Forty Names of Jesus - Day 1
As some of you may know, my wife Jennifer has put together an e-book of forty devotionals for families with children. I posted about it earlier on the blog to announce the book launch.
A sample of five days will be posted to give everyone a chance to try before they buy. Additionally, there will be some free and discounted days in the mix.
You'll find the first entry below, and a link to the second day at the end.
1. Jesus
Matthew 1:21
She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.
Optional – Luke 2:21, Matthew 1:18-25.
Soon it will be springtime, and we will celebrate Easter. As we get close to Easter, each day we are going to spend some time thinking about who the Bible says Jesus is, and what we should know about him, and why we should worship and love him.
Easter, or Resurrection Day, is a very important day because we celebrate how Jesus died and rose again! That’s the best news ever, in all of history, and the best news we can ever share with other people. But something else happened first – something called the Incarnation. That word means Jesus was born as a baby, and lived as a man, for about 33 years before he died. We hear about this most often at Christmas. But before we get into all the names of Jesus – names the Bible uses in the Old Testament and in the New Testament, and what those names teach us about him – we’re going to find out how he got the name everybody called him, every day. His whole life, from the time he was a baby, and a child like you, to a grown-up adult like me, his family and friends and anybody talking to him called him “Jesus.”
Now, you know Jesus was special from the time he was born – you know how it happened with angels in the sky, and shepherds, and wise men. But actually it begins before then. He was given a special name before he was even born! It was unusual because an angel told Joseph in a dream that Mary, his promised wife, was going to have a baby, and the baby’s name was to be JESUS. The angel gave Joseph God’s message to call the baby Jesus because the name meant something. The words and sounds that the name Jesus comes from mean “God saves.” The angel told Joseph that that was Jesus’s name, because for him, it meant, “He will save his people from their sins.” So while Jesus’s resurrection is the biggest news, and the most important thing to remember, the importance started a long time before that. Even before he was born, Jesus had a name that told what he would do when he grew up. He would save his people from their sin. And he does! Let’s pray.
Key idea: Saves his people from their sins
To read day two, click here.
