"Therefore God also highly exalted him
and gave him the name
that is above every name,
10 so that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father."
and gave him the name
that is above every name,
10 so that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father."
Philippians 2:9-11
Interestingly enough, the name of this blog is derived from the idea presented in this passage, and it has never been talked about on this blog before. So this seems like a good time to do that.
This passage is pretty clear.
Every knee.
Every tongue.
This is a lesson I have had to learn.
It hasn't been easy.
It hasn't always been something that I have chosen.
There are a few reasons for this:
1. I did not have a healthy fear of the Lord.
2. Sin is comfortable.
3. Pride doesn't relent.
But, really, all three of these are related. Recently, I preached on the fear of the Lord. I won't go into much detail about it now, but my next post will probably be a summary of sorts of that message. Without a healthy fear of the Lord, the life of a believer is focused on the wrong things. Priorities are mixed up. It is more focused on self than anything else, and that leads into finding comfort in sin or something other than the Lord.
Without a fear of the Lord, sin becomes more commonplace than it should. Will we ever be perfect? No. That doesn't mean that we should be accepting of sin either. How often do you find yourself doing something that you know you should not be doing but do not know how you really got there? That was the story of my life for more than ten years. There have been many times in my life in which I would be in the middle of doing something and have to stop and ask the question, "how it got this far?" I have to go back fifteen or so years to see the roots of some problems. One such problem came in the form of addiction. Sometime during the year 2014 I realized I was addicted. I was addicted to something that changed and altered how I viewed the world and my savior in ways that I never imagined. I was addicted to pornography. It got there through never viewing it as something that was dangerous to my being. It got there because I assumed I could stop at any moment. It got there because of pride.
Pride would not let me tell others about my problems. Pride allowed my sin and addiction to stay in a place of comfort and ease rather than where it should have been. It nearly ruined my life. Pride does not relent. Even now, it does not relent.
The good news is that the Lord does not relent as well. We don't have to be perfect. We don't have to do everything right. We don't have to have it all figured out. We don't have to do any of this because there was One that did.
At the name the name of Jesus...
I suppose I was fortunate.
Jesus found me and gave me a way out.
He gave me a choice.
He showed me that at His name, everything will bow.
At His name, sin has to flee.
At His name, death loses its sting.
At His name, I had to bow.
Without a fear of the Lord, sin becomes more commonplace than it should. Will we ever be perfect? No. That doesn't mean that we should be accepting of sin either. How often do you find yourself doing something that you know you should not be doing but do not know how you really got there? That was the story of my life for more than ten years. There have been many times in my life in which I would be in the middle of doing something and have to stop and ask the question, "how it got this far?" I have to go back fifteen or so years to see the roots of some problems. One such problem came in the form of addiction. Sometime during the year 2014 I realized I was addicted. I was addicted to something that changed and altered how I viewed the world and my savior in ways that I never imagined. I was addicted to pornography. It got there through never viewing it as something that was dangerous to my being. It got there because I assumed I could stop at any moment. It got there because of pride.
Pride would not let me tell others about my problems. Pride allowed my sin and addiction to stay in a place of comfort and ease rather than where it should have been. It nearly ruined my life. Pride does not relent. Even now, it does not relent.
The good news is that the Lord does not relent as well. We don't have to be perfect. We don't have to do everything right. We don't have to have it all figured out. We don't have to do any of this because there was One that did.
At the name the name of Jesus...
I suppose I was fortunate.
Jesus found me and gave me a way out.
He gave me a choice.
He showed me that at His name, everything will bow.
At His name, sin has to flee.
At His name, death loses its sting.
At His name, I had to bow.
This is the only way I know of that leads to change.
It is through recognizing he is sovereign and Lord of all. That is through open confession of sins and idols and whatever it is that is keeping you from him. You can’t do this on your own. You can’t fix this by yourself. You can’t do this apart from Christ and a body of believers.
Every knee.
Every tongue.
You can either do it in life or death, but one will turn out much better for you.
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