YOUR NAME, YOUR DESTINY

By Bishop Fred Akama

We have taught about the priesthood of the believer.
You practice your priesthood by words. Others experience your priesthood through your name. When people want to harm you, when a dark priesthood comes to you, when someone wants to bewitch you, they don’t look for you physically—they look for your name. When I want to affect you, I don’t have to look for you; I look for your name. If your name does not have sufficient power, then you can be affected. When people go to a shrine or use spiritual instruments against you, they call your name. When your name is called, it is your spiritual image that appears. When people interact with you spiritually, they do that through your name. You must protect your name because it is the pathway to getting to you.

Your name is not just solid for biological nomenclature. Those with spiritual understanding know that giving a name is not just for identification. It is not just to identify you in the natural plane but also in the spiritual plane.

On a basic level, you can make it very difficult for someone to bewitch you. If your name is “Greatness,” it’s difficult for someone to make you less.

Your name denotes your path, authority, and purpose. When you see a hammer, you know it’s supposed to hammer.
Your name should tell your purpose. There are people who are the opposite of what they intend in their hearts because of their name.

If I know your name, I’ll immediately know things about you, for example, your gender, place of origin. Your name can tell us where you were born, your gender, your religion. On a natural plane, your name carries a myriad of data about you. People are also named after landmarks or periodic calamities. Your name tells your tribe on the natural plane.

On the spiritual plane, your name is the spiritual placeholder. In the spiritual realm, you are not there as you but as your name. What you can do spiritually is invested in your name. So it is no longer you doing something, but your name. When God wants to increase your priesthood, He changes your name. God rewarded Jesus by giving Him a name.

Your name is your authority. If I give you my name, I have given you my authority.
The reward Jesus received for His obedience was a name.

Philippians 2:9-10 (NKJV)“Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth.”

Every knee doesn’t bow to Jesus, but to the name of Jesus. Because the name of Jesus has taken the place of Jesus. What Jesus can do, His name can do.

The authority given to you by God is placed in your name. If someone wants to block you, he blocks your name. Because everything about you has been placed on your name. So we must unlock the power in your name and let that power begin to work.

The disciples were asked when they raised a person at the gate called Beautiful, by what power have you done this?

Acts 4:7 (NKJV) “And when they had set them in the midst, they asked, ‘By what power or by what name have you done this?'”

The Pharisees understood that if there’s a spiritual activity with power to be done, there is a name that must have been involved.

The same way God gives names, demons assign people with spiritual names. Names are important, and they are dangerous. When you call the name of a spirit, you have invoked it, and that spirit will come to you.
We invoke the name of Jesus, just as others invoke other names. The greater your name is spiritually, the more influence you have in terms of finances, people, and territory. Names are not the same, so your spiritual rank is determined by the greatness of your name.

A lot of times, when God wants to bless you, He has to change your name. When Jacob asked the angel to bless him, he wrestled with him the whole night. The angel looked and saw that the problem was his name. Then He changed his name. The blessing had been blocked because of his name, so he changed it to Israel.

Genesis 32:27-28 (NKJV) “So He said to him, ‘What is your name?’ He said, ‘Jacob.’ And He said, ‘Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel; for you have struggled with God and with men, and have prevailed.’”

Genesis 17:5 (NKJV) “No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you a father of many nations.”

Abraham was called Abram, which means an assumed father, so he couldn’t get children. God added a component and called him Abraham, and unlocked children for him.

The Bible says that God changed the name of Solomon because He could not love him with the name that David gave him. They changed his name to Jedidiah.

2 Samuel 12:24-25 (NKJV) “Then David comforted Bathsheba his wife and went in to her and lay with her. So she bore a son, and he called his name Solomon. Now the Lord loved him, and He sent word by the hand of Nathan the prophet: So he called his name Jedidiah, because of the Lord.”

The people God will use greatly—sometimes God doesn’t give it a chance. God gives you a name when He has an assignment for you. Zechariah the priest became mute because he wanted to name the child after their lineage. When it came time to name the child, God had to interrupt this because He had a specific assignment for the child.

Luke 1:61-65 (NKJV) “So they made signs to his father—what he would have him called. And he asked for a writing tablet and wrote, saying, ‘His name is John.’ So they all marveled. Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue loosed, and he spoke, praising God. Then fear came on all who dwelt around them, and all these sayings were discussed throughout all the hill country of Judea.”

When God has a specific assignment for people, the name is very important. Jesus was given the name by God. They didn’t pick the name from anywhere; God gave it.

Matthew 1:21 (NKJV) “And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.”

His name was directly tied to what He was supposed to do. God names things, but God has also delegated the power to name to man. The greatest privilege God has given to man is to name. You can name things. The Bible says the Lord brought the animals to Adam so that he could name them.

Genesis 2:19 (NKJV) “Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name.”

God does not only name us; He has delivered to us the privilege to name. And what you name it is what that thing will be. What you don’t name, you cannot own.

Naming is dominion. Your dominion is exercised by assigning names. If a thing can answer to you, you birthed it. If you can name it, you own it. Owning is by naming.

When you name, you have given it a new identity in the spirit.