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To demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He
might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
Romans 3:26

Many years ago, my family lived in a small Quichua village in Ecuador, South America. Our house was separated from a Christian school by a short path that ran about 500 feet through the jungle. I’d make the trip from home to school several times a day, and even our two year old son, Stephen, would often go back and forth.

Once as I was studying in my office, I heard my son give off a horrifying scream. I instantly knew what was happening. Ants!!

I ran as fast as I could and saw him standing in a swarm of army ants. I picked him up and immediately started ripping off his clothes as I ran back to the house. As soon as I touched my son, the ants started biting me too, but that didn’t matter. Those ants could kill a toddler, but I planned on hurting them more than they hurt me. We bathed my boy in cold water, and then he cried himself to sleep. That was good; he was safe.

The next day, I went out with a five-gallon can of gasoline and poured the liquid down every ant hill I could find around our house. When I lit one hill, I could hear the flames moving back and forth under the ground and then a plume of flame would shoot up from another entrance. I could hear the fire working its destruction under my feet. I know that I killed hundreds of thousands, if not millions of ants that day, but I felt no remorse and no pity. Those ants had attacked and could have killed my son! They tried to hurt me! They were not going to hurt my family again. What I did was just.

My justice protected my loved ones, but nearly wiped out the offending creatures. If I had love for the ants and could speak their language, maybe I could have warned them of the fiery judgment that was coming. If I could have saved them from their destruction, I would have been their justifier because I would have given them a way to escape. Of course, that part didn’t happen, but that doesn’t mean that what I did wasn’t just.

The Lord Jesus Christ is both Just and the Justifier of the believers. He not only has judged sin, but has also taken that judgment on Himself, so that His people can escape the wrath of God to come.

 January 31 

For He received from God the Father honor and glory
when such a voice came to Him from the Excellent Glory:
“This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”
2 Peter 1:17

Context! Extremely important in interpreting scripture, but absolutely essential in understanding the names of Christ. Who said it and where it was said are sometimes more important than what the title means. That is certainly clear in this verse.

Any title that matters is handed down from a higher power. That’s why almost all the names of Christ are God-breathed. Holy men of God wrote them down as they were inspired by the Holy Spirit. Normally, it’s a quiet process. God dictated to a human writer everything He wanted to communicate to Adam’s race: Sometimes through visions, sometimes through divine ideas that came into the writer’s head, but always the mind of God.

The context here is different. The voice of God thundered from heaven, and all who heard it fell down to the ground and curled into a fetal position. Impressive? It carried an impression that lasted the rest of their lives. Peter continues, “And we heard this voice which came from heaven when we were with Him on the holy mountain” (2 Peter 1:18).

Actually, this supernatural, verbal affirmation that Jesus was the well-pleasing, Beloved Son of God came on two separate occasions: The first at His baptism (Matthew 3:17), the second at the transfiguration (Matthew 17:5). In both cases, God the Father was proud to announce to the world, “That’s My Boy!”

God could have used a lot of adjectives to describe His Son: faithful, obedient, holy, wonderful, only; but He chose Beloved. God the Father has a special relationship with God the Son, which is rooted and grounded in love. Now, in Christ, believers can become beloved sons and daughters of God, all because Jesus is and always has been God’s Beloved Son.

 January 15 

These will make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb will
overcome them, for He is Lord of lords and King of kings;
and those who are with Him are called, chosen, and faithful.
Revelation 17:14

Lord of lords. The idea is that Christ is the leader of all the world leaders, the boss of all the big bosses.

Actually, this title is true in two very different ways. The verse above demonstrates that Jesus is going to bring down all the proud and mighty demigods on earth. They will be brought low, broken, and forced to bow the knee before the Lord of lords.

The second application is better seen in Revelation 19:16: “And He has on His robe and on His thigh a name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.” The scene is after the battle of Armageddon. The Lord is ready to reign on earth with a newly appointed group of kings and lords, and they’re all good; they’re the saints of God who suffered and even died for the name of Christ.

The millennial reign of the Lamb of God will be 1,000 years without war, injustice, and oppression. We would come to expect that, if Christ is in charge, but all the national and local administrators will also be holy and just. Coming from a day and age when the term “honest politician” is used as an oxymoron, it is hard to believe that they’ll be public servants who actually serve the public.

Not everyone who is saved will reign with Christ. He gives that responsibility to those who showed themselves faithful in little. In the Parable of the Minas (Luke 19), the Lord said to the servant whose mina earned nine more, “Well done, good servant; because you were faithful in a very little, have authority over ten cities.”

I take seriously the promises of Christ, so I want to be faithful to His will for me now, so that I can reign with Him in His kingdom. If He someday makes me a lord, let it be known that Christ is already my Lord of lords.

January 16 

“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End,”
says the Lord, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”
Revelation 1:8

A long time ago, I was a senior in high school. Expectations and standards were much higher back then. This was probably never clearer than in gym class. For twelfth-grade boys, P.E. was every day and was called “commando class.” To just pass, everyone had to do 100 sit-ups, 100 push-ups, and 30 chin-ups. If you couldn’t do these, you’d have to try again the next day, and every day until the requirement could be checked off. But this was not the worst part. Everyone had to run one mile in six minutes or less!

Everyone hated the days scheduled for the mile run. That is, everyone but Jamal. He was on the school’s track and cross country teams and always went to the state championships. He ran a mile in 4 minutes 25 seconds and ran “for fun.” Every time they made us nerd students try to get our one-mile running requirement checked off, he would be there too. We would always get lapped by Jamal and were then really pushed to get our one mile done before he would do two. No one wanted that humiliation, so Jamal always became the first and the last, the beginning and the end.

As the firstborn over all creation, Christ is the Beginning of all things. “For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist” (Colossians 1:16-17).

As Consuming Fire, Jesus will judge the living and the dead and bring human history to an end. This rebellious planet will melt away with a fervent heat and new heavens and a new earth will have to be created (2 Peter 3:10).

If  we look back at the very Beginning of time, the Lord Jesus is there, and when we, through the lens of prophecy, see the consummation of time, Christ is still creating at the very End.

 January 1

Coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected
indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious.
1 Peter 2:4

The CEO of a multinational company has many complex and specialized jobs to do. He needs to have vision for building his corporation and the leadership skills to get it there. He must negotiate with clients, motivate employees, jump legal and political hurdles, and take educated risks. The success or failure of a big business depends on having the “right man” at the helm. For this reason, selection committees will often spend millions of dollars to screen all the candidates before that “right person” is finally chosen.

The hundreds of titles of Christ show just how complicated the job of God’s Anointed really was. He had to be Savior, Redeemer, Advocate, and Friend. He came to destroy the works of the devil, console Israel, and willingly offer Himself as a substitute for sinful mankind. No one less than God Himself could be qualified for this position.

The Jewish religious leaders understood that their Messiah was singled out for His mission of redemption. Standing at the foot of the cross of Christ, the rulers of the Jews sneered at Jesus and said “He saved others; let Him save Himself if He is the Christ, the chosen of God” (Luke 23:35).

Only a very few of the titles of the Lord also apply to believers. This is one of them: “…just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love,”(Ephesians 1:4). How wonderful is that! Before the creation of all things, the Chosen one chose us to be His special people.

 January 17 

To Titus, a true son in our common faith: Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ our Savior.
Titus 1:4

In the 405 titles of Christ that I have found in the Bible, most occur only once or twice to emphasize some specific attribute of the Master. Some titles are repeated many times and are the most familiar. New titles are even made by linking shorter ones together in order to magnify the Lord’s greatness. Listed below are the top ten titles of Christ. – Please note that not included is Jesus’ Old Testament name (written YAH/ Yahweh/ Jehovah/ the LORD) which occurs over 6000 times.
Top Ten Titles in the New Testament:

1. Jesus – 986 times
2. Lord – 652 times
3. Christ – 529 times
4. Son of Man – 87 times
5. Son of God – 73 times
6. Teacher – 49 times
7. King – 38 times
8. Master – 36 times
9. Savior – 26 times
10. Lamb – 25 times

When Titus was sent as a missionary to Crete, Paul wrote to him a letter of encouragement giving him practical advice. Although Titus observed and followed Paul for many years as his disciple, he was also born and raised a pagan before converting to Christ. Paul repeated the basics of the gospel and the purpose of his mission to the Gentiles of that island nation. To do that the Apostle chose a name made up of four of the top ten titles of the Son of God. Titus was there to serve the Lord Jesus Christ our Savior.

 January 2 

For your Maker is your husband, The LORD of hosts is His name;
And your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel; He is called the God of the whole earth.
Isaiah 54:5

Before there was ever sin in our world, God designed and instituted marriage. Two people, although the same species, are male and female, man and woman, and God made them Husband and Wife. This wasn’t a marriage of convenience, but a carefully arranged union orchestrated by God. Since the whole human race would be produced from Adam and Eve’s DNA, God planned the wedding.

The Jewish Talmud (the oral tradition and teaching of ancient rabbis) portrays a curious detail about the first marriage ceremony. According to the legend, God Himself braided Eve’s hair and personally presented her to Adam. That would have been a nice touch that would have added to the specialness of the relationship.

Contrary to the politically correct notions of today, men and women are very different. They look, think, and act differently, and part of the design for the continuance of the human race was different roles for husband and wife.

When Paul wrote to the Ephesian church, he gave God’s orders for the Christian family. Addressing the men, he said, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her.” The Master shows Christian men a model of what a loving, caring husband should look like. He is always there to listen to us, provide our needs before we ask, and comfort us when we feel alone and weak.

Yahweh of the Old Testament took on Himself the role of the spouse of the children of Israel. In the New Testament, concerning the church, Christ clearly presents Himself as her Husband.

 January 18 

Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain.
John 12:24

Now, is this a title, or is it a parable? It’s both. In context, this verse comes right after the triumphal entry. The Lord has just told His disciples that the hour had come for Him to be glorified. He had already told them that He was coming to Jerusalem to die, and they didn’t get it. He now tries to get through to them by saying that He is going to be like a grain of wheat.

Once a farmer sows his seed, there is no way to get it back. Wheat is just a fancy grass, and there’s a lot that can go wrong. If there’s too much or too little rain, it’s too hot or too cold, or there are too many bugs, it just won’t produce. That’s not even figuring in dust storms, hail, wheat rust, mildew, and rot. Hungry farmers throughout the centuries have learned not to plow the last of their grain into the ground. If they do, there’s no guarantee that they’ll have anything to eat later.

Most farmers I know are religious (I’m talking family farmers, not big corporations). They have to believe that there is a power greater than themselves that makes things to grow, and they trust Him to do His job if they do theirs. It takes a lot of faith to take tomorrow’s meal, bury it in the dirt, and pour water on it.

Christ somehow had to convince His disciples that the capital punishment He was about to receive was not just a senseless act of injustice. He was going to be glorified by it, and they were the ones that were going to benefit.

The disciples knew it was dangerous to go to Jerusalem, but He went anyway. He had to go; He had to die. If He didn’t go, there never would have been eternal life. He could never have provided for their spiritual sustenance. He first had to become a Grain of Wheat.

 January 3 

“Know therefore and understand, That from the going forth of the command to restore
and build Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince, there shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks;
the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublesome times.
And after the sixty-two weeks Messiah shall be cut off, but not for Himself;
and the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary.
The end of it shall be with a flood, And till the end of the war desolations are determined.”
Daniel 9:25-26

Wonderful, powerful, significant verses! …Yet they are unknown and unimportant to most Christians today; what a pity!

The translators of the King James and New King James Versions saw the importance and translated the Hebrew word “Meshiach” as Messiah. They wanted everyone to know that this prophesy was about the Jewish Messiah; that is Christ. The 38 other times it appears in the Old Testament, it was translated literally as “anointed.”

This prophecy is a time-line that begins with the “command to restore and build Jerusalem.” Jewish people in the first century knew the day, month, and year it took place. Even our history books tell us that King Artaxerxes of Persia made that decree in 444 B.C.

Then come two time periods: “seven weeks and sixty-two weeks.” The term “weeks” literally means “sevens” and is actually referring to weeks of years. So then “seven weeks” is actually 49 years and “sixty-two weeks” is actually 434 years. Forty-nine years after the decree to rebuild, Nehemiah actually finished building the streets. 49+434=483 years. Exactly four-hundred eighty-three years after Artaxerxes’ command, the Messiah was to be “cut off” (March 30^thof 33 A.D).  First-century preachers did the math and believed that date to be the day of Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem. The anointed of God went to His own and His own received Him not. Four days later (April 3^rd) Christ was crucified – “cut off.” When early Jewish believers heard this, they also did the math and were convinced that Jesus was their Messiah.

 January 20 

I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will
be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.
John 10:9

Doors come in many shapes and sizes. It can be as simple as a slab of ice that covers the opening to an igloo, or an inlaid ivory and gold masterpiece before the throne room of the king. When all is said and done, a door is just a device that allows easy access to a place that was designed to keep other things out.

Some doors come equipped with locks or even armed guards to determine who can go in and who stays out. A bank would be worthless if everyone could go in and out anytime they wanted. Heaven has a Door. His name is Jesus. In Luke 16, Christ told a story about a very rich man (unlisted name) and a very, very poor man named Lazarus. Lazarus was a believer and the other guy wasn’t. In the end, they both died. After his fancy funeral, the soul of the billionaire was cast into Hades. Lazarus died full of sores on some side street; no one paid much attention. That is, no one except for Jesus.

When his body was cold, the angels of God carried his soul to paradise and he was cradled in Abraham’s bosom. When the rich man saw that, he wanted to go there too – Not Allowed! Then, he wanted that lowly Lazarus to bring him some water – Also not Allowed!

People don’t get to heaven just because they want in, or even because they think they deserve it. The bottom line of the story is explained in the chorus of the African-American spiritual, “Rock my Soul in the Bosom of Abraham.”

So high, you can’t get over it
So wide, you can’t get around it
So low, you can’t get under it
You gotta go through the Door.

 January 4