O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth! (vs.1).....So God raised Him to the highest place. God made His name greater than every other name so that every knee will bow to the name of Jesus - everyone in heaven, on earth, and under the earth. And everyone will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2)
What is in that name? Why is it greater than every other name? Think about it. As a guilty, confessed criminal on death row I sit awaiting the justice that is my punishment. Death. Eternally. My many sins have been discovered - the covert and overt ones - and I stand before the judge without excuse. What can I say when he replays the video of my life with its blatant disregard for the law? Ooops? Shouldn't have done that? More than likely I would fall on my face and asked for mercy - a mercy which he cannot find given my behavior. I am lost. I am doomed forever by my own sins.
Then a miracle happens. Someone walks into my prison and agrees to take my place. Die the bloody death I deserve. Only one thing I need to do. Remember His Name. Jesus. Because it will be important. If I wear it, it will change my life. I watch as they take Him to the death chamber in my place. Hear Him scream out in my pain. Listen as He is ridiculed and beaten, stabbed and spit upon. Watch Him as in death He calls out my forgiveness and restoration. See His Father, not mine, turn from the ignominy of this death because He cannot look on sin. I cry out in despair that I have let Him take my place until He appears to me, risen and whole and glorified. He says: Now, ask anything in My name.
Wouldn't I remember that name forever? He stepped into my punishment - Jesus - taking my place and substituting His name for mine. He saved my life! Wouldn't you remember the name of the person who saved yours? He saved ALL of us! His name is the most wonderful ever spoken because He, the God of the created universe, whose words spoke it into being, took on my sinful life, paid the penalty for it, and brought me into His family so that I now wear the family crest. With His name on it. I can go to His Father and mine and ask anything in His name. Jesus is salvation's name. Any wonder it is powerful to heal, save, and restore?
Peter and John came across a lame beggar one day shortly after Pentecost. Jesus had told them to speak in His name, so when the beggar asked for alms, the two men said they had no money, but what they did have they would give. "In the name of Jesus Christ, the Nazarene, get up and walk!" They seized the man's right hand and pulled him up. Leaping, he stood upright and began to walk around. He went straight to church and could not stop praising God in front of all the religious folks. The religious folks had some trouble with this whole Jesus rising from the dead scenario, so they arrested Peter and John and threw them into prison. This was the same group who had killed Jesus earlier, so the fact that He was still causing trouble was upsetting, to say the least. Putting Peter and John in the center as they circled around them, their question was: "By what power, or in whose name, have you done this?"
Here is their stunning answer: " Rulers and elders of the people, if we are on trial today for benefit done to a sick man, as to how this man has been made well, let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead - by this name this man stands here before you in good health.....and there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved."
O Lord, my Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth!
What is in that name? Why is it greater than every other name? Think about it. As a guilty, confessed criminal on death row I sit awaiting the justice that is my punishment. Death. Eternally. My many sins have been discovered - the covert and overt ones - and I stand before the judge without excuse. What can I say when he replays the video of my life with its blatant disregard for the law? Ooops? Shouldn't have done that? More than likely I would fall on my face and asked for mercy - a mercy which he cannot find given my behavior. I am lost. I am doomed forever by my own sins.
Then a miracle happens. Someone walks into my prison and agrees to take my place. Die the bloody death I deserve. Only one thing I need to do. Remember His Name. Jesus. Because it will be important. If I wear it, it will change my life. I watch as they take Him to the death chamber in my place. Hear Him scream out in my pain. Listen as He is ridiculed and beaten, stabbed and spit upon. Watch Him as in death He calls out my forgiveness and restoration. See His Father, not mine, turn from the ignominy of this death because He cannot look on sin. I cry out in despair that I have let Him take my place until He appears to me, risen and whole and glorified. He says: Now, ask anything in My name.
Wouldn't I remember that name forever? He stepped into my punishment - Jesus - taking my place and substituting His name for mine. He saved my life! Wouldn't you remember the name of the person who saved yours? He saved ALL of us! His name is the most wonderful ever spoken because He, the God of the created universe, whose words spoke it into being, took on my sinful life, paid the penalty for it, and brought me into His family so that I now wear the family crest. With His name on it. I can go to His Father and mine and ask anything in His name. Jesus is salvation's name. Any wonder it is powerful to heal, save, and restore?
Peter and John came across a lame beggar one day shortly after Pentecost. Jesus had told them to speak in His name, so when the beggar asked for alms, the two men said they had no money, but what they did have they would give. "In the name of Jesus Christ, the Nazarene, get up and walk!" They seized the man's right hand and pulled him up. Leaping, he stood upright and began to walk around. He went straight to church and could not stop praising God in front of all the religious folks. The religious folks had some trouble with this whole Jesus rising from the dead scenario, so they arrested Peter and John and threw them into prison. This was the same group who had killed Jesus earlier, so the fact that He was still causing trouble was upsetting, to say the least. Putting Peter and John in the center as they circled around them, their question was: "By what power, or in whose name, have you done this?"
Here is their stunning answer: " Rulers and elders of the people, if we are on trial today for benefit done to a sick man, as to how this man has been made well, let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead - by this name this man stands here before you in good health.....and there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved."
O Lord, my Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth!
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