Dearly beloved in Christ,

Greetings to all of you in the precious name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. God has enabled us to enter a new year. Let us give thanks to the Lord for all His manifold blessings which have been bestowed upon us in the last year. Every day is an opportunity to live with God and to glorify God. As we have entered a new year, let us think How we can please God with our lives. This is the New Year gift that we can give to God.

Luke 10:20 says, “Do not rejoice in this that the evil spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that Your Names are written in Heaven.” Jesus says that we have to make our names good (be righteous) before the Lord. We need to make all the efforts so that God writes our names in Heaven. In this earthly life, we know how to make our names famous. But do we know how to make our name a glorious one in Heaven? 

Rev.21:27 says, “But nothing unclean will ever enter it (New Jerusalem), nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.”  We have to live in such a way that our name should be written in the Lamb’s book of life. Never make our name ugly before the Lord by doing detestable things. 

We call the Apostles and the Evangelists with the word, Saint. For example, St. Paul, St. Peter, St. Mathew etc. We have to relate our names with the word ‘Holy’. In the Holy Qurbana service, there is a prayer where we say:  Holy things for Holy People”. Don’t think that name is not merely a noun, but it has a connection with the verb. The angel told the Priest Zachariah that you have to name your child John and also said to Virgin Mary to name your Son as Jesus. God gave a new name to Jacob as Israel, Abram to Abraham, Sarai to Sarah. Hence, name is very important. Our name must have a Good Quality. If we live a qualitative life, that will be the quality of our name. 

Name is an identification. By saying a name, only that particular person or thing comes to our mind.  Therefore, a name proclaims the distinctive quality of that person or animal, birds, plants etc. 

Jesus said Rejoice that your names are written in Heaven. So, writing our names in Heaven is most important. That is the goal that we have to strive to achieve in this world. God told Abraham that “I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing (Gen.12:2)

Dearly beloved, in this New Year let us try to relate our Name with Heaven. Make our name a glorious one in Heaven and also become a blessing to this world. May God bless us all.

Yours in Christ,

Rev. Philip P. Mathew