When He Calls You By Name: Becoming the Person God Created You to Be

This book is dedicated to

Carla, Rhonda, Melissa, and Andrew

Mighty Warrior Press

Austin, Texas

www.HopeForTransformation.com

© 2014 Kerry Johnston. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

Cover and interior design by TLC Graphics, www.TLCGraphics.com

Cover: Tamara Dever; Interior: Monica Thomas

Unless otherwise noted, scripture references are taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Others quoted are marked (NLT) The Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation, used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188; (Amplified) The Amplified® Bible, copyright © 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation (www.Lockman.org); (NKJV) The New King James Version®, copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.; (NET) (New English Translation) NET Bible®, copyright © 1996–2006 by Biblical Studies Press, L.L.C. netbible.com; (Modern Language) The Modern Language Bible: The New Berkeley Version in Modern English, copyright © 1945, 1959, 1969 by Zondervan Publishing House; (The Message) The Message, copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002, used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group; (NASB) The New American Standard Bible®, copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation; (English Standard Version) The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

ISBN 978-0-9961130-0-6

LCCN 2014912297

Printed in the United States of America

CONTENTS

Introduction

SECTION ONE: ENCOUNTER

CHAPTER 1 A Rock In My Shoe

CHAPTER 2 The Middle of Nowhere

CHAPTER 3 Is The Lord Among Us?

CHAPTER 4 God Still Speaks

SECTION TWO: EMBRACE

CHAPTER 5 I Will Never Leave You

CHAPTER 6 The Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation

CHAPTER 7 I’m Going Fishing

CHAPTER 8 The Sword of Gideoon

SECTION THREE: INHERITANCE

CHAPTER 9 A Better Covenant

CHAPTER 10 The Promise Land

CHAPTER 11 Grain, New Wine, and Oil

SECTION FOUR: POWER

CHAPTER 12 Alexander the Mediocre

CHAPTER 13 The Fullness of Christ

CHAPTER 14 Where There's A Way, There's A Will

CHAPTER 15 If It's Broken Don't Fix It

Acknowledgements

About The Author

Something about human beings is unique in all creation. It is the ability to see beyond our present circumstances, to reach beyond our grasp, to strive for more. We have an innate desire to become what we are not yet. Maybe the best way to say it is that we have hope.

I would like to have an atheist explain to me where his hope comes from, because the only possible source of hope I can see is God. I can’t come up with any other logical explanation for the hope that lies within us.

Our language is replete with phrases that encourage us to move forward: Dream big. Go for it. Be all you can be. Yet our circumstances seem to bring a natural resistance to hope. The daily grind of life. Lack of funds. Loneliness and discouragement. Illness. The stuff that just happens.

If it is true that God is the source of hope, then it would be logical that Satan is the source of discouragement. That makes sense to me.

It is pretty evident that there is a war going on. Satan is our mortal enemy. He is working overtime to mess up our lives. He has been doing this for a long time, and he is really good at it. Satan is the consummate liar, murderer, and thief.

Jesus said, The thief [Satan] comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. (John 10:10) That’s the good news. Even in this fallen world, Jesus offers us a life different from the one available to most people. It’s an abundant life. If we understand that, we can lay hold of it.

Remember in the movie Bambi when the young fawn ventured onto the frozen pond? He tried and tried to stand up, only to fall down again each time. Finally he went spinning out of control across the ice. The only thing that saved him was that he eventually got to solid ground.

That’s a pretty good picture of my life. Lots of spinning out of control. Lots of falling down and getting back up. A desperate need for solid ground.

Two things make it hard to get up from our collective fall. One is that Satan constantly works to keep the ice slippery. The other is that it happened in the Garden of Eden centuries before we were born. Eden is a place we’ve never seen. We have no memory of how it should be. But God does.

The Bible tells us that a great life is within our reach. But we have settled for less. I’m convinced that deep down in our heart of hearts, we know it. There is an ache for more — a divine discontent. We long for the abundant life Jesus promised.

How do we lay hold of abundant life? That is a question only God can answer, and the answer will be different for each of us.

Think about it. God created us. He made each of us for a purpose. He who knows the end from the beginning knows what our lives are supposed to accomplish.

God knows the person He created us to be. If we can find out who we are and why He put us here, we are well on our way to the abundant life He wants us to have.

God knows our true name. When He calls us by name, the path to our destiny opens. But can we hear Him say it? We have to in order to accept His purpose for our lives and to step into all He has for us.

That’s what this book is about.

Elijah was a man just like us.

JAMES 5:17

The last thing Satan wants us to have on earth is the kind of life Jesus promised. That’s because an abundant life is the most powerful evangelistic tool there is. When our life is filled with joy and purpose, it attracts people whose lives are not. They are drawn to us because we have something they want.

Lies are Satan’s number one weapon against us. If he can get us to believe his lies about the blessings God wants us to have, he can cut us off from the fullness of life God wants us to enjoy. Without meaning to, we begin to cooperate with Satan. We live small lives that cause our Christian witness to be diminished.

That’s how I lived in my early Christian years. Perhaps you can identify with my struggles.

A Rock in My Shoe

It doesn’t make a lot of sense to walk with a rock in your shoe. As soon as you take a step or two and realize it’s there, you might as well stop wherever you are and get rid of it. Until you do it’s not going to get any better. Most of the time it will only get worse.

But wait. Imagine you are in a marching band, and your band is marching in a major televised parade. Things are going swimmingly until the band member in front of you kicks up a small stone and — zip — it goes right into your shoe as if it had eyes and loved Keds®. Now the problem takes on a whole new life. This is your band’s moment in the sun. Would you rather ruin it or walk with a rock in your shoe?

Let’s pursue this line of thought a little further. Suppose you live in a society where people have always had rocks in their shoes. Each day you feel the pain and see the grimaces. Each night you see the damage. Still, every morning when you get dressed you dutifully take the rock off the dresser and place it in whatever pair of shoes you are wearing that day. Why? Because everybody does it. Because it has been done this way for generations. Because your leaders keep telling you that’s the way it’s supposed to be. And because they tell you that on some great and wonderful day in the future you will go to heaven and all rocks will be removed from all shoes forever.

Sounds a little silly, I know. Yet, for years I tried to live a rock-in-my-shoe type of Christianity. I want to say I didn’t know better, but that’s not exactly right. Deep down, I knew something was wrong, but I didn’t fully understand what it was. And while the pain ebbed and flowed, it never completely went away.

Stories from the Bible

Frankly, a lot of the pain had to do with the stories I read in the Bible. Take the disciples, for example. They got to live, converse, and interact with Jesus. Talk about Christianity made easy. Surely I could have faith, do great ministry, and see miraculous power flow through me if only God would appear directly to me, assure me of His caring existence, and tell me exactly what to do with my life.

But no — I lived under a new covenant that was somehow supposed to be better than all that. I had been given the Bible, and that was all I needed. I had the opportunity to study the Bible and learn about what God used to do, what He had done for me, and what He was going to do someday in the future. In the meantime, I could be good, go to church, and tell others about what a great life I had. I was supposed to be happy with that.

And I almost was, except for that little bit of rock-in-my-shoe pain.

If my pain were to ever have a name, it probably would have been Elijah. He got to hear from God and go tell the king of Israel what God had said. Elijah got to pray prayers that mattered, prayers that brought drought and then, three-and-a-half years later, rain.

Elijah was fed by ravens and by angels. He stayed with a widow and ate from her food jars that never went empty. He defeated the prophets of Baal in an amazing demonstration of the power of God. He outran a chariot and traveled 40 days and 40 nights without food or water. Finally, Elijah stood on the mountain of God and witnessed the glorious approach of God’s presence, then heard His audible, small, still voice.

Never mind that he had a hard life and was often in danger of being killed. Elijah lived — I mean really lived — and then he passed his mantle on to Elisha before being taken up into heaven in a fiery chariot. Elijah exemplified powerful, God-directed living. He made a difference and, well … I didn’t.

Compared to Elijah, I felt like a fish in a sandstorm. So I struggled with nagging questions. How was life without miracles better than life with them? Why did I live with a constant feeling that something was missing in my Christian experience?

One scripture in particular bothered me. It almost seemed as if God had tucked it into the New Testament just to torment me. It rang true neither to my experience nor to what I had been taught. Yet there it was, challenging me, haunting me, refusing to go away. Elijah was a man just like us. (James 5:17, NIV, 1995)

I had been taught — either directly or by inference — that Elijah was not at all like us. He — and the other men of the Bible whom I envied — fell into a special category for one of two reasons. Either they occupied a special office, such as that of a prophet or apostle, or they lived in a special time or dispensation, such as the Exodus, the life of Jesus, or the age in which the church was established.

Two things were painfully obvious to me: I did not occupy a special office, and I did not live in a special time. I wanted to ask God why he had different rules for different people. I wanted to know how, under the new covenant, my normal was better than their normal. For many years it seemed as if the only answer I received was, Elijah was a man just like us.

The Crux of the Matter

Either Elijah was just like us or he wasn’t. Either the new covenant is better than the old covenant or it isn’t. The Bible says one thing, but we have behaved as if the opposite were true. All the while it seems as if Christians are content to limp along, trying to meet the minimum requirements for getting to heaven.

Maybe it’s time to take off that shoe, remove the rock, examine it, and ask one simple question: Why is it in there?

I have called you by name; you are mine.

ISAIAH 43:1, NLT

Gideon was living with way less than the abundance God wanted him to have. Fortunately, God intervened. His intervention changed not only Gideon’s life, but the course of the nation of Israel. We can learn a lot from Gideon’s story.

Living with the Enemy

Gideon blinked against the sweat, dirt, and chaff assaulting his face. The by-products of threshing wheat only added misery to its boredom. But Gideon’s mind was not really in the moment. His thoughts kept going back to the problem of the Midianites. He paused and shook his head.

The Midianites were a curse upon his family and the people of Israel. Whenever the Israelites planted their crops, the Midianites, Amalekites, and other eastern peoples invaded the country. They camped on the land and ruined the crops all the way to Gaza and did not spare a living thing for Israel, neither sheep, nor cattle, nor donkeys. They came up … like swarms of locusts. It was impossible to count them or their camels; they invaded the land to ravage it. (Judges 6:3-5)

For seven years the eastern tribes ebbed and flowed through Israel like tsunamis, driven by deep hatred and leaving nothing but destruction in their wake. When they left, the dread of them stayed behind. There was no question they would be back. Impoverished and dejected, the Israelites cried out to the Lord for deliverance.

In response, the Lord sent a prophet to His people. He reminded them that the Lord had told them not to follow the gods of the Amorites, whose land He had given them. Then He added, But you have not listened to me. (Judges 6:10) God had spoken, but the people had not paid attention. Now they were facing the consequences.

Israel’s plight weighed heavily on Gideon’s mind. He looked up to the hills where dens were prepared in which he and his loved ones would hide when the enemy returned. His gaze moved sadly down the slopes to the cluster of buildings his family called home.

That’s when he saw the messenger.

Gideon’s body tensed. Giving the man his full attention, he edged toward his sword propped against the winepress wall. Tension hung in the air like the moment between lightning and thunder. One more step and Gideon would reach for his weapon.

The stranger stopped. He sat down. Gideon relaxed a little.

The messenger looked Gideon in the eye. Finally, he spoke. The Lord is with you, mighty warrior. (Judges 6:12)

Seven words to change a man’s life. Seven words to alter the course of a nation.

Gideon turned to face the man squarely. He felt anything but mighty. And surely no hero would thresh his wheat in a winepress to conceal it from his enemies.

Mighty warrior. Gideon could hardly believe his ears. He saw himself as the weakest member of the smallest clan in the tribe of Manasseh. (Judges 6:15) Gideon was sure he had been born