Therefore God highly exalted Him and gave Him the name which is above every name, …

— Philippians 2:9

When the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary, he told specifically what the child to come was to be named: “you will … call his name JESUS” (Luke 1:31). The angel was but a messenger of God, who Himself chose the name of His one and only Son.

His name was Jesus. But why Jesus? Of course, to understand that, we would have to understand that Jesus is an English word. The New Testament and the Old Testament were not written originally in English, but in Hebrew and Greek, respectively. We get the name from the Greek.

His name was Jehoshua, or as we would say it, Joshua, meaning savior. That was the name of a great champion, a great hero of the Old Testament Hebrew people. It was the name of the great conqueror, the captain of the Lord’s hosts, who led the people of God into the promised land.

And so our Savior will lead us into the promised land.

At the name of Jesus, sorrow and sadness flees. At the name of Jesus, sinners are cleansed and converted. At the name of Jesus, saints are gladdened and strengthened. At the name of Jesus, evil is banished and fear must flee. At the name of Jesus, the wounded are made whole.

Question to ponder:
Can you think of anything else that the name of Jesus accomplishes?

… the darkness is passing away, and the true light is already shining.

— 1 John 2:8

Jesus did not say “I am one of many lights of the world;” He did not even say, “I am the light of the Jews;” or yet, “I am the light of the Gentiles;” nor did He declare “I bring unto you light.” But rather, He said without apology, “I am the light of the world.” What a tremendous and bold statement.

The occasion that brought it forth was the Feast of the Tabernacles. Jesus took every opportunity to use that which was about Him to illustrate and make clear His teaching. One of the purposes of this ceremony was to remind the Jewish people of the pillar of fire, which had gone before them throughout those desert wanderings. They had set up in the outer courtyard (the Court of Women) of the Temple two giant candelabra. Maimonides tells us that they were fifty cubits high, which is seventy-five feet. There, thousands of women carrying torches formed a procession into that court from Jerusalem and around this they enacted this pageant to remind them of the presence of God in that pillar of fire centuries before.

God’s presence is not only symbolized by light, He is the “Father of Lights,” and into our dark world comes Jesus who declares: “I am the light of the world” (John 8:12).

Question to ponder:
As the children of light, how do we walk in His light?

And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.

— Deuteronomy 6:5

Our gods today are usually what we regard as important, such as financial success or fame. What is it that is most important to your life? There are some people for whom their house is their god or even their car—all of their time, energy and labor centers around what they love best. There is nothing wrong with keeping a house, but when you make a house a god, there is something very wrong with that.

For some people their family is their god. Now families are wonderful. But I would not think of making my family my god. God has a way of throwing images and idols down on their faces in the dirt. That is why we must guard our hearts.

The gods of our age are materialism, self-love, hedonism, and all other “isms.” An idol is anything we set before us that is more important than God and anything we love more than Him.

Question to ponder:
Is there anything in your life that you love more than God?

Then in every city in Judah he made high places to make offerings to other gods. So he provoked the Lord God of his fathers.

— 2 Chronicles 28:25

The first of the Ten Commandments, “You shall have no other gods before Me” (Exodus 20:3), requires us to worship God exclusively. Christianity, like Judaism, is an exclusive religion. It is not pluralistic; it is not tolerant.

Certainly the Old Testament and New Testament writers were not tolerant of other gods. God Almighty is not tolerant of other gods. He says with absolute clarity: “You shall have no other gods before Me.” All of the other gods, said the apostle Paul, and all of their images are simply demons, and God would not have us to have fellowship with demons.

Even when people try to worship the true God through an idol, it becomes idolatry, as with the golden calf. Aaron declared, “Tomorrow will be a feast to the Lord.” So they rose up early on the next day, and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings. And the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play” (Exodus 32:5–6).

They were worshiping Jehovah through the calf; they weren’t worshiping the calf. And so the Bible makes it abundantly clear that idolatry is either the worshiping of images or pictures or statues—or the worship of the true God through or by means of images. Either one of them is equally idolatry.

Question to ponder:
Why has the Western world been largely free from direct idolatry?

Let all the earth fear the LORD; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him.

— Psalm 33:8

God in His sovereign care is able to make all things work together for our good as believers. We cannot look at any particular singular event and say, “How is this working for my good?” We may not know. It is not a singular event, but all things working together that God is using for our spiritual wellbeing.

Spurgeon tells about a man, who was captured for preaching the Gospel during the reign of Queen Mary. He was sentenced to be burned alive at the stake in London. When he heard the sentence, he said, “Well, never mind, for all things work together for good.”

People asked, “Well, how is that going to work together for your good?”

He replied, “I do not know, but I know that it will.”

On the way back to London, the guards treated him so roughly that they cast him down and broke his leg. Unsympathetically, they mocked him saying, “Well, tell us how this is going to work together for your good?”

He said, “I do not know, but I know that God will work it together for my good.”

His leg was splinted so he could continue the trip. They made it to London a day late because of the accident. Queen Mary had just died. Elizabeth was now on the throne and the man was pardoned.

Question to ponder:
If God is sovereign and good, then is anything He allows into the lives of His children truly and ultimately bad?

… let him labor, working with his hands things which are good, that he may have something to share with him who is in need.

— Ephesians 4:28

In the earliest days of the Pilgrims a type of communism was forced on them by The London Company, which financed their passage to the New World. (By the way, the Pilgrims were charged an interest of 45 percent interest, and they paid off every nickel.) This company required the Pilgrims to have a communal or socialistic government in which everything was to be brought into a common barn. Nobody owned any property. It would be from each according to his ability to each according to his need—long before Karl Marx wrote similar words.

The result: unhappy colonists and poor harvests. Gov. William Bradford wrote that the imposed socialism “was found to breed much confusion and discontent, and retard much employment which would have been to the general benefit and comfort.”

So he changed the system. Now it was each man for himself. A piece of ground was given to every family, and the increase was astonishing. Bradford wrote that “It made all hands very industrious, so that much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been by any means the Governor or any other could devise.” That led to thanksgiving celebrations filled with abundance—once free enterprise replaced communism.

Question to ponder:
Do you see any tendencies toward communism in our society today?

You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden.

— Matthew 5:14

Thanksgiving is an annual reminder of America’s Christian roots. It goes back to the Pilgrims, who gave thanks to God. Were they thankful for the abundance of their crops? No. There was no abundance. The average meal that winter consisted of five hard kernels of corn on the plate. Period. Just about 50 percent of all of the Pilgrims died in that first winter of 1621.

They had landed in early December of 1620, and it was the fall of 1621. Half of them are gone. There was virtually not a family left who had not lost a husband or a wife or a child. They had little food. Many were still sick. But they were men and women of the Book. They believed the Word of God.

There is nothing Americans cherish more than their freedom; and the origins of that freedom can be traced directly back to the Pilgrims. Religious freedom (the right of a people to own and read the Bible, to worship according to conscience, to form their own church); political freedom (the right of a people to frame their own constitution and form their own government); even economic freedom (the right to own one’s own property and keep the fruit of one’s labors)—all these freedoms in America began with the Pilgrims.

Question to ponder:
Can you make a list today of 100 things you are thankful to God for?

With their silver and gold, they made idols, so that they will be cut off.

— Hosea 8:4

There are more denunciations of idolatry than any other sin in the Bible. Though this sin runs deep in the human psyche, and there is a great tendency to idolatry in the human heart, and though this dark stream seems to flow dangerously in the cold subterranean caverns of the fallen soul, it is something that has been followed by a continual stream of condemnation and denunciation by poets and prophets, by preachers and apostles, down through the centuries.

Not only did they worship idols in Moses’ day, but we read further on that Jeroboam doubled the sin by creating a golden calf in Dan and another in Bethel for the people to worship. All over Israel there arose on the high places—on every hill, in every clump of trees—an altar so people could rush up the hills and worship their gods and bring down upon themselves the increasing wrath of almighty God until at length the patience of God was exhausted.

The hordes of Babylon under Nebuchadnezzar swept across the plains of Israel, broke down the walls of Jerusalem, and led the people off into captivity. It was in that burning furnace of slavery in Babylon that the last dredges of idolatry were largely burned away.

Question to ponder:
John Calvin said our hearts are idol-making factories. Why is that?

… for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.

— Psalm 23:4

Some people are amazed to find out that the great and the mighty of the world are often in need of comfort and consolation. Handel began his Messiah with the words “Comfort ye, comfort ye my people” because this verse of Scripture was dear to his heart. Luther pondered Isaiah 40 over and over again when he was in prison at the castle in Wartburg. Oliver Cromwell also went to it for help in time of storm. The great Daniel Webster was mighty in debate, and yet his heart was often grieved, and he read this passage again and again. Tennyson called it one of the five great classics in the Old Testament record.

We all need comfort. High and low, prince and pauper, none of us can live life to the full without this solace from Him who is the God of all comfort (2 Corinthians 1:3).

One young seminarian was filled with vim and vigor. He was coming like Daniel to the judgment and was ready to let his flock have it. He told an elderly minister who replied, “But don’t forget to preach comfort. Remember that those people in the pews have heartaches and problems and fears. Always preach comfort.” Indeed, in this day how great is that need for comfort!

Question to ponder:
What Scripture do you read when you need comfort?

He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.

— Psalm 91:1

Brother Lawrence, who wrote the famous little booklet, The Practice of the Presence of God, made that marvelous discovery to such a degree that he became the wonder of Europe. Kings and princes, cardinals and popes visited him to learn his secret. Was he a philosopher? A count? A theologian? No, he was a dishwasher. That’s right. A dishwasher and a waiter.

Kings visited him because his reputation had spread all over the world. A reputation for what? For peace—for an almost miraculous serenity in the midst of the clamoring of the people who were crying for his services and complaining about this and that and the other. In spite of all of the demands on him, he seemed to float through life in a bubble of peace.

In his marvelous booklet, Brother Lawrence tells how through much trial, effort, and labor, he learned how to stay his mind upon God. Then, when he was turned away from whatever might demand his immediate attention, his mind automatically seemed to turn to its resting place and his thoughts to God. His mind was stayed on God, and God kept him in perfect peace.

Question to ponder:
How can we practice God’s presence?