10/29/2026
🔥 Mid-Week Meditation 🔥Your Name Matters Too
In Ancient Egyptian theology, people placed enormous emphasis on a person’s name. It wasn’t just a label or chosen for how it sounds. To them, your name was essential to your identity. They believed it was vital to remember, speak, and record a person's name on tombs, monuments, and offering lists so the person could experience eternal life. If their name was forgotten or not properly cataloged, they believed a permanent death would take place in the afterlife. I find a great sadness in this particular belief system: What about those who had no one to remember them? Or those whose status didn’t afford them the luxury of being remembered or cataloged.
In Romans 16, we see a magnificent list of men and women whose names are carefully cataloged, declaring their importance to the work of the Early Church. But surely those aren’t the names of everyone who mattered to the spread of the gospel between then and now. What happens to all others who belong to Jesus whose names are forgotten here on earth? Who remembers them? Though our names may never be recorded in the pages of Scripture or remembered by history, those who belong to Jesus are known by God, and their names are written in heaven.
In Luke 10:20, Jesus encourages His disciples to rejoice that their names are written down in Heaven: “However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.” In Matthew 7:23, Jesus again emphasizes the importance of being known in Heaven rather than on Earth: “Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’”
The greatest tragedy is not being forgotten by the world, but spending our lives known by the world without ever truly knowing Christ. As Revelation 3:5 says, “I will never blot out the name of that person from the book of life, but will acknowledge that name before my Father and his angels.” The world may never know your name. History may never record your story. But if you belong to Jesus, you are known in heaven. And isn't that the greatest recognition of all?