When you say the name of Jesus you have said a mouthful. Read this list slowly: Jesus is Immanuel (God with us), Christ, Lord, Master, Teacher, Son of God, God the Son, Son of Man, Savior, Redeemer, Word, I AM, Head of the Church, Lamb of God, Good Shepherd, Bread of Life, Light of the World, The Door to Eternal Life, The Resurrection and the Life, The Way, The Truth, The Life, The True Vine, King of Kings and Lord of Lords, Judge, Mediator, Lion from the Tribe of Judah, Almighty One, Alpha and Omega, Chief Cornerstone, High Priest, and more. What’s even more astonishing is that Jesus is all of these things to each and every one of us if we are “in Christ”.
Jesus is the greatest name EVER. Jesus is also the greatest person who ever lived on God’s green earth in the history of the whole wide world. He is the eternal Son of God who left the glory of heaven and became a human to save us humans. He lowered Himself to be lifted up on a tortuous, humiliating cross. His love for you and me is beyond our ability to comprehend – it is that great. Paul prays for us to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge (Ephesians 3:19). That’s a crazy way of saying Jesus loves us more than we can even imagine!
As exalted and as important as Jesus is, He is willing to bend His knee and bless the least among us. He blesses children, people with incurable diseases, alcoholics and drug addicts, the demon-possessed, the dying, liars, cheats, sexually immoral – ANYONE who will humble themselves before Jesus by turning their lives over to Him is welcome to Him – even stuffy religious people who have been trying to get to heaven on their own can come to Jesus for salvation by grace through faith. If we call on His great name through faithful repentance and are born again Jesus saves us and the Father marks us as His children with the Holy Spirit.
We need to walk through this day extra spiritually sensitive to who we are and to whom we belong. We have lots of issues but the main one has been taken care of by the one with the GREAT NAME.
Read Luke 7:36-50 and Philippians 2:5-11. Then listen to Your Great Name by Natalie Grant.
Luke 7:36-50
Now one of the Pharisees was requesting Him to eat with him, and He entered the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. And there was a woman in the city who was a sinner; and when she learned that He was reclining at the table in the Pharisee’s house, she brought an alabaster vial of perfume, and standing behind Him at His feet, weeping, she began to wet His feet with her tears, and she wiped them with the hair of her head, and began kissing His feet and anointing them with the perfume. Now when the Pharisee who had invited Him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet He would know who and what sort of person this woman is who is touching Him, that she is a sinner!”
And Jesus responded and said to him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.” And he replied, “Say it, Teacher.” “A moneylender had two debtors: the one owed five hundred denarii, and the other, fifty. When they were unable to repay, he canceled the debts of both. So which of them will love him more?” Simon answered and said, “I assume the one for whom he canceled the greater debt.” And He said to him, “You have judged correctly.” And turning toward the woman, He said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave Me no water for My feet, but she has wet My feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You gave Me no kiss; but she has not stopped kissing My feet since the time I came in. You did not anoint My head with oil, but she anointed My feet with perfume. For this reason I say to you, her sins, which are many, have been forgiven, for she loved much; but the one who is forgiven little, loves little.” And He said to her, “Your sins have been forgiven.” And then those who were reclining at the table with Him began saying to themselves, “Who is this man who even forgives sins?” And He said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”
Philippians 2:5-11
Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, as He already existed in the form of God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but emptied Himself by taking the form of a bond-servant and being born in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death: death on a cross. For this reason also God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.