His Name Is On My Heart

One of the funnier on-line rants was a friend of our son’s, over a seat in a classroom. They were all about month into the semester at A&M and when he came to the class, someone was in his seat. His reasoning was if your two weeks into the semester, that is your seat. So yah, I could see that, but it is just a seat. When he said something to the person, the reply was “your name wasn’t on it”. Then came the on-line explosion. I can’t possibly write all the things he said about college classroom etiquette. Not everything there was “sermon friendly”.

Remember when you were a kid at school? Oh my gosh. How many times did you hear in school “your name wasn’t on it!”

On the playground:

“You’re on my swing. I just went to pick up my shoe.”

“Your name wasn’t on it!”

In the cafeteria:

“Hey, that was my candy bar” or “I was saving that seat!”

“Your name wasn’t on it!”

Even with siblings. I can’t tell you how many times this was said growing up in our house:

“I called the couch! I was just sitting there watching TV!”

“Your name wasn’t on it!”

Remember on the movie Toy Story? Buzz showed everyone that he had been accepted into the clan when he pointed out that the little boy had written his, Andy, name on the bottom of his foot.

What about other things? We all assume at work that if our name is on our lunch in the fridge at work, everyone knows it’s ours. But that doesn’t always stop someone from eating your lunch. I was a supervisor once and a person came to me because someone ate his Popeye’s and put the box with the chicken bones back into the fridge. But that was a tough bunch to lead. Someone had even eaten all the cans of raviolis out of the Food Bank donation box. …. and from high paid avionics techs … really?

What does it say when there is a name on a building? Every day I go to work and there is my company logo in 6’ letters as I drive up. Immediately anyone coming to the facility knows exactly who works here. And if you know anything about the name, you know what they do. You can also find out the history of the place and what they stand for.

Just like any other corporation, the name on the door says a lot. When you see the name Hobby Lobby, you know from the name what’s inside; just about anything you’d need for crafting, framing, painting, or anything else to do with hobbies. It’s right in the name. You also know the store stands for principles of running and operating in a manner in line with family and Christian beliefs. They take care of their employees, and shut their doors on Sunday in respect of the sabbath.

If our name is on something, do we own it? I was reading on a real-estate legal website that if your name is on the title, then you have legal writes to that property. The legal website said:

“The fact that your name is on a deed means you have property title, giving you specific rights as a homeowner. You are the property owner when your name is on a deed. A property’s title rights give you control over how you use it and the right to sell, but generally, it varies from state to state.”1

So as I drive to church each Sunday, it is amazing how many other churches I see. What’s striking is how many have God or Christ right in the name. So if His name is on the door, it’s His house.

Does God put his name on the things that belong to him? Let’s first look at the 1st Temple. On the day the 1st temple was consecrated, it was said

1 Kings 8:10-11

10 When the priests withdrew from the Holy Place, the cloud filled the temple of the Lord. 11 And the priests could not perform their service because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled his temple.

And later in Kings it says:

1 Kings 9:3

The LORD said to him: 'I have heard the prayer and plea you have made before me; I have consecrated this temple, which you have built, by putting my Name there forever. My eyes and my heart will always be there.

That building became God’s house. He dwelled there in the Holy of Holies. I think that goes for any building with His name on it. Just look outside when you pull up It says Christ right in the name. So in actuality, this place is His house. He resides here. And the proof of that is in Scripture where He says,