Jesus--Name Above All Names: Releasing His Anointing in Your Life (5 page)

If you want to know the truth, I think many Christians today have lost a lot of reverence for many spiritual things.

When we learn that God is our Friend, we come into a much more comfortable relationship with Him. But some time ago He spoke to my heart that we need to be careful about getting Him on the “buddy system” so that we think of Him as just our “buddy” without realizing how great and awesome He is.

Reverence Provokes Obedience

Children, obey your parents in the Lord [as His representatives], for this is just and right.

Honor (esteem and value as precious) your father and your mother—this is the first commandment with a promise.

Ephesians 6:1,2

I believe if we were more reverent, we would be more obedient because reverence provokes obedience.

When children have reverence and respect for their parents, they don't argue with them or rebel against them.

I believe the reason many children don't respect and revere their parents as they should is that their parents have lost respect and reverence for spiritual things, spiritual leaders and authority figures in general. As a result, the lack of respect and reverence is passed down from parents to children so that they talk back, argue and rebel. If a parent openly displays disrespect toward their employer, they are teaching their children to be disrespectful also.

It is not at all uncommon these days to be in a public place like a store and see a two-year-old having a temper tantrum and actually hitting or kicking his mother. If we are not careful, that is the way our children will end up acting toward us and our heavenly Father. In other words, they will lose reverence and respect for us and for the Lord, as well as for all others in authority.

We must understand that this is what Satan tries to do. He causes things like disrespect and irreverence in the world, hoping they will creep their way into the church, because he knows that when they do, we become disobedient. Disobedience causes us to lose the power of God in our life.

One thing we must guard against to keep that from happening is familiarity.

Familiarity Breeds a Lack of Reverence

And when they came to Nacon's threshing floor, Uzzah put out his hand to the ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen stumbled and shook it.

And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah; and God smote him there for touching the ark, and he died there by the ark of God.

2 Samuel 6:6,7

In this passage from the Old Testament, we see that David and his men were bringing the ark of the covenant back to Bethlehem. As they approached a certain place, the oxen that were pulling the cart with the ark in it stumbled, and the ark began to shake. Uzzah, a young man who was driving the cart, reached out to steady the ark…
and God struck him down there for his irreverence
…(v. 7 NASB), and he died instantly. (We read in Numbers chapters 3 and 4 that the Lord had given Moses specific directions about who could handle the ark and how it was to be transported.)

Verse 8 goes on to say that David was grieved and offended by Uzzah's death. He didn't understand why Uzzah had to die just for reaching out and touching the ark.

Earlier, in 1 Samuel 7, we read that when the ark was first returned to Israel by the Philistines, it was kept at the home of Abinadab, Uzzah's father, possibly for a number of years.

I believe it was because the ark had sat in his home for so long that it had become a commonplace thing to Uzzah so that he did not regard it with esteem. That's why he was not afraid to reach out and touch it—familiarity with the ark had bred a lack of reverence for it in him, and it cost him his life.
²

Familiarity Limits Power

But Jesus said to them, A prophet is not without honor (deference, reverence) except in his [own] country and among [his] relatives and in his [own] house.

And He was not able to do even one work of power there, except that He laid His hands on a few sickly people [and] cured them.

And He marveled because of their unbelief….

Mark 6:4-6

We have to be very careful about becoming overly familiar with things. Once we become too familiar with them, then we no longer show the respect for them that needs to be shown.

That is also true of familiarity with people.

I know that many people don't understand why spiritual leaders cannot always become “buddy-buddy,” so to speak, with those to whom they minister. Many times if people come to know their spiritual leaders too well, they no longer see them in the position they need to be in to provide the help that is needed. It is human nature to begin to devaluate things that are too readily available.

In this passage in Mark 6, Jesus had gone to His hometown of Nazareth. When He began to preach in the synagogue there, many people were offended at Him. They recognized Him as the son of Mary. They knew His brothers and sisters. Their familiarity with Him caused them to be irreverent and disrespectful toward Him. As a result, His power to help them was limited, and He healed only a few sick people.

Sometimes a pastor can pray and pray for someone in his congregation without that person ever getting a breakthrough. Then a visiting evangelist can come into the church and pray for that individual, and he is healed immediately.

Why is that? Is the evangelist more anointed or more powerful than the pastor?

No, the reason is that the sick person sees the evangelist in a different way from the way he sees his pastor. He sees his pastor every week, so he becomes “good old Pastor Joe.” Everyone loves him and thinks he is a great guy, but they don't put the faith in him that they put in someone they don't know.

Maybe the reason is that they have seen their pastor be human once in a while. Maybe they have seen him yell at his kids or be a little grouchy. So all of a sudden they can't handle the fact that he is a “regular person” just like themselves.

But what the people don't see is that the evangelist did similar kinds of things before he came to their church to minister!

Familiarity Lessens Respect

Is not this the Carpenter, the son of Mary and the brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? Are not His sisters here among us?

And they took offense at Him and were hurt [that is, they disapproved of Him, and
it hindered them from acknowledging His authority]….

Mark 6:3

Sometimes when a person gets saved and receives a call of God upon his life, his family members and relatives cannot accept that call.

Do you know why? The reason is that they are too familiar with him. They know him too well to give him the respect they should.

As we have seen in this passage, that can happen to anyone, even Jesus. The Bible says that even His own brothers did not believe in Him. (John 7:5.)

I still have relatives who cannot receive my ministry the way other people do. Some of them have even told me, “You may be a hotshot now, but I knew you when….”

Often some people won't let us get over our past. But the Bible says that if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; old things have passed away, and all things have become new. (2 Corinthians 5:17 KJV.)

We don't want to become so familiar with the Name of Jesus that we just throw it around thoughtlessly without any understanding that there is more to it than speaking the Name.

I don't know about you, but when I speak the Name, “Jesus,” I can actually
feel
the anointing that is upon it. When I speak it in my meetings, people get saved, healed and filled with the Holy Spirit.

Those kinds of results are not limited to people in ministry. That is why I have a deep desire for every believer to understand about having reverence and respect for that glorious Name. When we do, we open ourselves up to the power in the Name—power to handle our own circumstances and to minister super-naturally to others.

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T
HE
N
AME AND
R
ELATIONSHIP

And after He had appeared in human form, He abased and humbled Himself [still further] and carried His obedience to the extreme of death, even the death of the cross!

Therefore [because He stooped so low] God has highly exalted Him and has freely bestowed on Him the name that is above every name,

That in (at) the name of Jesus every knee should (must) bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

And every tongue [frankly and openly] confess and acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Philippians 2:8-11

How did Jesus get the Name we've been talking about which is so powerfully described in this passage, a Name which is synonymous with such names as Lord, Savior, the Word (John 1:1), Lamb of God (John 1:29), Bread of Life (John 6:35), Lord of lords and King of kings (Revelation 17:14)?

He got it by being extremely
obedient.

We have already discussed obedience, but there is another aspect of it in connection with the Name that I want to touch on next.

Obedience and Relationship

Let this same attitude and purpose and [humble] mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus: [Let Him be your example in humility:]

Who, although
being essentially one with God
and in the form of God [possessing the fullness of the attributes which make God God], did not think this equality with God was a thing to be eagerly grasped or retained,

But stripped Himself [of all privileges and rightful dignity], so as to assume the guise of a servant (slave), in that He became like men and was born a human being.

Philippians 2:5-7

In this passage we see that before Jesus’ act of obedience (described in Philippians 2:8-11 at the beginning of this chapter), He had a pre-existing and ongoing relationship with the Father.

If using the Name of Jesus is going to produce powerful results in our life, we must first have a relationship with Him, just as He had with the Father in heaven.

Having a relationship with someone comes from spending time with that person. To have a close relationship with the Lord we must have a regular time that we spend with Him in fellowship. That simply means talking to Him daily, reading His Word regularly and letting Him get involved in our life.

It is not possible to have a true relationship with Him without commitment—the same kind of commitment that is made in a marriage.

To Use the Name, We Must Be Married!

He who has the bride is the bridegroom….

John 3:29

In the Bible, Jesus presented Himself as a bridegroom and the church as His bride. In order to have a bridegroom and a bride, there must be a wedding, a marriage. That marriage produces a lasting personal relationship between the bride and groom.

When Dave Meyer and I were married, I took his name. I became Mrs. Dave Meyer. Now I have all the authority that the name “Dave Meyer” represents.

Before we were married, I didn't have anything. He had a new car. The minute we became husband and wife, that car became mine.

Before we were married, I had debts. The minute we were married, those debts became Dave's.

All that we had individually became ours corporately because we were in marital relationship one with the other.

That was not the case when we were just dating. I did not get the name “Dave Meyer” or anything that name represents until we were married.

That is the way it is with Jesus; we don't get His Name and all the power it confers until we are “married” to Him.

The problem is that too many Christians just want to “date” Jesus. They want to live their own lives their own way, independently. They don't want to give Him their all. They want to with-hold some areas of their life. They don't want to make a complete commitment.

Yet when they get into trouble or they have a disaster, it's:

Oh, Jesus, I'm in trouble! Let's have a date!

Oh, Jesus, I need some money! Let's have a date!

Oh, Jesus, I'm sick! Let's have a date!

They want to be able to call upon that Name to provide the money or healing or deliverance or whatever they need. But they don't want to belong to Him totally and all the time.

Jesus is not interested in just having a “date” with us occasionally. He wants a permanent relationship with us. He wants to put a ring of relationship on our finger and “marry” us. He wants us to receive Him as our “Husband,” as our one and only Lord and Master. (See Isaiah 54:5.)

The trouble is, too often we are not willing to make that kind of commitment. We want to use the Name, but we must realize that
we don't get to use the Name until we get married.

I didn't get to use the name of my husband until I married him. As long as we were just dating, I couldn't sign his name and get money out of his bank account. But the moment we were married, I could draw upon everything he had in the bank because whatever he had was mine—and vice versa.

Jesus told me a long time ago (not audibly, but in my heart), “If you give Me everything you have, I will give you everything I have. Everything that is Mine will be at your disposal. But you have to belong to Me.”

In other words, He wants us to turn all of our attention toward Him, to go after Him full force, to give Him our all.

Why?

His power comes only from relationship with Him, from belonging to Him.

Belonging Brings Power

But as many as did receive and welcome Him, He gave the authority (power, privilege, right) to become the children of God, that is, to those who believe in (adhere to, trust in, and rely on) His name.

John 1:12

I have a sense in my life, and it grows all the time, that I belong to God.

What do I mean?

I am not my own. I can't just go through life doing what I want to do, acting any way I want to, spending money on anything I want to, treating people any way I want to.