I was reading 2 Samuel chapter 17 verse 17 where 2 names were mentioned of characters about whom I knew next to nothing.  Who were this Jonathan (not Saul’s son or mine either!) and Ahimaaz anyway?  Not major characters in this story of Absalom and his father David.  But their names are in the Bible!  Imagine if your name was in God’s Word?  Wow, talk about something to crow about!   Your name remembered–the greatest  honor indeed.  A few years back my wife and I drove east on one of our 7 cross-country driving  trips.  On this journey  I really wanted to see the building  and some of the people in the first church I ever served.  Immanuel Mennonite Brethren Church in Onida, South Dakota–where I filled in for but a summer in 1970 between my undergraduate work at the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago and graduate study at the Seminary at Princeton in New Jersey.  I had dreamed for quite awhile about this little church in a small town in rural South Dakota, and so wanted to go back and reconnect with just the most wonderful people who had to endure the most amateur of pastors hopefully they ever had.  I hoped beyond hope that they would remember me, and not the work for the Lord that I should have given them but in reality did very feebly at best!  When we pulled into town and drove to the church, we discovered that this lovely group of Christian people and their friendly, hospitable pastor and wife had a reception ready for us in the fellowship hall.  I guessed they must have remembered me.    We gathered around tables and reminisced for a couple hours until it became very obvious to me that none of these kind people had ever remembered me even in the slightest.  I had been their pastor!  For all of 3 months!  For me, I never forgot.  For them, a totally forgettable experience!  Gone…and totally forgotten! Humbling?  Yes, but probably for the best now that I reflect on what a great pastor I was for them!!  My name may not be in the Bible, I may be forgotten in South Dakota, but when we’re a child of God, He never forgets us.  Never, ever.  St. Paul writes in Philippians 4:3–“…my fellow workers, whose names are written in the Book of Life.”  And in the last book of the New Testament, in Revelation 3:5, “…I will never blot out his name from the Book of Life, but will acknowledge his name my Father and His angels.”  When we accept Jesus into our lives (and have you?),  we have our names written into God’s Book of Life.  That’s a living Bible…one that grows with each new name engraved within its pages.  With our names there, nothing can or ever will erase them.  We’re never forgotten, always acknowledged before God and  His angels.  Our precious names never blotted out of God’s Book of Life.  That’s right–He gives us life and that eternal.  And it’s His gift to us in His Son Jesus Christ.  So, remember–you and I in Christ are as secure as anyone or anything can ever be.  Isn’t that something!  To rejoice over…and over and over again!