A More Excellent Name

Hebrews 1:1-4 - God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become so much better than the angels, as He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.

Read that again taking in every word slowly. No glossing!!

All throughout the Bible God has spoken of something better to come. Something important. Someone who would come to bring this dead world. It was concealed within and throughout the Old Testament but nonetheless written that we might know the signs in days to come and today that all that was prophesied was true.

Of course, this is Jesus. Intricate details of sacrifices, temples and their furniture and utensils pointed to Him. People were appointed by God to do marvelous, albeit at the time, outlandish things that made no sense (like Noah building an ark for a flood from heavy rains which had never existed). Moses. the miracles and the exodus. People, who were types of a future deliverer, One to come.

When this Jesus came into ministry He came to abolish the need for endless sacrifices and became that one Deliverer, that one Promise of a better life, eternal life.

He was not only concealed in the Old Testament, He was seen through the gloriousness of creation because the One to come was there creating by His undeniably brilliant, awesome spoken word!! Creating things only He could.

People, there is no One greater than He. Jesus. Nothing is hidden from Him, not even our thoughts. Only He has the power over life and death. He holds your life and where you will go when you die. There are only two places. There’s no in between where family can buy your way out. Look in the Bible. See if it’s written there. Only heaven and hell are spoken of in various ways. There's only good and evil, black and white. There is no being kinda good. Either you are for Him or against Him. Neutrality does not exist for Him.

God, in His excellent name, created all things and He will remove all things bad. He will allow some in this world to dig themselves graves through wrong living, called sin, yet is always offering them chances at knowing and receiving His Son for the forgiveness of their sins. We cannot assume we know Him. We must know Him.

Many in this world live by church rules, all man made, like the Old Testament priests. Jesus came to do away with those rules to establish instead a relationship with Him. However, those laws are still important because they are there to show us what sin is...so we may know Him. We can never achieve to perfection any of those laws, but Jesus was the perfect sacrificial Lamb, who takes away the sins of the world. That's what it’s all about. It’s why He was killed, because religious men were threatened by this Man who came with a new message of hope, not through rituals but through grace and relationship.

No one else should be honored more greatly than the One whose name IS more excellent. He calls everyone but not everyone hears or listens. He says the sheep hear His voice. Do you? Will you? Will you listen? Your life depends on it!

Philippians 2:9-11 - Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Glory of God

Psalm 97:1,6,9 - The LORD reigns; let the earth rejoice; let the multitude of isles be glad! The heavens declare His righteousness, and all the peoples see His glory. For You, LORD, are most high above all the earth; You are exalted far above all gods. 

I had the opportunity to spend a few days with my husband seeing some of the western part of our United States. If you've ever seen the movie Planes, Trains and Automobiles, that's kinda what we did. We added taxi to it though! 

We flew to Denver and took Amtrak to Reno, a 24 hour trip which means we slept on the train. An experience I'm glad to have had but once is enough! We saw the foothills and then some of the Rockies. Magnificent. Once in Reno we rented a car to drive through the mountains to Yosemite National Park and on to Sequoia National Park the next day. We also touched a part of Kings Canyon National Park. The trees and mountains were outstanding. 

All I could do was look at this relatively small part of the world, in the grand scheme of things, and TRY to imagine God's greatness. It's like your mind shuts down because it just cannot be imagined. Our comprehension of all He is is so totally small. So it has to be by sheer faith we believe. 

I love just my yard and all the little things that grow and bloom and create beauty in small bits and pieces. My little corner of the world. But what we saw this past week was immense for us but still minuscule to our God. How big can He be!? I tried to dwell on how many trees there were. Then, how many leaves or needles on each. Impossible. I had to stop.

God is awesome. That word is thrown around to represent ball teams or people some idolize or even what we had for dinner, a play we saw or concert heard. I wonder if this word shouldn't be used to describe God alone?

For the LORD Most High is awesome; He is a great King over all the earth. (‭Psalm ‭47‬:‭2‬)

The word awesome here is translated terrible. The meaning is: to stand in awe of, be awed; to fear, reverence, honour, respect. How do we truly feel about Him? Do we fear Him? Do we reverence Him? Do we give Him the honor that is due Him? How do we truly know if we are? Do we give Him any credit for anything at all? It's how we should feel daily about Him.

Here are a few things to ponder. Do not consider them lightly.

Let them praise Your great and awesome name—He is holy. (‭Psalms ‭99‬:‭3‬)

Men shall speak of the might of Your awesome acts, and I will declare Your greatness. (‭Psalm‬ ‭145‬:‭6‬)

Come and see the works of God; He is awesome in His doing toward the sons of men. (‭Psalm‬ ‭66‬:‭5‬)

These are only a few times His awesomeness is spoken of. I fear we take it for granted. We consider the things in our lives awesome...sometimes without considering Who made them all possible. We cannot comprehend the greatness of our God but we should set our minds and hearts on at least contemplating it and Him. After all, He is all things to us. He has given us life and given us nature to view to prove His greatness, that we might glory in Him and seek Him for ourselves. The key word is seek. Seek and He will open up our eyes to understand. Too much, you ask? Not enough. Look outside. Look at the awesomeness of this glorious God. Fear Him. Revere Him. He alone is holy.

Job‬ ‭26‬:‭7-14‬ - He stretches out the north over empty space; He hangs the earth on nothing. He binds up the water in His thick clouds, yet the clouds are not 
broken under it. He covers the face of His throne, and spreads His cloud over it. He drew a circular horizon on the face of the waters, at the boundary of light and darkness. The pillars of heaven tremble, and are astonished at His rebuke. He stirs up the sea with His power, and by His understanding He breaks up the storm. By His Spirit He adorned the heavens; His hand pierced the fleeing serpent. Indeed these are the mere edges of His ways, and how small a whisper we hear of Him! But the thunder of His power who can 
understand?