Thursday 8 January 2015

Feast of the Holy Name 4 Jan 2015

Holy Name 4.1.15

We have the story in today’s epistle: about how a crippled man was able to stand up straight and tall because Peter called on the Holy Name of Jesus.

There is another story in the Acts of the Apostles where a man called Simon the Magician sought to buy the power of the apostles to work this kind of miracle (Acts 8, 9-24)

Simon was greatly rebuked for this because he was clearly not in the right spirit of the matter.

The gifts of God are beyond sordid considerations of money. We cannot buy His power or His influence.

But we can have access to His power if we approach in the right spirit - which includes humility and willingness to accept whatever answer God gives.

Jesus’ name gives us access to Him. The Saviour has come; He who saves is His name.

If we call on His name we will experience salvation, or at least some of its effects. Maybe physical cures, definitely spiritual progress; deepening whatever faith we presently have; becoming more attuned to His mind, heart, and will.

His name is not a magic word and we should not attempt to use it as such.

When we call on His name we are seeking to draw closer to One who is perfect, and we derive power from Him, but more importantly, goodness.

It is usually the case that we need mercy from Him too, and that is freely available.

Simon the Magician tried to buy the power to heal. Because he did not have the Spirit of Jesus He could not have the Name (though he could have asked for mercy, the same as anyone else).

The name will only ‘work’ for us if we have all the right intentions.

It comes to this: that we must be good disciples. The better the disciple the more power will be available when the Holy Name is invoked. And calling on the Name will make us better disciples, meaning that what we cannot achieve now we may be able to achieve with perseverance.

Even if we should reach a point of very strong faith we still may not be able to heal everyone or satisfy every request. We still have to defer to God’s holy will and accept however He views the situation.

But if we have faith we will also have trust and we will cheerfully let Jesus make His own decisions as to what needs to happen.

His name is not there just to make things easier, but to make everything accord with the will of God.

He is not visible to us, and it is hard sometimes for us to gauge His will, to know exactly what He wants.

But He does assure us He is never far away and encourages us to seek Him out. So we interact with Him constantly. We become more familiar with the sort of things He wants.

Whatever the situation it is always best to be close to Him.

He can act more freely if we are prepared to cooperate with Him.

It is not essentially about seeking favours from Him, but to be changed by Him.

The fulness of salvation is to make us free of all our faults and distortions; muddled thinking, weak wills. We will not know ourselves! But we will be a lot happier.

Money will not buy influence with Him; but if we do have to part with something to obtain His favour it would be our own will, our pride, our attachment to sin – if we hand these things over we will have the right to call on His Holy Name.

Blessed be God. Blessed be His Holy Name!

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