Daughters of promise

If you listen carefully to the Lord your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to his commands and keep all his decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord, who heals you.  Exodus 15:26

As the Egyptian army bore down on the people of Israel, they fled all the way to the Red Sea.  Cornered at the water’s edge, it sure looked like they would be slaughtered but God parted the waters, and His people walked across safely.  As the Egyptian army pursued them, their army, including horses and chariots, weren’t so blessed.  The walls of water, held up by the mighty hand of God, were collapsed and they all drowned. Israel rejoiced, built an altar, and sang a song of victory to their God.  

What a difference three days would make though.  They traveled on into the Desert of Shur (on the heels of the greatest miracle they had ever experienced) and faced the first of many tests.  This one also involved water.  The people were extremely thirsty, and desperate.  Relieved to finally find water, their hopes were dashed when they discovered it was undrinkable.  They named the water Marah, which means bitter.  Moses turned to the Lord and God showed him a piece of wood.  He was instructed to throw the wood into the water, and it would sweeten it, changing the mineral properties to make it drinkable.  It was at this moment that God identified Himself as Jehovah-Rapha ~ the God who heals. 

God spoke and promised to spare His people from any of the diseases He had brought on the Egyptians in the form of the ten plagues.  But like many of the Old Testament promises to come, it was conditional.  They were to ‘diligently listen to the voice of God and do what was right in His eyes, to give ear to His commandments and keep His statutes.’   

Throughout scripture, God has made many promises regarding healing but, honestly, isn’t this a tricky subject?  Sometimes Jehovah Rapha heals when we stand in faith but sometimes, after vigorous seasons of prayer and fasting, He does not.  This tests our faith and often sets up private disappointments.  In the dark, where unspoken doubts fester, Satan loves to work and malign God’s character.  We might even feel we have to make excuses for God when we’ve announced to others that God has promised healing.  Our arguments sound rather hollow coming from a heart that suffers from unanswered questions.

This is the week to explore some of these topics. What can we believe God for?  How do we live find peace in the mystery of waiting?  How do we interpret scriptures about God healing our diseases?  And where does deferred hope intersect this topic? 

We belong to a powerful God who will make all things perfect.  It’s a promise.  Eden will be restored.  For now, we wrestle and trust.  We ask questions but not with a fist.  I’m glad you’re with me for such an important week.  

Jehovah Rapha, we stand together in faith and proclaim that You do all things well.  And on time.  Give us spiritual understanding beyond what we have at this moment.  We believe but help our unbelief.  Amen

We who have been made holy by Jesus, now have the same Father he has. That is why Jesus is not ashamed to call us his brothers. Hebrews 2:11

Behavior modification is something I can do myself.  No matter what my heart feels, I can rise above it and force myself to do the right thing.  That is not the case with sanctification. I can’t change what my heart wants.  

Sanctification is growing to have a heart more like Jesus.  I can do absolutely nothing to bring that about.  It’s a holy process generated by God.  

Think about it.  How can I possibly force myself to love someone I don’t love?  How can I make myself desire to make a personal sacrifice when it’s the last thing I want to do?  How can I delight in putting others first when I am overcome with my own needs?   I can’t.  I need a new heart.  God must change the one I have so that it will value what He values.  

Sanctification is also about having a mind transplant.  I can do nothing to bring this about, either.  It, too, is a holy process that God generates. 

Think about it.  I’m incapable of processing anything with kingdom logic.  I can’t guess what those concepts might be.  I am confined to my own head and to the logic I was born with.  Only God can facilitate a mind transplant, and He rewrites what I think through His Word.  It’s living and active and does spiritual surgery.

The only requirement to all of this is that I am willing to defer and stay teachable.  Over a lifetime, my inner landscape can be transformed by small acts of submission to Jehovah Mekaddishkem. To God be the glory!

Plain and simple.  I want Your heart.  I want Your mind.  I will not get off course.  Amen

Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.  I Corinthians 15:49

God makes a life-long commitment to sanctify His children, changing the way we think, what we desire, and what we treasure.  Though we are new creations at the time of spiritual adoption, it takes time for that to fully take effect on the inside.  

Before the cross, we bore the image of fallen Adam.  After the cross, the image began to change in the mirror.  The outline of Jesus began to appear and as time progressed, that outline began to fill in. When we die, the picture will be completed as we gain our perfection.  Sanctification will be complete.  

For now, Jehovah Mekaddishkem re-parents us for the rest of our lives.  He is invested no matter how long it takes for us to understand what He’s teaching us.  He is not daunted by how wounded we are, how far we’re behind others our age. The truth is ~ there’s a lot to sanctify in each one of us.  Others who know us well can’t begin to see the extent of our flesh.  We can look pretty impressive on the outside.  

But on the inside, the place where God’s Spirit works, only one thing matters.  How much are we like Jesus?  Do we think like Him?  Do we love who He is?   Is there a longing to be more like Him?

If so, it will be easier to disown and renounce any vestige of things Jesus died for.  We won’t fight Him when He points to something dark and calls us away from it.  We won’t shun the Light and avoid what His Word exposes.  We’ll welcome it.  The payoff is becoming more like Him.

Even I can see a new person in the mirror.  My new heart has made its way to my eyes.  Amen

“For the message of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.”            I Corinthians. 1:18

God’s love undergirds everything He does.  I must see His gracious nature in the work of sanctification or I will miss this ~ God loves me so much that He will keep saving me.  

If I only see the cross as what was necessary to make me a child of God, I will miss the loveliness of sanctification.  In today’s scripture, Paul was writing to believers.  When he spoke of  ‘’being saved’, he wasn’t talking about the moment salvation occurs.  He was referring to something else ~ ongoing salvation from sin.  Daily sanctification.

*Every single day, we will battle with our motives.  We need to remember the cross and ask God to save us from selfish desires and hidden intentions.

*Every single day, we battle with careless talk, anger, despair, and criticism.  We need to remember the cross and ask God to save us from our personal strongholds.

*Every single day, we want to embrace what is temporarily satisfying over what needs to be deferred until eternity.  We need to remember the cross and ask God to save us from self-gratification.

These comprise the daily battle.  This is the fight for faith.  Whatever I choose to neglect will become easier to avoid.  Neglect is like a cancer.  Neglect will metastasize.

Salvation is near me today.  The cross centered life is meant to be mine.  Jehovah Mekaddishkem graciously offers me daily salvation from the tempter, the liar, the strategic planner, the deceiver, and most of all – from myself and my own flesh.

  I get it, Lord.  Conviction and sanctification are priceless gifts.  Thank you.  Amen

Consecrate yourselves there, and be holy, for I am the Lord your God.  You shall keep My statues and perform them: I am the LORD who sanctifies you.  Leviticus 20:7-8

Harry Ironside, one of the first pastors of Moody Memorial Church in Chicago, said… “A Christian is someone whose past has been altered.”  The resurrection power of Jesus that raised Him from the dead is making us new, in every way, on the inside.  

Jehovah is the God who sanctifies us. To sanctify is to become holy. God is slowly changing us to become like Jesus. Sanctification happens every single day if I yield to the process. I’m transformed in baby steps, and though I may not see massive changes in a week, the cumulative effect over a year should be enormous. In a decade, I shouldn’t resemble who I used to be. 

Here are some examples of what it may look like.  

• If an angry mother raised me and I still tremble in the presence of anger, Christ’s resurrection power slowly delivers me from fear and makes me bold.  I am sanctified to be calm and prayerful through another’s rage.
• If I was raised to be someone else’s puppet and never had a thought or dream of my own, Christ’s resurrection power frees me from the control of others. I am sanctified to follow Christ and embrace His plans for me.
• If I was criticized relentlessly for almost everything I did and still feel a crippling fear of doing something wrong, Christ’s resurrection power delivers me from playing it safe.  I am sanctified to become a Joshua who goes forward in confidence to conquer spiritual mountains.

You and I have been set apart from this world to be different.  We have each been singled out.  Jehovah Mekaddishkem picked us long before we were born.  We have great faith in the transforming power of Christ.  We thrill at every Word He speaks.  We tremble at the presence of the Holy Spirit.  We run out of the grave to new life.  

It takes a lifetime, though, for the grave clothes of the flesh to be unwrapped.  Daily, we die to ourselves and cling to new life in Christ.  As we do, we become more peculiar.  We live as aliens and strangers.  As I’m writing this, I’m aware that we are a family of daughters who know the pain and the exhilaration of the sanctification process.  Every sacrifice is worth it, and we cheer each other on to the finish line.   

Only true disciples can celebrate this name of God.  We’ve yielded to the Potter and seen His glory revealed in us.  

Thank you for choosing us and for patiently working with us. Amen

El Elyon, the ‘most high God,’ is ruler over all.  To ascribe to this truth as a doctrine is important, but to experience this in a life-threatening scenario is quite another thing.

In 2007, Elizabeth (my close friend and event coordinator) and I flew from Atlanta to Toronto. We sat in the back of a regional jet and were able to see clear to the front.  The captain reported that it was the perfect day to fly ~ blue skies all the way.  About halfway through the flight, a man sitting in the 3^rd row stood up, got a small duffle bag out of the overhead bin and walked past us to the restroom.  He was in there a long time before returning to his seat.  Sometime later, he turned around and motioned to another man sitting near us.  This guy then got up and went to the restroom and was also in there a good while.  When he returned to his seat, the man sitting in the front turned and mouthed something to him, then both men nodded.  

Something sure seemed off and Elizabeth and I were unnerved.  We began to pray that God would rule over the situation and would prevent something sinister, if indeed there was anything amiss.  

The pilot came on and said there had been a change in the weather and he admitted that he was surprised by it.  The clear skies over Toronto were no longer clear.  An unexpected series of storms had come up and we would now encounter bad weather.  Everyone was confined to their seats.  There would be no more getting up for these two guys.  We thanked the ‘most high God’ for ruling over the weather and having authority over the spirit world.  We continued to pray for protection from any harm.  

There was significant turbulence as we made our approach.  It was foggy and visibility was at a minimum. We disembarked and went our way.  We headed to baggage claim and immigration and replayed what had just happened, remarking how God had spared us from something.  At that moment, we saw a group of law enforcement appear ~ escorting and surrounding two men in handcuffs.  You guessed it ~ they were the two men from our plane.  There was no doubt in our minds that something had been planned and God supernaturally thwarted it.  What came to mind immediately was the famous CN tower in Toronto, similar to the Seattle Space Needle.   

I’ll add this note ~ During the flight, we were prepared to die, not knowing if our plane was going to be used as a weapon.  Knowing the power of God’s grace, we weren’t surprised when we were overcome with a peace neither of us could have manufactured.  The same God who controls the weather is also the One who notices the slightest tremor of fear in the heart of His child.  That day, the ‘most High God’ was in the heaven of heavens but also with us in the most intimate ways possible.  

The voice of thy thunder was in the whirlwind; The lightnings lightened the world: The earth trembled and shook”.   Psalm 77:18

Prior to January 1st, I started saturating myself with everything I could find about the oldest name of God, El Elyon.  Every night since, I’ve ended my day with this prayer, ‘Help me connect with You through Your name in a way that changes our relationship forever.’  

This morning, I woke up thinking about my grandmother.  My face was wet with tears as I remembered how she suffered a desperate need for connection and went to surprising lengths to find it.  

She (Gerda Johannson) emigrated from Sweden at age 16.  We never knew the reason. She went through immigration on Ellis Island but what happened when she set her feet on the streets of New York is unknown.  Eventually, she married a railroad man who was mean, at times violent, and mentally unstable with untreated schizophrenia.  He isolated my grandmother to a rural farm with no neighbors in sight.  She lived her days in fear of him as she bore and raised seven children. Many nights when he was ranting and irrational, she woke up her children and, together, they ran to the barn to spend the night in hiding.  

When she could not sit on her pain any longer, she admitted visiting a neighboring pasture to talk to the cows. As she unburdened her soul, dark brown eyes would look back at her and she felt they connected with her anguish.

After thinking about my grandmother’s story, it clicked.  The reason to study God’s names is not to know more about Him.  This isn’t an intellectual pursuit.  It’s a journey of the heart.  Each name is a new way to connect with Him.   For this, we were created.  Let’s begin.

El Elyon means ‘the most high God.’ He is higher and more powerful than any political figure in our headlines and stronger than any dark force that seeks to intimidate us. His authority trumps the leaders of every nation under the sun and extends to the heavens as well as the places in the deep. He is most High God over all spirit beings and human beings.  No one is His equal.  

NASA sent a spacecraft to Saturn to take pictures, hundreds of thousands of them. It took seven years for it to get there, and no one knew if the spacecraft could withstand the 1400+ degree temperatures in Saturn’s orbital path.  El Elyon created Saturn, it’s many moons, and everything beyond our solar system.  This most High God created us, too. He called us by name and then said, “You are mine.”    

My grandmother found God later in her life. The Lutheran faith of her childhood came full circle and she connected, finally, with Jesus. Her old Swedish Bible lay on the radiator near the kitchen table. Her eventual death was beautiful. My mother was with her as she exclaimed over the world she was seeing for the first time.

Today, we can rest in El Elyon.  He drew us to Him with cords of love.  We are connected, attached. Nothing can wrench us out of His hands.       

El Elyon, make Your name so personal that I am changed from this day on.  Amen