I was six years old when Billy Graham first came to Australia in that summer of 1959 when he travelled throughout the country preaching the Gospel (the Gospel literally means Good News). It was on a subsequent visit when he preached at the Myer Music Bowl in front of thousands, that I heard that famous call. The call was for those who wanted to accept Christ as their own personal saviour to rise from their seat and come down to the front. In between those two visits at the age of nine, I found myself in a much smaller venue somewhere in Melbourne sitting with just a handful of people but nevertheless listening to a man preach the same Gospel message with the same fervour and conviction. At the end of his address he asked the same question and for the same response. I knew that what I heard preached that night was the truth and that I wanted God’s salvation – not just wanted it but needed it. My heart was pounding, and I knew God was speaking to me and that I had to respond. It was as if God himself was calling me by name. It was that personal. Now although I didn’t hear an audible voice saying “Peter I am calling you”, I have subsequently come to understand that this was exactly what He was doing. It was as if something deep was calling what was deep within me. He was calling my name and something within me remembered even at the age of nine. Did you Know God can be that personal?
As I sit writing this article, I am looking at a small rectangular clay sculpture of a man, a woman, a boy and a girl. They are all standing. The woman and the children are embraced in the arms of the man. What is unusual about this sculpture is their faces – they have no features, no eyes, no ears, no mouths or noses. In a sense I guess they represent every family, every man, every woman, every boy and every girl. Is that how you think God sees you? As a human but indistinguishable from the person that sits next to you on the train every day, or the person you work with, or go to school with or the person on the other side of the MCG high up in the Southern stand, or for that matter, from any other person on this planet of more than six billion?
Well he doesn’t see you like that at all. Did you know that He knows your name? Much more than that, He named you before creation, not just your creation but before the creation of the heavens and the earth. It starts to blow your mind doesn’t it! The Psalmist says it so eloquently “For you formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb….My frame was not hidden from You when I was made in secret and skilfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them”. Are you starting to see how personal God is? Did you read the part about a book where all of this was recorded? It’s called the book of life and your name was written in it before the creation of the world. Now you might think that’s great that my name was written in the book of life, and indeed it was. But, will it stay there or has it already begun to fade away. The answer is entirely up to you!
If you will respond to the Gospel in your generation then you too can remember and know your name. The name is the name that the ‘Father of Lights’ named you. This name represents the complete substance of who you were to be, and the complete expression and freedom of you.
As you continue to respond to his Gospel, your name will not be blotted out.
It doesn’t get more personal than that.
Peter Bienvenu
