How many different names there are! Bill, Tommy, Francis, Walter, Helen, and — your own! Sometimes when I meet a little boy I like to try to guess his name, and oh what a time I do have. Let me tell you about a boy whose name was Fred. He wasn’t very big but he had learned to write his name, and he liked to write it wherever he could find space.
One day he was walking home from school. The ground was covered with a beautiful blanket of pure white snow. Just like a big sheet of paper, thought Fred; I must write my name here. Of course he didn’t use a pencil, but just a straight stick. Carefully he traced out the big letters beside the path “FRED.”
Then he stepped back to look at it. All the way home, he kept thinking of those fine big letters, and as soon as he stepped in the house he ran up to his mother and told her all about it. “Do come back with me and have a look at it,” he begged. But mother was very busy, as most mothers are, and just couldn’t go.
The very next day Mother had to go to the store, so she walked along the path with Freddie until they came to the very spot — but the name was gone! Yes, the snow had melted a bit in the bright sunshine, and there was no sign of those fine big letters any more. Freddie was pretty unhappy about it all, but it made his mother think a bit, and she said, “Freddie, when you get home from school tonight, I want to talk to you about that name that disappeared.”
That same evening, Freddie sat by his mother and asked for the story of the name that disappeared.
Mother looked very thoughtful and then began to tell her boy about those whose names were written in the earth. She read to him Jeremiah 17:1313O Lord, the hope of Israel, all that forsake thee shall be ashamed, and they that depart from me shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living waters. (Jeremiah 17:13) in which we were told of those who had forsaken God, and their names were to be written in the earth. When the Lord Jesus was here, He told His disciples not to rejoice at the great things they had been doing, but to rejoice because their names were written in heaven.
The Bible tells us that the earth is going to be burned up, so it won’t do us any good to have our names written down here. She told Freddie that the only way we could have our names written in heaven where they will never fade away, was to accept the Lord Jesus as our Saviour.
I just cannot tell you how very important this is, for it means more than any other question you ever thought about. It is God who writes these names. He writes the name of any boy or girl who believes in His dear Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Do come to Him right now and take Him as your own Saviour, and then you will be able to rejoice in knowing that your name is written forever in heaven.
ML 01/01/1956