Are You Kept in the Father’s Name?

Are You Kept in the Father’s Name?

“And I come to You. Holy Father, keep in Your name those whom You have given Me, that they may be one as We are.” John 17:11.

We are baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, but there are extremely few Christians who have been kept in this name. Almost all of them have been baptized in the name of a denomination. When they are baptized, they are called by the name of the assembly in which they were baptized, which is why we have all these divisions. Many people strive to make the believers one, but they do not want to give up their own names.

Why did Jesus pray for the Father to keep them in His name? He did it so that they might be one just as He and the Father are one. This was important for Jesus because He saw the danger. He says, “While I was with them in the world, I kept them in Your name. Those whom You gave Me I have watched over them . . . .” V. 12. He watched over them so that they would not end up with different names. Now listen how He ends His prayer: “And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.” V. 26.

Why was it so much on Jesus’ heart to declare the Father’s name to His disciples? He did it so that the love with which the Father loved Him should also be in them, and then He would also be in them. This is lost when you come in under other names. The result is competition, envy, the lust to rule, etc., and love disappears. Most people have experienced this, and they suffer under it, but they still don’t have faith to separate themselves from all these names and stand alone in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The reason is that they know they will not be accepted in any other place. They know that they would be on the outside. This is what the current situation has evolved into just before Jesus’ return: that if you are only in His name, you are on the outside and alone. Shouldn’t this cause us to reflect on the matter? Jesus Himself said, “When the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?” Luke 18:8.

Jesus suffered under the same conditions in His days, and He knew that those who would follow Him would suffer the same thing. He says, “I have come in My Father’s name, and you do not receive Me; if another comes in his own name, him you will receive.” John 5:43.

If you come as a Pentecostal, the Pentecostals will receive you. If you come as a Methodist, the Methodists will receive you, and if you come as a Baptist, the Baptists will receive you, etc. These recognized denominations will also receive each other; but if you don’t have a name of your own, but come in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, none of them will receive you. Where should a Paul or a Peter without a denominational name go? They would be left standing outside where Jesus was. “Therefore let us go forth to Him, outside the camp, bearing His reproach” (Heb. 13:13), out there where we become one and where the love of the Father is in us. However, you who want to receive honor from one another, you can stay in the camp. How can you believe, you who receive honor from one another and do not seek the honor that comes from the only God? John 5:44.

“But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.” 1 John 1:7.

True fellowship is only in the light, and we can only be in the Father’s name if we are in the light. But you can have fellowship in a denominational name without being in the light. You can even be a leader in a denominational assembly and live in sin. As members of various denominations people feel safe when they come with a membership card and a letter of recommendation, but perhaps the one who has written the letter of recommendation is himself living in sin. Everything is on a shaky foundation when you come outside the Father’s name. Because they don’t know what fellowship in the Spirit in the light is, they have to have all kinds of human regulations to govern their external conduct. However, fellowship in the Spirit and in the light is the only safe guarantee, because in that fellowship you can clearly notice not only if a person commits sin in the usual sense of the word, but also whether he has truly forsaken everything. If you seek anything in the world, you will never know the blessing that is shared in fellowship in the light—in the Father’s name—where we are one just as the Father and the Son are.