More Than a Name in a Book

I didn’t grow up in a Christian home. God saved me from my sins, and from myself, when I was fourteen years old.

Even after I was saved, I knew about Jesus, but I didn’t really know Him in a personal way for many years. I could tell you His stories. I could say His name in a prayer. But He felt like a name in a book, true and important and far away.

In forty years of ministry, I have met many people in that same place. They love Jesus and believe in Him. Yet when they pray, He feels like someone they talk about more than someone they know.

If that is where you are today, you are not alone. And the way closer usually isn’t trying harder. It starts with looking at who He really is.

The Bible tells us that if we want to see the invisible God, we look at Jesus.

“The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.” (Colossians 1:15, BSB)

He holds everything together, from the largest planet to the smallest cell. No force of evil in this world is stronger than He is. And yet this same Jesus emptied Himself, took the form of a servant, and died on the cross for our sins.

So God gave Him a name like no other.

“Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name above all names, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Philippians 2:9–11, BSB)

Read that slowly. The name we sometimes say in a hurry, at the end of a prayer, is the name heaven bows to.

What would change in our mornings if we saw Him like that?

And the part that still amazes me comes next. The One who carries that name lives in us. I have struggled with a poor self-image most of my life. Jesus has not left me there. He keeps helping me grow stronger and become more like Him, and He will do the same for you.

Many of us carry ugly pictures in our hearts. Pictures of a God who is distant, or tired of us, or hard to please. We can take those pictures down. We can hang up the true ones: the Commander no evil can stand against, the Servant who gave His life for us, the Good Shepherd holding us safe.

Before we ask Him for anything today, let’s just look at Him. Say His name slowly, and let it be big again.

He is not a name in a book. He is the Lord of heaven and earth, and He has made His home in us.