worked as a Ranch Hand in the dining hall of the Bill Rice Ranch many of us grew into nicknames. It has been intriguing for me to see the same thing happening in my son’s generation of workers in the dining hall.
The truth is that you are living up to a name every day. In Jeremiah 20, the Bible tells us of a man who was given a new name by God because of his actions. Verse 1 says, “Now Pashur the son of Immer the priest, who was also chief governor in the house of the LORD, heard that Jeremiah prophesied these things.” This is referring to the last verse of the previous chapter where Jeremiah gives God’s judgment on the city. Judgment is not what Pashur wanted to hear. So, he threw Jeremiah in the stocks.
Verse 3 says, “And it came to pass on the morrow, that Pashur brought forth Jeremiah out of the stocks. Then said Jeremiah unto him, The LORD hath not called thy name Pashur, but Magormissabib.” Talk about a zinger of a name! Even his given name is foreign to us. The name Pashur means “liberation” or “freedom.” The irony is that this man named “liberty” had bound God’s man. What a misnomer! A man named “liberty” went into captivity himself because of his rebellion. He was a man who was given one name, but was living another.
The name God gave him means “terror on every side.” By renaming him, God was saying, “Your name is not ‘liberty’ because that does not describe the life you are living. You are not living in liberty; you are living in bondage and sin.”
Every person has two names, his given name and the one he earns. You are given a name at birth, but you earn a name every day that you live. Every one of us lives up to a name every day. May God help us to be deliberate about what we do and what we want our name to mean.