God's job is, when we're carrying the name of God, is to make sure that when the enemy comes against us like a flood, He lifts us up on high. The name of God actually has the power to protect you from anything coming against you. That was their understanding, and then this understanding grew even more.
5) An emotion, that moves.
In Isaiah 30:27, the prophet is expanding the definition of the name of God, and he says: “Behold, the name of Jehovah comes from afar, burning with anger, and uplifting of smoke. His lips are full of fury, and His tongue like a devouring fire”.
So Isaiah expands the abilities of the name. Now, the name of God can not only ‘rest on a person’; and ‘rest on a place’; it can ‘provide protection’; and has the ability to ‘move with emotion’. There's an ‘emotion’ in the name of God - that can ‘move’; separating it from anything our name can do.
Can you imagine somebody saying: the name of Shane moved through the place with fiery emotion? No, their concept of the name had to do with what happens when the name of God shows up in a place.
When the name of God chooses to make this place a dwelling place, it should fire up our emotions inside. It should change the way we feel. It shouldn't just change the way we think (although that is big time); it should manifest itself in a difference in thinking, to the point where it changes how we feel; that we should feel the truth of the name of God.
How crazy is it, that for us to believe (with all of our heart) the doctrine of forgiveness - we believe that we've been forgiven of every single sin - yet we feel guilty. So we believe we're innocent, but we feel guilty - that makes no sense.
When the name of God comes into a thing, it changes the emotion in a place. It fires a place up!
So the name of God started to expand, and it wasn't just a prophetic utterance of character. Everything that was in this character could actually rest on you. It could rest on a place. It could provide protection - it could move with emotion.
6) A realm (of awareness) that can be lived in.
The next thing they understood, and this is really when it starts to click, is in Micah 4:5. Micah is a later prophet in the Old Testament, and he touches on something about the name of God, that no one before him had discovered.
If the people in Micah's day would have thought they had ‘figured it all out’, then they would have called him a false prophet for saying this; but they allowed people to journey with God, and this is what the prophet Micah says, in Micah 4:5.
“For all the people will walk, each one in the name of his god, and we will walk in the name of Jehovah our God, forever and ever”.
So Micah says: the name of God is not just something that: ‘rests on someone’; can ‘be in a place’; protects, can move with emotion. The name of God is a realm - that can be lived in, or lived out. Everything you do, and everything you say, is in the name of something.
It's a realm of awareness: that we can live in, or outside of. You're either ‘in the name’; or you're ‘outside of the name’.
What dominates your awareness? Whatever dominates your awareness is the name you're living in.
You are meant to minister the name of God. We are called to minister the name of God; and I would suggest to you, that you're ministering the name of whatever you're ‘aware of’.
How many of you wives have ever been on your way home (alone), and you got mad at your husband? You're on your way home, you've got a 20 minute ride home, and you're mad with your husband.