What's in a name?

As most of you know, I am a reader. I'm always up for reading suggestions--so give 'em to me! I was visiting the website for Voice of the Martyrs and saw a promotion for a free copy of the founder's autobiography, so naturally, I filled out the information to receive the book: Tortured for Christ. The founder and author's name is Richard Wurmbrand. I plan on the next few postings to be in regards to this book, and today I would like to share with a very precious story about a woman he met on the streets of Communist Russia.

First, let me paint a bit of a picture. This was a very dark time for Christians in Russia. Every citizen of Russia had been conditioned and taught to believe in no God and to think that the only thing that was good or was the standard of good was Communism. Can you imagine an entire country with no God? Can you imagine the bleakness...the despair of the peoples' souls? Though an entire system was in place to wash every hint of God out of the hearts and minds of the people, God abounded. Isn't that just like our God? He does not forsake his own. He will bring his people to himself. He is greater and more sovereign than any kingdom or government. He rules and reigns. Richard Wurmbrand was working with the Underground Church in Russia at the time and was secretly distributing Bibles and sharing the gospel with people as God would open doors. The story he tells of a woman he randomly encountered on the street brought tears to my eyes and inclined my memory to think on something in my own life that happened just a few years ago.

Wurmbrand was walking down the street one day when he felt the Holy Spirit urging him to ask a lady he saw if she knew Christ. Not knowing what this woman would say, he trusted the Holy Spirit and did this very thing. Immediately after he asked the woman about Christ she said "I love Christ!" and she began to hug and kiss him out of joy. Wurmbrand said that under so much oppression that people were starving for the gospel. They didn't know that's what they were starving for until they were filled with it. After the scene was over she returned with him to his home where he and his wife, Sabina, talked with her more about Jesus. Richard and his wife came to realize that she had no idea who Christ was, but she loved the name. She loved the name of Jesus Christ. She told the story of her grandmother and that she had had a picture of Christ that she remembered as a child, and that her grandmother prayed to this Christ and told her that He was the only good and the only picture of beauty. This made an impression on the woman from an early age, and despite the lifelong mantra of the Communist regime, she recalled this Christ being the only true Good. It never left her.

That name.

Christ.

She loved him before she knew him.

As Richard and his wife revealed the gospel to her and just who Christ was, she received it with joy. Now she had evidence and reason to love this Christ, whom she only knew by name for many years, but loved the name nonetheless.

What came to the front of my memory was the first time I heard about Jesus Christ. I mean, really heard about Christ. I knew the name, but I did not love it before then. After God revealed himself to me through some very special people, I began to love the name of Christ. It meant so much to me. He was the only one who could have redeemed me from the wretched state of being in which I existed. As I grew in the Lord, I began to treasure him more and more. And now, I, like the woman on the street in Russia, love the name of Christ. Something else that also happens when you begin to love the name of the Lord is you become overjoyed when you hear someone else speaking it. It thrills me to hear people in a restaurant or in a grocery store talking about my Jesus. The love of Christ is unifying. I may not have anything in common carnally with the 75 year old man in the check out line, but when I overhear him talking about our Lord with love and adoration and in praise, I can't help but be washed with joy. He and I both know and love Christ...we love to speak his name.

Just as Richard Wurmbrand encountered this woman who became joyful at the name of Christ, so too should we.