Yearly Archives: 2012

Names of God: El-Elohe-Israel

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The name of God that we will look at today can be found in the book of beginnings…

Now Jacob came safely to the city of Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan,

when he came from Paddan-aram, and camped before the city. 

He bought the piece of land where he had pitched his tent

from the hand of the sons of Hamor, Shechem’s father,

for one hundred pieces of money. 

Then he erected there an altar and called it El-Elohe-Israel. 

Genesis 33:18-20

El-Elohe-Israel, this name of God means God, the God of Israel.

Now to understand the full power of this name of God, of this passage of Scripture, we have to go back and look at the context. We have to back and look at Israel. We have to go back and remember that Israel was first Jacob.

Jacob got in a good bit of trouble with his dad Isaac and his big brother Esau. He let his mother lead him into deceiving his father in order to receive the blessing of the firstborn. The sad thing about this was that Rebekah had been foretold by God when the twins were still in her womb that the older would serve the younger, but instead of waiting on God and trusting in His word, she decided to “help” God out… just like her mother-in-law Sarah did.

This blessing deception ended with Esau ready to literally kill Jacob. So their mother, once again comes up with scheme before her husband. She has Jacob sent off to live with her family under the guise that she has sent him in the hope that he would find a wife.

Now on the way, Jacob stops to sleep on a rock in Beersheba. We read in Genesis 28:10-21 how God comes and speaks to him in a dream. We read of “Jacob’s ladder.” We also read how Jacob responds to this dream. He acknowledges that this is indeed God speaking to him… but pay close attention to his words.

Then Jacob made a vow, saying,

“If God will be with me and will keep me on this journey that I take,

and will give me food to eat and garments to wear, 

and I return to my father’s house in safety,

then the LORD will be my God.

Genesis 28:20-21

Did you catch that?

Did you just see that Jacob has not made God his God. He is still just the God of his father Isaac and the God of his father Abraham… He is not the God of Jacob. There is no relationship between God and Jacob. We even see here that Jacob has taken a bargaining mindset with the Creator of the universe and the Sustainer of his very breath.

If God will do A,B, and C then Jacob will do God the honor of letting Him be his God…

Wow.

Yeh.

Unfortunately that mindset is still very much alive and well today in the hearts and minds of men and women everywhere.

Now over fourteen years later, after Jacob has found not one wife, but two, his beloved Rachel and her sister Leah, he has finally decided it is time to leave Uncle Laban and return home. We read in Genesis 31 how Laban’s other sons and servants are not to fond of Jacob… basically because God has been blessing him like crazy and he has gained a lot of livestock and made his Uncle quite prosperous. So Jacob goes to his wives and tells them it’s time to move on… in this conversation we see once again that even though Jacob acknowledges that God has been with him and that it is indeed God that has blessed him… he still does not claim God as his personal God.

“I see your father’s attitude, that it is not friendly toward me as formerly,

but the God of my father has been with me.

Genesis 31:5

Now after Jacob has separated from his Uncle Laban and is traveling toward home he gets word that his big brother Esau is coming after him with 400 men. This kind of shakes Jacob up a little bit. He gets a little scared. So he actually did what a lot of us do when we get scared… he prays.

Jacob said, “O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac,

O LORD, who said to me, ‘Return to your country

and to your relatives, and I will prosper you,’ 

I am unworthy of all the lovingkindness

and of all the faithfulness which You have shown to Your servant;

for with my staff only I crossed this Jordan, and now I have become two companies. 

 Deliver me, I pray, from the hand of my brother,

from the hand of Esau; for I fear him,

that he will come and attack me and the mothers with the children. 

For You said, ‘I will surely prosper you and make your descendants as the sand of the sea,

which is too great to be numbered.’”

Genesis 32:9-12

However, in his prayer we see that God is still the God of his fathers… not his God.

But we also see Jacob beginning to take a different attitude with the God of his fathers. This time he is not bargaining with God. He is on his face before him acknowledging that he has not deserved any of the kindness that God has shown him. He is begging God to keep His word even though he does not deserve for Him to keep it.

This is one of the awesome things about our God… the keeping of His word, His promises, is not dependent upon us. He keeps His word because He is God not because we are good.

Now later in this chapter Jacob sends his family across a stream and he stays behind… to just be alone. This is where God has to get all of us. He has to get us alone. Away from all distractions, excuses, false senses of security.

While alone a “man” shows up and begins wrestling with Jacob. Jacob holds tight and keeps fighting. He finally grabs hold of the man and says that he will not let him go until he blesses him. (Now I hope you have picked up that this was not just an ordinary man that showed up while Jacob was alone)

 Then Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. 

When he saw that he had not prevailed against him, he touched the socket of his thigh;

so the socket of Jacob’s thigh was dislocated while he wrestled with him. 

Then he said, “Let me go, for the dawn is breaking.”

But he said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” 

So he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” 

He said, “Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel;

for you have striven with God and with men and have prevailed.”

Genesis 32:24-28

Why on earth did this man want Jacob to say his name?

Jacob’s name meant deceiver… and that’s exactly who Jacob was. He was a deceiver. He was a con-artist. He was selfish and set on himself… Jacob had to admit who he was. The real A, B, and C that Jacob needed to address was..

A– admit that you are a sinner

B– believe upon the Word

C– call upon His name and confess him as LORD

Now God was getting somewhere with Jacob. He had made it to step A. He had admitted that he was indeed a deceiver, a sinner. There were no excuses, no justifying his actions, no bargaining games, he was admitting I am the problem. It was here that Jacob was beginning to see that God needed to be his God, not on the basis of earning his worship, but because God was worthy of his worship, and he (Jacob) just needed to be thankful that God was willing to accept his worship.

So now when we read El-Elohe-Israel we see the true impact of this confession of Jacob.  He was a man with a new name… and a personal God. A God that was no longer just his daddy’s God, no longer just his grandaddy’s God, but his God. God, the God of Israel.

Then he erected there an altar and called it El-Elohe-Israel.

Genesis 33:20

So the question is… is He your God?

For such is God,
Our God forever and ever;
He will guide us until death.

Psalm 48:14

Remember

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Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.  

Exodus 20:8

 

I began this devotion on the fourth commandment of our God and had to stop. As I read it I couldn’t get past the obvious fact that as a modern American church this is the one and only commandment we do not teach nor practice to observe as it is written. 

Six days you shall labor and do all your work,

but the seventh day is a sabbath of the LORD your God;

in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter,  

your male or your female servant or your cattle

or your sojourner who stays with you.

For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth,

the sea and all that is in them,

and rested on the seventh day;

therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and made it holy.

Exodus 20:9-11

As I was discussing this thought on the Sabbath commandment online with family and friends one of them pointed out that this is the one commandment that begins with God telling us to “remember” it. I would agree with her that there must be a very good reason for that beginning. This commandment also is the last commandment that addresses our relationship with God specifically.

Do we as the modern western church choose to ignore this commandment? There are Christian denominations that choose to observe worship on Saturday instead of Sunday, but is that the same as keeping the Sabbath holy?

What does Jesus have to say about the Sabbath?

In John 5:18 we read that “the Jews were seeking all the more to kill Him, because He was not only breaking the Sabbath, but also was calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God.” There is something terribly wrong with this picture.

The Jews are saying that Jesus is breaking the Sabbath. We know that this cannot be true, because Jesus kept the Law of God with perfection. We have to look at the context of this verse and find out why the Jews made this accusation. When we do this, we see they accuse Him of breaking the Sabbath because He healed a man and told the man to pick up His pallet and walk.

Now these Pharisees tell this newly healed man that he is breaking the Sabbath because it is not permissible for him to carry his pallet on the Sabbath. If we look back at Exodus 20:8-11, I do not read anywhere that God said, ‘thou shalt not carry thy pallet”.

So by this we can know that Jesus was not breaking God’s Sabbath, but the Jews sabbath. It was for this that they sought all the more to kill Him. A friend of mine pointed out that in this verse we do not see the Jews even consider giving praise to God for this man’s healing; they are only concerned that He is breaking their rules.

In the book of Matthew we read more of Jesus and the Sabbath. In Matthew 12:1-8 we read of the Pharisees accusing the disciples of Christ of breaking the Sabbath because they have picked grains of wheat to eat in their hunger. Jesus then points out to the Pharisees that the priests of the temple do themselves break the Sabbath as they continue to perform their temple work on that holy day. He then tells them that something greater than the temple is here. In Matthew 12:8 Jesus declares “For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”

Then in Matthew 12:9-14 Jesus goes on to heal another man on the Sabbath. The Pharisees then question Him about whether or not it is lawful to heal on the Sabbath. If I was Jesus I would probably be rolling my eyes at this point and shaking my head in disbelief at these men, but Jesus simply answers, “What man is there among you has a sheep, and if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will he not take hold of it and lift it out? How much more valuable then is a man than a sheep!”

These Pharisees, these religious tyrants, had missed the whole point of the Sabbath command. They missed it because their focus was to control men by the Law, not help them. Truth be known they probably did value the sheep over the man because their sheep would make them money which would bring them power and that man would cost them money and they would have to humble themselves in order to serve and help him.

The fourth command is to remember the Sabbath. In Mark 2:27 Jesus tells us that “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.” The instructions following this command concerning the Sabbath in Exodus 20 tells us that we are to remember this day by rest. In Isaiah 30:15 we read that “in repentance and rest you will be saved, in quietness and trust is your strength.”

So what exactly is Jesus trying to get across to these religious men about their view of the Sabbath? How does what Jesus say to them relate to us today? Are we breaking the Sabbath by worshiping on Sunday instead of Saturday?

Let us reason together.

We have to remember what this command says. It tells us to remember to rest.

To rest in rest?

No, to rest in God.

I don’t know about you but Sunday is not a day of physical rest for me, but here’s the thing, I don’t believe it was really designed nor intended to be. When we are called to assemble together as the church we are called to serve and be employed, “As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.” (1 Peter 4:10). Sunday is the day we come together as a body of believers to grow in grace and truth. It is the day that we are supposed to spend building each other up. I believe this is separate from the Sabbath, which is to be a day of rest. 

We are commanded by God to remember the Sabbath and commanded by Christ to remember Him by the Lord’s Supper, the breaking of bread and the drinking of the cup (Luke 22:19-20). Remember the Sabbath and remember Me, the Lord of the Sabbath, when you come together by the Lord’s Supper.

Remember by the breaking of this bread and the drinking of this cup that you could not work enough to earn your salvation. Remember that I alone am God, set up no idols of worship in your heart, and do not consider My name as useless or ordinary because it is by this name that you are saved. Remember the Sabbath and rest in Me, knowing that in Me you are complete, in Me you are free, in Me you are not slaves… you are sons. Remember that in Me it is finished.

I believe that we are called to remember the Sabbath and to come together and worship on Sunday. The Sabbath is for us individually (Mark 2:27) and the Lord’s Supper for us collectively, “Since there is one bread, we who are many are one body; for we all partake of the one bread.” (1 Corinthians 10:17).

Let’s just for the moment look at the observance of the Sabbath in practicality. Just imagine if we as a church would put away the idols of immorality, impurity, passion, evil desires and greed (Colossians 3:5), would we rest more?

If we put these idols away, what would happen to the round the clock work day?

Would we need to run a business 24/7 if we did not worship the idol of greed?

Let us even consider the medical field. How much emptier would our hospitals be if we removed all the patients that were there due to stress induced illnesses, from being overworked or from immoral living?

Let us consider the prisons. How much emptier would they be if we put away the idol of greed and remembered that God was our Creator and Sustainer and Provider? How much emptier would they be if we remembered God and remembered that our families come second only to God?

How many of our families would still be intact if at least one day a week we chose to rest in God. To be still before Him. To not require work from our children or our employees and to do none ourselves. If we just stopped in the midst of all the craziness of life and worshiped our God by casting all our cares on Him and enjoying the abundant blessing of Himself and trusting that He would take care of tomorrow.

I don’t believe it’s that we are to not move on the Sabbath or carry our pallet or pick grain in our hunger or heal a man. I believe it is simply that we are not to strive on this day. I believe God is saying “I am mindful that you are but flesh, I know the worries of this world that flood your soul, just give Me one day. One day. And I promise if you will stop this one day and remember and fall into My arms, then I promise I will carry you the rest of the week. Just trust Me.”

Just ponder it my friend. Then look at your own heart and examine yourself. Are you remembering the Sabbath to keep it holy? Let us not forget that we are blessed when we rest.

 

Oh Father,

Thank You for Your Sabbath. Thank You for giving us permission to rest. Forgive me Father, for not giving You this time. You are indeed my Creator and You will carry me. Help me to honor You in this way, by willingly allowing You to carry me. Calling on You in my time of need and not wasting Your time by striving on my own. My Jesus, I cast my cares on You this day and I come to You, my God, for rest (Matthew 11:28).

My Jesus it is in Your name I pray,

Amen

 

 

Eating Confession

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I have an eating confession.

I am sitting here at the computer after consuming a plate of pancakes and sausage at pretty much bed time. I enjoyed every bite… every bite that is except the last one. 

That last bite passed my lips and slid down my throat and landed in my stomach like a brick.

Then on top of that brick landed a pile of condemnation and whispers of “oh that was disgusting” 

and “I can’t believe you just ate that this late”

and “wow, your jeans are already tighter” 

and “that’s really gonna help that swimsuit look” 

and “didn’t you just pay money to help you lose weight… well you just threw that money out the window with that plate”

 

The real confession…

The first thought that passed through my mind in response to the whispers was to go to the bathroom and make myself throw it all back up. There was a day not that long ago when that is exactly what I would have done… that… or I would have taken some stuff to make it come out the other end.

I know the dangers of this, but even so, it is still my first thought on how to handle this ick that now sits in my body.

I knew I should have just had a glass of water, but I saw the pancakes and the sausage… and I did eat. So then my minds solution is to make what went down come back up.

Stupid flesh.

Obeying it only feels good in the moment… it never feels good when the moment has past. Then your own thoughts on how to fix the ick usually put you in an even ickier place… oh the endless cycle of condemnation that comes when you obey your fleshly desire. 

So how do I fix the ick…

Tonight I confess.

I repent of choosing to obey my flesh rather than what I know is beneficial for my mind, body, soul, and spirit.

I drink a glass of water.

I choose to not make matters worse by purging myself.

I begin anew tomorrow.

Yes, I am thirty-five years old and this thought process is still a struggle. But I have victory in and through my God… because tonight I will not make myself throw up nor take something before bed that will kick in when I wake up… I will just trust my God and His forgiveness and His grace and His mercy for they are new every morning.   

 

 

All of Life is a Test

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Life has been a little crazy here lately…

If you have been with me long you have read of our attempt to sell our house… and after having it on the market for a year we chose to take it off the market and refinance.  We decided that God obviously wanted us to stay here for a little while longer.

Well the house has been off the market for about eight months and two Saturday’s ago our former realtor calls and says she is on top of our mountain showing houses and the lady with her was wanting to know if we were still interested in selling our house…

Of course we said, Yes.

                 She wanted to see it right then.

At this point my husband is getting ready to go on night shift and I am at the ballfield with our girls. This showing is coming right after a teaching engagement I had, and my mind and heart had been focused on preparing lessons not cleaning our house.

The house was a wreck.

The rugs hadn’t been vacuumed in days so dog hair was every where. The floors had not been mopped in forever… we had been running crazy for the past month and plus I had been sick. Laundry was on every clean flat surface. The tub and the closet were full of dirty clothes and towels, not one bed was made, the sink was full of dirty dishes, my husband counted eighteen pairs of shoes scattered through out the house…

I mean it was bad.

               But I said, “sure it’s a mess, but go right ahead”

The following Monday we got the call that they wanted to see it again.

So that night I cleaned the house. But I did not get into the frantic crazy clean that I had put myself through when in it was the market for a year… I just did what I had planned on doing that Monday anyway just to get things caught back up from the backburner place I had put it on. I realized that if they wanted to come back after seeing it the past Saturday anything I got done would be an amazing improvement 🙂

So me and my girls head out for lunch while this couple checks out our house again.

After lunch we head to Book-a-Million so my Shelby can use a gift card that she has had since Christmas and while we are searching for a book we get the call.

I suppose that the others in Books-a-Million probably thought we were crazy invaders from outer somewhere because I am on my knees in the middle of the store floor giving my thanks and praise to my God and my girls are jumping up and down and holding hands as they sing “they want our house! they want our house!”

Boom out of no where life gets flipped and change enters the equation of life once again.

And in this change comes the opportunity to choose to trust in the Word of God or not… 

The moment the news of the house selling settles down I begin to doubt…

     what if we pack our whole house up,

                       find a place we absolutely love, 

                              and then they back out and decide they don’t want the house… 

Oh ye of little faith.

Trusting in God’s sovereignty is easy from the pew… it’s a little harder from the kitchen 🙂

Many plans are in a man’s heart

But the counsel of the LORD will stand

Proverbs 19:21

Here is the thing… what if we do pack the whole house up and find a place we absolutely love and then they decide they don’t want our house and back out of the contract… if that were to happen would I be willing to stop and believe…

Whether for correction,

or for His world,

or for His lovingkindness,

He causes it to happen.

Job 37:13 

Either I believe in the sovereignty of God or I don’t. Either I believe the Word of God is indeed the word of God or I don’t…  the Word of God is either just another title for the Holy Bible to me or it is indeed the God breathed syllables of life.

How I obey it, trust in it, seek it, rely on it, treasure it… shows how I really feel about it.

Will I trust Him in all of life… or just pull from His book when it suits me?

All of life is a test.

Will I choose to trust God in the pew and in the kitchen.

Will I choose to believe in His sovereign will and plan even when the little things in life don’t make sense and don’t go the way I seemed so sure they would go?

Will I seek His will in the little every day things or just call on Him when I think “I can’t handle this one” 

Today I choose to trust Him

    with the unreturned phone calls,

    with the delayed dates set,

    with the overslepts and completely forgots

   with the packed the whole house up and they just backed outs

   and

   with the returned phone calls

   with the quickly confirmed dates set 

   with the up on time and out the door and remembered it alls

    with the moving everything out and in to the new place God has planned for us… 

I choose to trust God with it all… when I don’t like it and when I do. I will submit to His will and His authority and His purpose and His plan and I will seek Him in His Word to help us make sense of it all along the way.

Because He is good.

Always.

What’s In A Name

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You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain,

for the LORD will not leave him unpunished

who takes his name in vain.  

Exodus 20:7

 

What exactly does it mean to take the LORD’s name in vain?

We seem to all be united on the fact that using God’s name, any of His names, as a curse word is taking His name in vain. However this was not an issue when God delivered this commandment. The children of Israel then, and still most of the Jewish people and nation of Israel today, so reverenced the name of God that they would not speak it or attempt to even write it out in its entirety. In most Jewish letters and writing you will see the name God written out as G-d.  

So, with this in mind, let us dig a little deeper into this third commandment and see if we can discover exactly what it means to take the name of the LORD in vain. To begin let’s look at the Hebrew translation of the word “vain.” Vain in the Hebrew is shawv and it means desolating; evil as destructive, ruin, guile, uselessness, false, lie, lying and it is from the Hebrew word sho which is an unused root meaning to rush over. Now with this knowledge let’s read this third commandment again, “You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain…”

Oh precious one is it sinking in?

You shall not use the name of God to desolate another.

    You shall not use it for evil in any way.

          You shall not speak lies about the name of God.

                You shall not rush over the name of God.

                        You shall not make the name of God useless.

Have you been guilty of taking the name of the LORD your God in vain?

Let’s dig even deeper.

Let us look at the Hebrew word for name. In the Hebrew the word name is shem. Have you heard this word before? Shem was the name of one of Noah’s sons. Shem is the son through which Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and David and yes, Jesus was born.

The word shem means conspicuous position, an appellation, as a mark or memorial of individuality, honor, authority, and character. In the Bible names are very important. Someone’s name defined who they were, their character, and their position in life. Many times a child would not be named until the parents could tell who he would be, or they named him according to who they desired him to be. A name mattered. It should still matter today.

So my friend, do you see how very vast this command is? It is so much more than just using God’s name as a curse word. It is lying about His character and position by our use of or lack of use of His name. If we do not trust in His name, we take it in vain. If we consider His name as useless, we take it in vain. If we do not trust in the character of our God as defined to us by His names, we take His name in vain. If we rush over His name, not considering Him our strong tower, our refuge, our help, our salvation, our hope… we take His name in vain. If we doubt Him, we take His name in vain.

The Ten Commandments booklet I shared about earlier states that “Many who have heard much about God carelessly assume they know Him- that they have an acceptable relationship with Him. Yet they have never learned really to respect Him. They demean and degrade Him by flippantly using His name in everyday conversation. They unwittingly announce to all who hear them that respect for God is simply not important to them, even though they may believe He exists.”

Oh precious one, spend some time today learning His names.

                    Read through the Psalms and see how often they call attention to the name of the LORD.

If you are indeed a Christian, then you carry the name of Christ and your actions in this name either bring honor to God or blaspheme His holy name. Oh my friend, represent Him well, for He is worthy. Let His name be lifted higher and higher and higher.  

Oh Father,

I carry the name of Your Son. I am Yours. Might I never forget that You are holy and holy is Your name. As I am coming and going in this life may I honor Your name. Let me not disgrace Your most glorious name. Let me never forget that I represent You and I do not want to represent You wrong. I might be the only Bible that another reads and I want to accurately deliver Your truth.

My Jesus it is in Your name I pray,

Amen

 

Idol Worship

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You shall not make for yourself an idol,

or any likeness of what is in heaven above

or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth.

Exodus 20:4

 

As we take a look through history and even as we look around us today we see the evidence of why God delivered this commandment. The false gods of Egypt then, the false gods of the other nations of the world then, and even now, require an idol.

Those who worship them build altars in their homes, in their yards, in their cities, they set up shrines and they design even hand held objects to take with them where ever they go and then they bow down and worship before this image that they themselves had to make.

I homeschool our children and this past school year we studied ancient Egypt. One of the things we learned as we studied their culture, religion, and government was how they treated their idols. The priests had to bath the idol, they had to bring food to the idol, and they had to move the idol. They had to do everything for this so called “god”.

Why would they think that a god who could not even feed or bath himself, a god that they have to carry, would be worthy of their worship and could deliver them in a day of distress?  

Isaiah 44:20 tells us that “… a deceived heart has turned him aside. And he cannot deliver himself, nor say, ‘Is there not a lie in my right hand?'”

Oh how our hearts can deceive us!

Notice also in this verse, that this one could not deliver himself. This one who bowed down before the works of his hand could not make himself see the foolishness in it all. To his deceived heart it all made perfect sense. It is indeed true that all of mankind has exchanged the truth of God for a lie and we have bowed down and worshiped created things instead of our Creator (Romans 1:25).

However, our Creator God’s love for us remains. He tells us in Isaiah 42:16, “I will lead the blind by a way they do not know; in paths they do not know I will guide them. I will make darkness into light before them and rugged places into plains. These are the things I will do, and I will not leave them undone.” God has no desire to leave us undone, no desire to leave us holding a lie in our right hand. He wants us to be sanctified in His truth.

He distinguished Himself from all other gods by the giving of His law. Isaiah 42:21 says that “The LORD was pleased for His righteousness’ sake to make the law great and glorious.” He would show us His omnipresence by making us aware that He did not need an idol to remind us of His presence and power.

He lets us know in this commandment that He is a jealous God. As a matter of fact He goes so far as to say that His name is Jealous (Exodus 34:14). Let us remember that He has said He will not give His glory to another and He will not have His praise given to any graven image (Isaiah 42:8). 

When our God chose to show Himself to us, when He chose to allow us to behold His glory, He did not use a temple, an altar, or a graven image. No precious one, our God displayed His image in the person of Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 4:4, Hebrews 1:1-3).

The Word, the great and glorious Law of God became flesh and dwelt among us and we saw the glory of the Lord, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth (John 1:14). The image of our God would not be made of wood or stone and He would not be fashioned by the hands of man. He would have inherit power. He would indeed be able to bath Himself, feed Himself, and carry Himself around. He would not be dependant on any man, for Hw is the One through who man was created (John 1:3).

Oh Father,

Thank You for being a jealous God. Thank You for making me aware of Your omnipresence. How awesome it is to know that there is no where I can go to flee from Your presence (Psalm 139:7-12). Thank You for Your great and glorious law, Your Word of truth, which separates You from all other gods that are seeking my heart. The world is full of idols, full of things of empty promise, that are wanting me to trust in them, to bow down to them, to fear them, but I bow before You alone. Oh Father, and because You are indeed a jealous God, You will let me know when my heart has turned from You. You will keep me from being deceived unto death (Job 36:7-11). Keep me, my God, in Your lovingkindness. 

My Jesus it is in Your name I pray,

Amen

Slowing Down

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Slow never killed time. It’s the the rushing and racing, the trying to catch up, this is what kills time — ourselves.

Why in the world do we keep wounding ourselves?

Life is not an emergency. 

And this, this is the only way to slow down time:

When I fully enter into the current moment with the weight of all my attention, I slow the torrent with the weight of me all here.

Weigh down this moment in time with attention full, and the whole of time’s river slows, slows, slows.

In this space of time and sphere, I am attentive. I am aware. I am accepting the whole of the moment, weighing it down with me all here.

~Ann Voskamp

I read these words and I breathed deep. This is something I fight often. This feeling of “rushed”. I can’t tell you the number of times that I have heard my husband say, “Nicole, slow down“

I will get myself in a tizzy, my stomach tied in knots, my fingers just wiggling, and my mind racing, as I try to remember what I need to get out the door in order to accomplish all that I feel must be accomplished this particular day. I can’t enjoy the present moment because I can’t get the fear that I will forget something that will be needed to take care of that moment up ahead.

 

 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city,

and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.” 

Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow.

You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. 

Instead, you ought to say,

“If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.” 

But as it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil.

James 4:13-16

 

It should have been a sign to me a long time ago that when my stomach knotted up, and my words became harsh, and my patience became short, and my flesh crawled… that this “rushing” was arrogance, that it was indeed evil. But some how I have always managed to ignore the signs.

Even when I received a clear rebuke, a clear warning, “Nicole, slow down”

I would huff and ignore it and continue in my “rush”

I have no clue how many amazing moments I have completely missed, I have destroyed, I have trampled, I have ran over… in my “rush”. How many times have I wounded little hearts in my, “Not now! I don’t have time!”

God forgive me…

                       How thankful I am for His grace, for His mercy, for His forgiveness…

How thankful I am for their grace,

                                                     for their mercy,

                                                                 for their forgiveness… my little hearts (and my big heart)

How thankful I am that He is willing to say, “Nicole slow down” over and over and over and over again.

Life moves so fast…

Today I just want to slow down and be still and know that He is God.

I don’t have to “rush”… I just need to trust.   

 

 

 

No Other

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You shall have no other gods before Me. 

Exodus 20:3

 

Commandment number one: You shall have no other gods before me.

In truth if we were to be judged by the Law of God who among us could get past this very first commandment? How thankful I am that Christ stood in my place. What I see in this commandment is that our God never denies that there are other gods. The word gods in the Hebrew is elohiym and it means rulers, judges, divine ones, angels, godlike one. This is also the same word used for the One True God. However these “little g” gods are not omnipotent or omnipresent or omniscient, they are created beings, not creators.

As a matter of fact in John 10:34 Jesus says that we are gods, “Jesus answered them, ‘Has is not been written in your Law, I said, you are gods’?'” Jesus is quoting Psalm 82:6 “I said, ‘You are gods, and all of you are sons of the Most High.'” We are gods because we rule over others, we sit as judges over others, and because we are sons of the Most High.

However, we are not GOD.

Nor will we ever become Gods or attain to God-ship through some mystical process of perfecting ourselves.

We are created beings. We have a Creator.

He alone is GOD. 

This is why God declares in Isaiah 2:22, “Stop regarding man, whose breathe of life is in his nostrils; for why should he be so esteemed?”

This is why the Creator God declares, “For the LORD your God is the God of gods and the Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God…” (Deuteronomy 10:17).

We are to place neither man nor any other being before our God. We are not to worship man and we are not to worship any power or supernatural force, no matter how intriguing it may appear. We are not to put our trust in ourselves. We are not to set ourselves up as God. The very desire to do so is what brought upon the fall of all mankind.

 

The serpent said to the woman, ‘You surely will not die!

For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened,

and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’

Genesis 3:4-5

 

Oh precious ones, we may be created in the image of God but we are not “like” God.

 

To whom will you liken God?

Or what likeness will you compare with Him?

Isaiah 40:18

 

We cannot even fathom the likeness of the glory of our Creator God. He is holy. He is unique like none other. There is none to liken Him or compare Him to. He is God. He is incomprehensible and He will not share His glory with another. He says “I am the LORD, that is My name; I will not give My glory to another…” (Isaiah 42:8).

 

So my friend, when we read…

  And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us,

and we saw His glory,

glory as of the only begotten from the Father,

 full of grace and truth.

John 1:14

 and when we read…

Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life;

no one comes to the Father but through Me.

John 14:6

and when we read…

Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself,

with the glory which I had with You before the world was.

John 17:5 

….what must we know if God has already told us that He will not give His glory to another and we are to have no other gods before Him? There is only one conclusion, for our God does not lie, and He does not contradict Himself in anyway. The one and only conclusion is that Jesus is indeed God.

 

Oh Father,

I worship You. Thank You for taking on flesh and standing in my place for judgment. You knew I had been deceived and You were mindful that I am but flesh. Your love for me is breath taking. I cannot comprehend it no more than I can comprehend all of who You are. You are my God. The God of gods and I desire to honor You and walk faithfully in Your commands. I place no other god before me as I surrender to You in and through Your Son Jesus Christ.

 

My Jesus, it is in Your name I pray,

Amen

 

  

Believe

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Believe, Do You Believe

Beauty indescribable in awe at Your sight
Eternal Undivided, bathed in Your Light
Love unconditional, captured by Your grace
Insecurities unraveled strengthened by faith
Everlasting to everlasting my God You shall reign
Victorious all powerful my Christ, the King of kings
Elevated to all authority, all power is in Your hands

Dancing for You, kneel before You, my allegiance You have
Omnipotent, King of glory, I give You all my praise

You are worthy, oh so worthy, the Lamb who was slain
Omniscient, omnipresent, Your lovingkindness forever endures
Undeniable is Your presence every heart has felt You stir

Believe, oh believe, He is the Alpha and the Omega
Elohim, my Creator, Lord of heaven, Lord of earth
Lifted high, drawing nigh, every man to Yourself
Incomparable You alone are the One Living God
Empowered am I through being justified by Your blood
Validated before my Father, by faith in Your love
Every knee one day will bow, every eye one day will see

But blessings, upon blessings, for those who without seeing BELIEVE

**************************************************

But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came.

So the other disciples were saying to him, “We have seen the Lord!”

But he said to them,

“Unless I see in His hands the imprint of the nails,

and put my finger into the place of the nails,

and put my hand into His side,

I will not believe.”

 After eight days His disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them.

 Jesus came, the doors having been shut, and stood in their midst and said,

“Peace be with you.” 

Then He said to Thomas,

“Reach here with your finger, and see My hands;

and reach here your hand and put it into My side;

and do not be unbelieving, but believing.” 

Thomas answered and said to Him, “My Lord and my God!” 

Jesus said to him,

“Because you have seen Me, have you believed?

Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed.”

John 20:24-29

Laying Down the Law

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Then God spoke all these words, saying,

I am the LORD your God,

who brought you out of the land of Egypt,

out of the house of slavery.

Exodus 20:1-2

 

The people are assembled at the base of the mountain with Moses and Aaron. Can you imagine the anxious expectation that must be in the air at this moment? They have followed this pillar of fire by day and this pillar of cloud by night. They have listened to Moses recall to them what he has told them the LORD has said, but now all the people will hear from their God. Today they will all hear His voice.

In Exodus 19:4-6 we read how God desires to make this stubborn, rebellious, stiff-necked, grumbling people a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. This is the purpose of God for the children of Israel. The only stipulation placed on them, “obey My voice and keep My covenant.”

Now this is our God. He is not going to allow this covenant to be delivered second hand. He wants all the people to be aware they are without excuse. He will allow all of them to hear His voice as He delivers the main conditions of this covenant.

We call these conditions the Ten Commandments. These ten commands are the base of the entire Law of God. How fitting that they were given to the people at the base of a mountain. God is showing them this is your solid foundation. This remains a solid foundation for us today as well.    

Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets;

I did not come to abolish but to fulfill.

For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away,

 not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished.

Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments,

and teaches others to do the same,

 shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven;

but whoever keeps and teaches them,

he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 

Matthew 5:17-19

This is what Jesus has to say about the Law of God, therefore, we must not disregard these commands. Jesus came to show us how the whole point of God’s Law was to teach us how to love. The Law condemns us because apart from God we know nothing about real love.

Precious one have you ever considered that every commandment given by our God is for our benefit. Obeying the commands of God and practicing love go hand in hand. The Law actually defines love and how we are to walk it out as children of God.

I came across a wonderful booklet on the Ten Commandments online (www.ucg.org/booklets). This booklet shares how, “For love to be meaningful it must be accurately defined and understood… Love is the centerpiece of all the Scriptures, both the Old and the New Testaments… In Jesus Christ’s own words, ‘abiding in’- or maintaining the practice of- godly love is accomplished by keeping the commandments of God. His example teaches us that obeying and godly love are inseparable. Sin is simply violating love by transgressing the commandments of God. Sin is lawlessness- neglecting or refusing to be bound by God’s rules that define true, godly love.”

In 1 John 5:3 the Word of God declares, “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome.” So for the next couple of weeks we are going to dig into these ten commands of God given at the base of the mountain to the children of Israel one at a time. May we see how they apply to us today as believers and partakers of the new covenant, the better covenant (Hebrews 8:6), in Christ.

Oh Father,

Open my eyes to Your truth. Let me be one who is called great in the kingdom of heaven. Show me Father, how to teach Your Law and obey Your Law in light of the grace and truth that is realized in Christ. Your word says that the Law is holy and righteous and good (Romans 7:12). However Your word also says I am released from the Law (Romans 7:6) in Christ. So show me, teach me what this means, and I will obey and walk in the truth that You reveal to me. 

My Jesus it is in Your name I pray,

Amen