Getting the Name of Jesus
But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.
And so it as in 1996 that I got it. I’d heard it all my life having been raised in a Christian home, I knew that it was important, I knew that I should reverend it… and not ever take it in vain. But I didn’t “get it” until I was 34 years old. Why? I can’t answer that, other than to say rebellion. But in the year of our Lord, Nineteen Hundred and Ninety Six I found myself with the realization that there was something about that Name. Something I needed to know… to understand deeper than I’d ever understood it before. And with that desire came life, joy unspeakable and a relationship with the Creator of all Heaven and earth. I got it. The Name of Jesus saved this wretched sinner from Hell.
The Gift of the Name of Jesus
Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.
The very second I accepted Christ’s work on the cross as payment for my sin, and that He alone was my salvation, I received the Holy Spirit. Christ living in me. It was amazing to have the Lord revealing an understanding of His word, providing counsel and comfort as I’d never known! When Peter spoke to this crowd the Holy Spirit was an entirely new experience for them too, Jesus had been with them alive and in person, but now He’d sent the promised Comforter, and the baptism was their outward expression of what was happening to them inwardly; that they too accepted the final work of Christ on the cross and His resurrection.
Because I was baptized before I was saved (in error, having not been ask if I was saved) I didn’t get baptized until a few years later. I was still saved… but I wasn’t experiencing my salvation to the fullest until I made that public profession of what had inwardly happened. There was no magic in the water but there was the sweet Spirit of God that blessed my obedience, and I received gifts of the Holy Spirit that I had not received before. Gifts from the name of Jesus allowing my service to be greater.
Grace from the name of Jesus
Be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by him doth this man stand here before you whole.
As much as the crowd who shouted crucify, I was responsible for the death of Jesus on the Cross. On my own there was nothing good in me, sin controlled me and pride kept me from acknowledging that Jesus Christ is Lord of all the earth. In this story of the Apostles in the book of Acts they had healed an impotent man in the name of Jesus. The religious crowd didn’t understand it, but with the man standing before them whole, they sure couldn’t deny it! Anyone who knew me, knew that there had been a change, they may not have understood how or why, but they couldn’t deny it. Grace came in many forms in my life, it grew compassion in my heart for others, it granted belief in people that the world gave up on, and it garnered love from people who I never imagined would love me as they did.
Oh… the name of Jesus. There’s something about that name in my life. How about yours?
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