"Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

Jesus tells believers that as exciting as gifts or power may be, we should rejoice in our salvation. That our names are written in heaven. That God inscribed our names in heaven in eternity past, long before the dawn of creation, before the cherubim uttered their first cry of “Holy”.

Jesus told the disciples rejoice that your names, your individual names, are written in heaven. God didn’t choose a nameless mass of people, but he chose individuals, by name.

God hasn’t chosen to save a huge crowd he doesn’t know personally. It’s not like God says OK, everybody whose last names begin with A thru L may now come in. God chose and knows individually.

Is this too hard for God? Jesus said that not a single sparrow falls to the ground apart from our Father. That every single hair on each one of our heads is numbered.

In Isaiah 40, God tells us that he brings out each individual star in heaven and calls each one by name and doesn’t lose track of a single one:

Think about it. God has named every individual star that exists. Scientists have estimated that there are hundreds of billions of galaxies, each one composed of hundreds of billions of stars. And there is not a single star that God has not named and does not remember.

God is intimately aware of each and every one of his children:

God knows you individually, intimately. He discerns your thoughts from afar and knows every word you’ll ever say before the words ever reach your tongue.

Every individual star. Every individual hair on our heads. Every sparrow. Every thought.

God wrote every individual believer’s name in heaven before the universe existed. If you are a believer in Jesus Christ, rejoice in God today for choosing you and writing your name – your name - in heaven.