Last year, my mom gave me a set of Adorenaments. They are the Christmas names of Christ, made into beautiful gold, glittery ornaments, with a neat book of different activities you can do with your family to help them learn those names and what they mean. I hang them all over my tree.
Interestingly, however, when the lights are turned off, and the glow of the tree fills the room, there is only one name you can plainly see. Jesus is, quite literally, the name above all names.
My friend, Karen, is a born evangelist. Witnessing to others comes as naturally to her as breathing, so when she meets a person, right after she introduces herself, her first question is “Do you know Jesus?” She feels it’s the most important thing she has to offer a person, so she does exactly that, right up front.
When we were on the ship, the three of us all had massage appointments for the same treatment. Mary and I walked out at about the same time, and sat down in the lobby to wait for Karen. Everybody loves Karen, so we were joking about how the masseuse probably offered to give her an extra thirty minutes, just as she walked out with tears in her eyes.
Sorry I’m late, but my masseuse accepted Christ! Praise God!
Mary and I just stared at each other blankly.
Mary asked me if I had even talked to my masseuse, and beyond polite conversation before the treatment, the answer was no. But not Karen. She had not let even her treatment begin before she asked that all-important question.
I look at that Name up there on my tree, and see, with new eyes, that He’s not only the greatest gift ever given, but the greatest gift we can ever give.
Right up front.
Before we go any further.
And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so 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 2:8-11 ESV