Many believers (and unbelievers alike) have asked themselves, How can one live the Christian life? How can a man pray unceasingly? How can a human being be different and express God? Humanly, this is impossible. But because all the genuine believers in Christ have God’s divine life in them, it is possible.
The way to live the Christian life is by praying unceasingly. The best way to do this is to call on the name of the Lord. This is our spiritual breathing: we breathe ourselves out, and we breathe God in by calling on His name!
Whenever we open to the Lord from within and we call on His name, O Lord Jesus!, on the one hand we breathe out our sins, our sorrows, our problems, our wickedness, and anything negative in us, and on the other hand we breathe the riches of Christ into us.
Everything that God is to us is in His name – Lord Jesus. When we call His name, His peace is ours. When we call, Lord Jesus!, we have joy, peace, life, comfort, holiness, sanctification, redemption, and everything we need. It’s almost as if God gave us a checkbook with His signature on all the checks, and we just need to “write check after check” by calling on the Lord’s name, and we have the reality of all He is!
This is the way to live the Christian life, the way to live by Christ, and the way to spiritually breathe – calling on the name of the Lord Jesus! O, Loooooorddd Jeeeesuuuuuuus!
Calling on the Name of the Lord – He is the Great I AM!
The name of the Lord Jesus is not a common name, like yours or mine. In the Old Testament, when God called Moses, He told him, “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, I AM has sent me to you.” (Exo. 3:14-15). “God” is the name used when He created all things, but “Jehovah” is the name of God in His intimate relationship with man.
He is the I AM – He is ever-existing and self-existing (Lev. 19:3-4, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 25, 28, 30-32, 34, 36-37). “I AM” is an unfinished statement, which means God is all that we need. He is our holiness, our power, our love, our high tower, our way, our light, our food, our air, and everything we need – when we call on His name!
In the New Testament, Jehovah is Jesus Christ – see John 8:24. Jesus Christ is Jehovah our Savior, the Great I AM! What is He to us? He is the bread of life (John 6:48), the light of life (John 8:12), the resurrection and the life (John 11:25), the way, the reality, and the life (John 14:6), the vine tree – the tree of life (John 15:1), the Shepherd, the Advocate, the High Priest, and everything we need!
As frail and mortal men, we can call on the name of the Lord and live not by ourselves but by Him, the eternal, ever-existing, and rich One! Christ has come to us as the I AM – there is no one like Him! He is the reality of all the positive things in the universe, and we can never exhaust what He is. Every time we call on the Lord’s name, we get freshly saved and we enjoy in a fresh way His inexhaustible riches.
In His name we have everything! We can hide in His name, we can receive more divine life by calling on His name, and we can be saved out of ourselves and into God Himself by simply calling, O Lord Jesus Christ! God in Christ really became everything for our sake, and He wants us to enjoy Him by calling on His name! We need to empty ourselves and be filled with God’s riches by calling on the name of the Lord.
Never Stop Breathing Spiritually – Never Graduate from Calling on the Lord!
photo inspired from: Just Breathe – Just Breathe God in: O, Lord Jesus!
There will never be any time in our growth in Christ that we do not need to call on the name of the Lord. No matter how mature we are in Christ, we still need to call on His name, because our calling on the Lord is our spiritual breathing.
As the doctor says: as long as you breathe, you’re alive – so in our spiritual life, as long as we breathe spiritually by calling on the name of the Lord, we are alive spiritually. Never hold your breath – never stop calling on the name of the Lord! Never “graduate” from breathing – never stop from calling on the Lord!
When we call on the name of the Lord, we breathe out all the negative things in us (things that we know are in us and things we have no idea about) and we breathe in all that Christ is to us.
As A. B. Simpson said in his hymn, we are breathing out our sorrow, our life of self and sin, our own life, our strength and weakness, our sinful nature, our sickness, our longings, and every doubt and fear. Also, we are breathing in God, His fullness, His life divine, His cleansing, His joy and comfort, His peace and rest, His healing, His answers, and all that He is.
We need to breathe in the Lord every moment by praying unceasingly, and the simplest and easiest way to pray is to simply call on the name of the Lord! Whisper His name, call His name inwardly, muse on the Words in the Bible and call on His name, call His name audibly, cry out His name – there are so many ways to call His name!
When we feel we are about to “get mad” and lose our temper, we shouldn’t necessarily try to suppress it – simply call on the name of the Lord and tell Him, O Lord Jesus, I feel I’m about to lose my temper! O Lord Jesus! When you’re about to do something you know it’s unpleasing to the Lord, or when you’re about to fall into the besetting sin from which you can’t be released, simply call on the Lord’s name,
Lord Jesus, I need You! Lord Jesus, be with me! Lord Jesus, I desperately need You right now! I can’t stop doing this particular thing. O Lord Jesus, I love You! O, Lord Jesus!
By calling on the name of the Lord in this way, He will have a way to live in you. He can do it in you. He can save you from your temper. He can live the Christian life in you. He can express God in you. Don’t stop breathing!
Breathe In the Spirit by Calling on the Lord’s Name!
Did we receive the Spirit out of the works of law, or out of the hearing of faith (Gal. 3:2, 5)? It is out of the hearing of faith! This means that, as soon as the Lord touches us with something in His Word or even in this blog post, we can open to Him and call on His name so that we may receive more of the Spirit!
A proper Christian life is a life of receiving the Spirit continually by exercising our spirit to call upon the name of the Lord (John 20:22; Rom. 10:12-13). Even from the lowest pit, as Jeremiah’s experience was, we can cry out and breathe the Lord in as the Spirit (see Lam. 3:55-56). The Lord is now the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom (2 Cor. 3:16-17).
So why not call on the Lord’s name and receive the Spirit now? When we call on Him, we get His Person, which is the Spirit! He mingles Himself with us and constitutes us inwardly with God!
I would even say this: do a test – just take 5 minutes out of your busy day and call on the name of the Lord. Just call on His name for at least 5 minutes. You will be so refreshed, emptied of yourself, and filled with the Spirit. I tried it a few times (both in quiet places and as I was walking to work) – and I really enjoyed it! Hallelujah, we can breathe God as the Spirit in by calling on the name of the Lord!
Oh Lord Jesus, keep us calling on Your name no matter where we are and what we do. Make us the real Christians, those who need Christ and love Christ so much that they can’t help calling on His name. Lord Jesus, we need You. We want to breathe out our frustrations and sorrows so that we may be filled with Your peace and joy. Lord, keep us breathing You in. Keep us praying unceasingly by calling on Your name. You are the great I AM – You are all we need. Thank You for Your name! O, Lord Jesus!
References and Further Reading
- Inspiration (besides the Word of God and my Christian experience): bro. Dick Taylor’s speaking in this message and portions from, The Collected Works of Watchman Nee (vol. 9, pp. 263-274), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on the Crystallization Study of Genesis (1), week / msg 10, Abel, Enosh, and Enoch.
- Further reading on this topic:
# The purpose of calling on the name of the Lord (via, callingonthelord.org).
# Calling “Oh Lord Jesus!” (Facebook page)
# Tracing the calling on the name of the Lord throughout the Bible (Acts 2:21, footnote 1 in the Recovery Version).
# Discovering the Indwelling Christ as the Spirit by Calling on Him (via holdingtotruth.com).
# We can be saved and we enjoy the Lord as a feast by calling on His name (via achristianoncampus.wordpress.com). - Hymns on this topic:
# Gracious Lord, Thy name “I AM” is, / Precious name, how rich and full ‘tis, / All-inclusive, faithful too ‘tis- / All we need, Thou art!
# O Lord, breathe Thy Spirit on me, / Teach me how to breathe Thee in; / Help me pour into Thy bosom / All my life of self and sin. (by A. B. Simpson)
# Therefore with joy shall ye draw water / Out of the wells of salvation. / And in that day shall ye say, / Praise the Lord! / Call upon His name, / Declare His doings among the people, / Make mention that His name is exalted. / Cry out and shout, thou inhabitant of Zion: / For great is the Holy One of Israel in the midst of thee.
