Why does God reveal himself through descriptive names such as Jehovah Jireh, the God who provides, or Jehovah Rapha, the God who heals, or I Am, the eternal one? The Holy Spirit has revealed God in dozens of names throughout scripture. Jesus does essentially the same thing when he says, “I am the good shepherd; I am the resurrection and the life; or I am the Alpha and the Omega;” and so on. God and Jesus give us these descriptors because they reveal the very nature of God and Christ. In dozens of ways, they tell us who they are and who they will always be for us. They describe the nature of God because he cannot be any other way. God is not describing a behavior that he might change over time. He is describing who he is and that can never change. That is why the names of God and Christ are so important.

If we know who God is and know who he is always willing to be for us, we can be confident in any circumstance that life hands us. A familiar passage of scripture opens this door a little wider for us. It is the time when Jacob has a dream that includes angels climbing a ladder between heaven and earth with God standing at the top. In the dream, God speaks to Jacob and says, “I am with you and will keep you wherever you go and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have spoken to you” (Gen.28:15).

The word “keep” in the passage is such a little word that we tend to read right over it. But it is a big word in scripture. It is a covenant word from a covenant God that means to provide for, protect, guard, stand up for, defend, and so forth. It is a word that carries the promise of a faithful covenant in which one person will always be there for the other – no matter what the need is. That was God’s promise to Jacob if Jacob would make Jehovah his God. In Numbers 6, the priestly prayer that God commands Aaron and his descendants to speak over the nation of Israel contains the phrase, “The Lord bless you and keep you.” There is that word again.

David understood the power of the term and had experienced the “keeping” of the Lord on many occasions. He declared, “The Lord is your keeper; The Lord is your shade on your right hand. The sun will not smite you by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord will protect you from all evil; He will keep your soul. The Lord will guard your going out and your coming in. From this time forth and forever” (Ps.121:5-8).

In John 17, Jesus prays what is often called his priestly prayer as he asks the Father to watch over those who have been given to him as his departure from this world is near. He prays, “Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name…While I was with them I protected them and kept them safe by that name you gave me…my prayer is not that you take them our of the world but that you protect them from the evil one” (Jn.17:11-12,15). The word translated protect carries the idea of keep. As God kept Jacob, as he kept David, and as Jesus kept his disciples – he prayed for the Father to keep each of us. God will in no way ignore the prayer of his Only Begotten. Because of that, God is your keeper.