Names of God – El Qanna

Names of God – El Qanna

Exodus 34:14 says this, “You must worship no other gods, for the Lord, whose very name is Jealous, is a God who is jealous about his relationship with you.” El Qanna means Jealous God…thus, His very name is Jealous. I know what you are probably thinking, isn’t jealousy a bad thing? It can be, but God is jealous of our time with Him, He is jealous of our worship. I am not a “jealous man” because I can trust my wife, but if my wife were to start giving her affections to another man…watch out.

All throughout the Bible, God refers to us as His bride, Paul said in his second letter to the Corinthian Church, 2 Corinthians 11:2 “For I am jealous for you with the jealousy of God himself. I promised you as a pure bride to one husband—Christ.” If you are a Christ follower, you are the bride of Christ, and he is jealous of our praise, our affection, and our worship.

There is a great worship song. I first heard it performed by David Crowder, but it was written by John Mark McMillan. This song is called, “How He Loves”, and it says:

And He is jealous for me,
Love’s like a hurricane, I am a tree,
Bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy.
When all of a sudden
I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory.
And I realize just how beautiful You are,
And how great Your affections are for me.

He loves us so much, that He gave His only Son to die on the cross for us. Think about this for a minute. First, Christ left Heaven to come to earth as a man, that alone was a huge sacrifice. But, then He lived a life, literally as a homeless man, and ministered to people, many of which rejected everything He said. After that, He was beaten beyond recognition and hung on a cross to die. His body was then buried in a borrowed tomb, then on the third day, He overcame death and the grave by rising from the dead. He did that for you and me, so we must praise Him.

In Deuteronomy 5:9 God told the Israelites, “You must not bow down to them or worship them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God who will not tolerate your affection for any other gods. I lay the sins of the parents upon their children; the entire family is affected—even children in the third and fourth generations of those who reject me.” Many of you may be thinking, but I don’t worship other gods like they did back then. Don’t you? We often think of other gods being Buddha or some other idol, but what about money, or your career, or your house, car, or other worldly possessions? Do we spend more time with God than we do with our homes, or cars, or friends, or jobs, or even our TVs? The truth is that we all have things that we put before God, and He is jealous of them. He deserves our attention, and He demands our attention.

We’ve all heard people say, “It’s not about religion, it’s about a relationship.” Sometimes those clichés lose their punch, but it is so true. God does not want religion, He does not care about organ music, or stained-glass windows, or any of that garbage, all He cares about is a relationship with His Church…His Bride.

I’ve mentioned this before, but it bears repeating. Every time that religion is mentioned in the New Testament, except for one verse, it is mentioned in a negative light. The people that Jesus had problems with were the religious people, not the “sinners”, and Paul kept talking about how he left the religion of his fathers to follow Christ. The one time that religion is mentioned in a positive light is in James 1:27, where it says, “Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you.” So, what God sees as pure religion is helping widows and orphans, and keeping yourself pure. That’s it! Pure religion is glorifying God!

God’s love for us is unspeakable. One of my favorite verses in the Bible is the last verse in the book of John. The whole book is talking about all that Jesus did for us out of His love for us. It talks about His baptism at the beginning of His ministry, it talks about His ministry and how He was rejected by the religious people. In chapter 17 it recounts His prayer for us just before He went to the cross. It goes on to talk about His betrayal and crucifixion, His resurrection and ascent to heaven, and then it ends by saying, John 21:25 “Jesus also did many other things. If they were all written down, I suppose the whole world could not contain the books that would be written.” Stop for just a minute and think about what this verse is saying. Look around at the room you are in and think about how many books it would take to fill that room. My office is small, about 12’X12’ with 8’ ceilings, so it’s about 1,152 cubic feet. That means that, if each book was about 1 cubic foot, it would take almost 1,200 books to fill this little office. But, to write down all the things that Jesus did for us out of love, the world couldn’t contain the books…wow! What a humbling thought! He loves me that much.

Let’s all, purpose in our hearts to love God as much as He loved us. I won’t write it all here, but stop for a minute and read 1 John chapter 4, starting at verse 7, and fall in love with God. You may think you already love God, and you probably do, but do you love Him like He loves you? Probably not, I know I don’t.