Names and Labels

~Names and labels~
Names have power. Our name and also the names (labels) we give ourselves. I've always shrugged off labels people have given me, thinking they're just being rude and judgmental. Little did I know that I took those labels upon myself and made it my identity.
Prov. 23:7 - For as a man thinks in his heart, so is he.
We spend so much time focusing on what we don't want to become, instead of listening and responding to God's call on our lives. In order to avoid becoming something, you need to constantly keep it in front of you. If you don't want to walk into a coffee table, you need to keep that table in your thoughts and mind constantly. If I see what I don't want to become, envisioning it causes me to become it.

The Bible says we're made in God's image. Which means God imagined us, we became.
The devil tends to give us names that dis-empower us. We end up listening to what he has to say about us and playing by his rules. Because we believe his lies and the names he has given us.

Throughout the years, we tend to brand ourselves by the things people call us. That becomes a part of us, we focus on it, and in the end we become it. What you imagine, you become. How you see yourself, you are. In the past, two labels were very prominent in my life. "Slut" and "Stupid." I was called it often and my focus was so strongly on never being either, that in the end I took on the identity of both. People tend to become what they don't want to become. We tend to reproduce what we feast our thoughts upon.

The devil is the accusor. And he uses other people to force down his will. He used Adam to accuse his wife. And he uses people to give us names God didn't give us. Things like "Slut," "Stupid," "Worthless," "Inadequate."
Names can be prophetic declarations that define a person's identity. People act out who they believe they are. And if these lies are believed, they're acted out.

God gives us a new name. He calls us beloved and chosen. Grace and disgrace are released by name-calling. Grace is the God-given ability to become what you couldn't before you received the declaration.
Once we realize who we are, our behaviour changes because we always act out our identity, and because we have the mindset of Christ, our behaviour will act out Him in us.
I love it when people call me by my full name "Milanie" and even my nickname "Lanie" cause when God gave me this name, it held immense power in it as well as a declaration over my life. The spelling isn't very common, neither is the pronunciation, since it gets mistaken for "Melanie" or "Melany" often. But the meanings are world's apart.
The name Milanie is from Hawaiian, Slavonic and Polynesian decent. It means "Gentle Carress; Grace; Favour. Bringer of Light. Treasured. Cherished."
The two letters "Mi" in my name means - Honey overflowed and beautiful.
The second part of my name, "Lanie" and also my nickname, means - Sky, Heaven, Royal and Majesty.
When someone says my full name, they're speaking Grace, Favour, Heaven and Royalty over my life.
The same way a name can hold power, so do the names you call yourself. When you think or call yourself a loser, idiot, awkward (something I've done my entire life, and only recently realized I started acting out awkwardness because I believed it of myself), etc you become it, so what if we started believing the names God has given us and make our behavior act that out instead. Gifted. Intelligent. Beautiful. Kind. Royalty. Special. How different would our lives be then?