I have a nice notebook with Bible verses and the term Generic God sort of popped into my mind when it asks if we often refer to Jesus in generic term. G.G. I think I am guilty of using the G.G. for many years because of some constraints :
1) I feel I am not worthy to proclaim His Name and by acknowledging I believe in God is less of a shame that I may bring to Jesus’s name as almost everyone knows who is God but not Jesus. Jesus is often the misunderstood guy.
2) I was afraid people hate the name Jesus and they will reject my friendship if I use it too much. Sometimes, the mere mention of Jesus grates on people’s nerves and conscience.
3) I haven’t develop that intimacy with Jesus the person and hence, not able to utter the name. For example, let’s say you have a teacher (and Jesus is our teacher) and before you know the person well, you always refer as ‘teacher’ and not by the name.
(a pic of the notebook and the notes I jotted down this morning)
Whatever it is, I certainly did not feel ashamed of Jesus’ name. Having said this, I had been accused by several parties that my lack of ‘disclosure’ that I am a Catholic Christian is because I am ashamed of my God. One even dedicate a Bible verse to remind me what great sin I had committed by quoting the words from Jesus that if we are ashamed of Him, He is ashamed of me too. Now, many years later in my journey as a Christian, I can now see the reasons why I was initially reluctant to declare openly that I am a Christian. It is because I was afraid that Jesus the Lord, God the Father and the Holy Spirit, the all awesome Holy Trinity will be ashamed of me as that ’sesat’ (lost) miniscule follower.
Now, it comes to the name dropping part. I asked for the permission from someone to drop his name with a few people that I am going to approach. I know I will get better welcome if I have some good name to back me up. Otherwise, I am no one but a random busybody. Using a name of the person those people whom I am approaching knows, they will immediately, “Aha……… so & so told you to see/talk/discuss with me? Good, good, come, come.”
And this is one question I wish to ask my fellow Christian brothers and sisters….Are you name dropping? I don’t mean some Datuk or YBs or some big bloggers’ names but Jesus our Lord. Have you crossed the hurdle I mentioned in point 1 to point 3? Do get over them and proudly acknowledge our Lord Jesus Christ as our Big Boss. We are lucky to have a God that has a name and a personality. A cool guy too. So, what’s holding you back? Jesus is never ashamed of us, no matter how sesat or how stupid we are. After all, I was just reminded that Jesus’s first batch of apostles are nobodies but a bunch of smelly fishermen, troublemaker (Simon) and conman (tax collector, i.e. Matthew) . Don’t let any ‘well-intentioned’ parties intimidate you that we have to be saints.
If you have the same hang-ups like what I mentioned earlier, I hope the Lord Jesus will empower us with more guts, more balls (hahaha) and more oomph to walk tall. Because I am going to name dropping and should the name Jesus grates on their nerves, so be it. I will just take that as the filter.
In my reflection this morning, I found these verses to charge me up for the day :
Mattius 10:7
Pergilah dan khabarkanlah bahawa tidak lama lagi Allah akan memerintah. Sembuhkanlah orang sakit (and other conditions)…….Kamu sudah menerima kuasa ini dengan percuma, maka lakukanlah semua tanpa bayaran.
Then again, never give an overdose of Jesus or we can be a pain to others too. But the Lord has assured us that He will empower us how to talk, when to talk and what to say.
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