If you've been coming to this blog long at all, you know I love talking about the names of Jesus. There are so many names that He personifies. Yet, each name only describes Him in part.
It takes a 66 Book library called the Holy Bible to give you the big and small picture of His story (History). Yet, there is so much that Jesus said in so few words when He spoke.
As John said, in John 1:1-2 & 1:14...3 Through Him all things were made;
I am so BLESSED by THE WORD (Jesus) who led a life that explained the word (the Bible). How He lived, puts LIFE into these pages. How He DIED gives us perspective of how we must live. How He LIVES AGAIN gives us hope, encouragement, and a reason to FINISH STRONG! Blessed be His name!
- STRENGTH when I am weak
- TREASURE that I seek
- My ALL IN ALL
- PRECIOUS JEWEL
- LAMB OF GOD
- WORTHY
- WONDERFUL, MERCIFUL SAVIOR
- PRECIOUS REDEEMER
- FRIEND
Years ago, Steve and I read a very powerful book that we have since re-read again and again. It is a book that is out of print, but a treasure. It is the best book I have ever read about Christ's Sermon on the Mount. It will be a blessing for you, if you can get a copy: THE CHRIST OF THE MOUNT - A LIVNG EXPOSITION OF JESUS' WORDS AS THE ONLY PRACTICAL WAY OF LIFE - by E. Stanley Jones. As we follow the theme of THE BLESSED LIFE, on this blog this year, please know that we will be a lot in Matthew 5, 6, and 7 - Christ's words for which I am most grateful. I will also often refer to E. Stanley's book - for which I am so thankful. I will end today with what E. Stanley has to say about how Jesus used the word - BLESSED - in the Sermon on the Mount.
To describe the state of those who are right within, He uses a word that is crammed full of meaning - "Blessed". The word is makarios, a word which Aristotle used for divine blessedness in contrast with human happiness. The ordinary word for human happiness was eudamonia, but He passed that by as weak. Since we are to partake of the perfection that God has, so we are to partake of the joy that is divine. The first note of Buddha's teaching is Suffering; the first note that Jesus strikes is Joy. But this happiness is not dependent on happenings. Its sources are within. "Blessed are." So this note of joy is not a jazz note - cheap, easy, and surface. It sounds the depths before it reaches the heights.
But the word BLESSED is more than joyful; it means literally, "not subject to fate," "deathless".
~BLESSED~
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