YHWH

During the past term within CU we have been studying the different Names of God. It has been so awesome (quite literally) and has helped everyone to gain a greter understanding of how Big and beyond God is from us, but yet so near.
We focussed on

Rohi- Shepherd
El-Shaddai- Almighty
Adonai- Master
Shaphat- Judge
Alpha and Omega- purely a name for Jesus
Shalom- God is peace
Yaweh

And one other (that I can't remember at the moment!) but the last one we looked at on Tuesday, Yaweh was just amazing.

We looked at the way in which God's Name is wrapped up in Who he is, what he does and how he acts, so when we pray 'in His Name' it should never be said as a tag on line at the end of a prayer, or as a seal of approval, knowing that God will have to answer this one because I said 'in his name.'

The Jews (I think) was trying to encapsulate the reverence of God's name by the way in which they used it. They would never have put the vowels into YHWH, as a sign of respect, and awe, and the fact that they know that God is beyond, and cannot be named. That is why God gives us so many different names for Jesus, and God and the Holy Spirit within the bible, because thats just a small part of who God is, represented to us in those names so we can gain a greater understanding of the facets of God(!)

There are over 300 different names for God in the bible, and each one shows a different aspect of him, so we can call upon God's name. But we also need to realise that we can never call one name for God, so why do we pray using one name?!

This really challenged me to use different names of God to pray, and when I used them, not to use them as a filler, or a thinking word, but when I use it to mean what I say.

If you want to listen to the talk that was on YHWH (I really recommend it!) you can download it at my friends website (or listen online) it will hopefuly really encourage you.

its a bit big to read, but its such a cool site

http://www.fakerepublic.com/fake/2005/11a_name_that_can.html#more