Day 19: Blessed is He who Comes in the Name of the Lord

“Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.”

This last sentence of today’s reading caught me unaware. It was not that I did not know it was coming; it was because of its wonderful reminder of an action that I need to have in my life everyday. In this passage just before this sentence is the statement from Jesus, which says, “You will not see me until you say, blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.” Now, I don’t believe that we can just say things and they happen, what I believe is that through a sustained disciplined life we practice the things that will produce in us the evidence of who Christ is in us. Let me un-pack that.

Three things are needed in this life to fully see and understand Jesus.

1. Speaking. This is coming to a place in my life where I acknowledge that Jesus is Lord and Savior. I place my trust in that which I cannot prove and even cause to happen believing that Jesus has done for me that which needs to happen in order for my salvation. I will not see Jesus until I say, “blessed is He.”
2. Practice. The Christian life is a sustainable life, dependent upon continual practice of spiritual disciplines. I make a statement of what I believe by the way I do things. When my actions are the result of disciplines, my practice proclaims who Jesus is in me.
3. Looking. I think one of the problems I have in seeing Jesus is that many times I am not even looking for Him. I am looking for my own way or the way that is easy. Jesus in this passage is calling us to come back to Him. This lament found here is that Jesus desires to gather us together, into His arms, but we would not. Why? Because we were not even looking.