Calling on the Lord

Last week, I talked about how the Lord is tasteable. But this is still extremely abstract. How can we taste the Lord (someone spiritual) with our mouth (something very physical)? It turns out that one of the easiest ways to taste the Lord is to just call out his name. (His name is “JESUS!” in case you were wondering). This can be seen in some of my favorite verses (which we saw last week as well):

Romans 10:12-13 …the same Lord is Lord of all and rich to all who call upon Him; For “whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

A footnote in my version of the Bible explains what the verb “call” means more clearly:

The Greek word for call on is composed of on and call (by name); thus, it is to call out audibly, even loudly, as Stephen did. (see the original text here).

So what does it mean to call on the Lord? It means to call out his name! JESUS!

Yeah. I know it sounds a bit weird, but in practice it works. The Lord Jesus is actually a person (even though he no longer has a physical presence on the Earth). So when we call on his name, he will actually come to us. It is the same as when I share an apartment with someone named Mary (neither of my roommates are named Mary, but theoretically, they could be). If I were to yell “MARY!!!!” really loudly, she would come running. At least if she were an ideal roommate. And the Lord Jesus is an ideal Lord. So if we yell “JESUS!!!!” really loudly, he comes running to us and we have a real sense of his presence. But since the Lord’s name is used so often in vain, if we were to scream “Jesus” so loudly, the neighbors on the other sides of the walls would probably think that we were really mad at something, so it is often good to add the prefix “Lord” to his name (since it is his hard earned title after all). So we can yell “LORD JESUS!!!” or even add an “Oh” to the front of it and yell “OH LORD JESUS!” as loud as we can so that the Lord, and the neighbors know that we are really trying to taste the Lord Jesus and not trying to curse when our computer breaks down.

Of course, it still probably seems crazy. But the Lord is such a “delicious” person (ok. That sounds weird too. But just trust me. He is amazing), that it is actually worth the potential embarrassment. And if you are lucky, you live in a house with really thick walls, and your neighbors aren’t there anyway, so it shouldn’t be a problem. It doesn’t actually have to be that loud anyway. It can be a whisper or even an internal prayer. But it does feel really good to yell “LORD JESUS!” at the top of your lungs. The feeling you get is definitely different than the one you get when trying to yell “ABRAHAM LINCOLN!” (because Abraham Lincoln is definitely dead and can’t come to your call).

Sometimes you have to call one the name of the Lord many times to really get the feeling because each time that you do, the sense you have gets deeper and deeper. I personally believe that it is impossible to call on the name of the Lord for two minutes and be the same person.

And is calling on the Lord Biblical? Yes.

People have been calling on the name of the Lord since the third generation of mankind:

Genesis 4:26 And to Seth also a son was born, and he called his name Enosh. At that time men began to call upon the name of Jehovah.

Saul, when persecuting the Christians after the death of the Lord, was given authority to bind all those who called upon the name of the Lord because that was a sign that they were Christians:

Acts 9:14 And here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who call upon Your name.

And there are a ton of other verses as well! If you are interested in me adding more to this post, just drop me a line and I will be more than willing to.

Have you ever wondered if God really created the universe? Check back next week to see if I can help you answer your questions.