Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Devotion for January--The Holy Name of Jesus

God greatly exalted Him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth. ~Phillipians 2:8-10
The traditional devotion for January is the Holy Name of Jesus. Coming from Scripture, the Holy Name has long been an important devotion for Christians.

Orthodox Christians use the Jesus Prayer as a means of obeying the biblical directive to "pray without ceasing." The Name of Jesus is used during wordless contemplation when the mind begins to wander to refocus the meditation on the One who is the Now. Jesus.

In Catholicism, many of us were taught to bow our heads whenever the name of Jesus is spoken. That is an easily done practice that would be good to revive. The Holy Name has great power and should be spoken with reverence. Prayer using the Holy Name is a very effective way to unite ourselves to God and to stop the sin of misusing God's name in vain. In today's society, using the Holy Name as a swear word is an easy way to sell movies and books. Think of the Divine Power that is being wasted in this atmosphere of thoughtless blasphemy!

The Holy Name of Jesus is the simplest and most effective prayer there is. It is the name of One who loves us more than we can imagine. In reciting the name Jesus, we are offering to God all of Christ's loving sacrifice and asking Him to unite us to His love and make us more like Him.

In times of distress, when words fail us, or when we don't even know what we should be praying for, we only need to pray using the Holy Name of Jesus, and the Spirit helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. (Romans 8:26) .

Do not be afraid to speak the Holy Name of Jesus!!

The picture above is the name of Jesus as it was written in Hebrew.

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"Slavery ended in medieval Europe only because the church extended its sacraments to all slaves and then managed to impose a ban on the enslavement of Christians (and of Jews). Within the context of medieval Europe, that prohibition was effectively a rule of universal abolition. "— Rodney Stark

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