Tag: jesus

Adonai, Adonai, Plus Obedience

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Not every person who says, “Lord, Lord” will enter the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 7:21

There are many who profess that Jesus is Lord and almost as many who will say, “Jesus is my Lord.”  But words can be easy to speak.  Actions are a far better indicator of sincerity.  Faith without works is dead.  

Matthew recounted the story of Jesus telling a crowd that words do not translate as real faith.  The kingdom is not set up to be accessed that way.  While that’s sobering, we know that to be true about words.  Words alone can’t build any relationship, let alone the one with Jesus.    

Consider when a relationship is broken.  Words will be important to save it but on their own, healing will be limited.  Promises may be made but the ‘proof will be in the pudding’.   Trust will be rebuilt with works of love and sacrifice.  It will be the behavior of a person that reveals whether their words can be trusted. 

In heaven, some will be turned away from entering heaven and the reaction will be one of shock.  They will protest when they remind Jesus of all that they did in His name.  They will defend themselves and say that they professed the words, “Lord, Lord”, or “Adonai, Adonai,” but Jesus will tell them that they never gave up their life to His lordship.  Goals remained self-centered.  Choices were made without Him in mind.  Gospel songs were sung in community but only out of a need to fit in.  The trappings of religious life gave them a false sense of security.  The message for us is this ~ words alone don’t translate to saving faith.

Jesus is the Master and Owner of all things He created.  He invites us to be His bondslaves – the role for which we were created.  Ironically, it’s the role where true freedom exists.  Never will I thrive more than when bowing the knee to Adonai.  And for any I know who say the words but fail to live the life, I pray for them.  

In all things I am to do today, I will discern their importance to You.  It is not my life, but Yours.  Amen

How I Feel About Ownership

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God also said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.’ “This is my name forever, the name you shall call me from generation to generation.  Exodus 3:15

Adonai means ‘lord, master, and owner.’   It is used 434 times in the Old Testament about Yahweh ~ and also refers to people in positions of authority.  

  • In I Samuel, David called Saul his ‘Adonai’ when he called him ‘my lord the king.’  
  • In Judges, it says that the Philistines had five lords ~ or five ‘Adonais.’  
  • In Genesis, Sarah referred to Abraham as her Adonai. 

Earlier in life, the idea of anyone owning us and having to refer to them as lord and master contradicted our valued autonomy.  Wanting our way, regardless of how we achieved it, was our default. Our desires were governed by soulishness. However, this was only because we didn’t know God well enough.  Eventually, we realized that we are only safe if He owns us.  Autonomous choices made apart from God’s wisdom will inevitably lead to disaster.  Only Lordship and our obedience guarantee a safe passage for our feet. 

We were born searching for where we belong.  Belonging means ownership.  Instinctively, we were crying out for an Adonai.  As children, many of us felt lost.  Childhood prepared us to seek someone to shelter and guide us.  Driven and stretching out our arms indiscriminately, we allowed others to control us.  We surrendered our autonomy.  Adonai was not ‘Jesus’ because we had long placed Him on the sidelines in search of counterfeit owners.

Oh, time reveals that there are no safe masters except Jesus.  Daily, I experience freedom when I open my hands, stop clutching what I’ve been afraid to relinquish, and give up rights to all areas of my life.  I turn over the deed to myself and everything I own.  When I cry “Lord, Lord,” … my profession of faith is matched by my deferment to His Will for my life.  I am joyfully His slave, and He is my safe and only Master. 

Oh Lord, I am owned by the One who fearfully and wonderfully made me.  How safe I am!  I praise You for such wonderful providence. Amen

A Name Reserved For True Children

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He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior. Titus 3:5-6

I was born one way on March 16th, 1954, but many years later, I was re-born as a brand-new person.  I didn’t look that different on the outside, but I was completely transformed on the inside. The enemy could no longer see any traces of my sins.  All proof of his prior ownership ceased to exist. The chains fell away along with my sin-stained soul.   With confidence, I could cry out, ‘Abba Father.’ This new name of endearment was evidence that the curse of sin and death had been reversed. No one could use the name except for true children of the Father.

In that beautiful moment of my legal spiritual adoption, the Holy Spirit was poured out by Abba Father, seeping into my every spiritual pore.  My soul absorbed Him like a sponge, so thirsty was I for everything that He was.  You’re mine,” He said.  I came to life as He spoke each word deliberately.  His love became my new source of energy.  No longer would I have to generate a reservoir of gritty resolve to do right and live right. The power of love and my new identity overcame me, and flowed continually like a river.  

When we are born again and the Spirit enters us ~ and then impels us to cry the intimate family name “Abba! Father!” ~ we surely sense the climax to the redemption story.

There is more eloquence in the words ‘Abba, Father,’ than in all the orations of Demosthenes or Cicero put together! Martin Luther

Warm Welcomes Are Certainties

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Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.  Hebrews 4:16

 A lukewarm welcome feels terrible, doesn’t it?  Even worse, when there’s no welcome at all, the memory of it sits interminably in our soul.

Never will I experience this when I approach God.  Because Eloah Selichot forgives extravagantly, His welcome of me is always passionately warm.  There is a history of longing where He is concerned.  He knew me before I was ever conceived, knew I’d be born with the sin of Adam, and knew I’d be lost without the intervention of a Savior.  His longing for reconciliation made a way for my sin to be forgiven. Now, warm welcomes are a certainty.

Because of forgiveness, His Father welcomes me even though I was an enemy.  Because of forgiveness, He welcomes me even though my list of offenses against Him was long.  Nothing, absolutely nothing, threatens His open embrace.

When I walk the halls of church, I can be tempted to welcome some more than others.  I remember and can rehearse petty offenses.  God is not like that.  His embrace is never tentative.  My sin, past, present, and future has been removed from me.  Approaching Him with boldness carries zero risk. I can always run home.  The door is never locked.  Like the father of the prodigal son, He’s on the porch, eagerly waiting for my arrival.

If I’m shy of You, it’s about me.  Not you.  I hold up my shield of faith and believe in Your character.  Amen

It’s Never a Formula!

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Having said these things, He spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva.  Then He anointed the man’s eyes with the mud and said, “Go wash in the pool of Siloam.”  John 9:6-7

Each of us needs supernatural healing from God, whether physical healing, emotional healing, or perhaps even spiritual healing from something related to spiritual abuse. When we hear that someone else received it, we’re eager to listen to their story.  We want to know how it happened and when it happened.  As they tell us about it, we wonder if something in their story holds the secret to our own breakthrough.

But there is no formula.  Jesus never offered any nor did He conform to them.  He varied His methods of healing.  Once, Jesus put spit on a man’s eyes.  Another time, he just touched them, and the man could see.  In John 9, he put mud on another man’s eyes and told him to go to the pool of Siloam, in the southeast corner of Jerusalem, to wash the mud off.  Why such a wide variety of methods? 

Here’s a thought.  If Jesus consistently sent blind men to the pool of Siloam to wash their eyes, every blind person would have attempted to travel to the ‘miracle pool.’  The grandeur of the tales about Siloam would have obscured the power of Jesus, and He would not share His glory with another.   The whole point of blind people receiving their sight was that they encountered Jesus Christ.

For any who is waiting on God, we know how tempted we are to work hard for our miracle.  We pray and read more, trying to uncover the secret of getting God to move on our behalf.  If such miracles depended on self-effort, we would all get our breakthrough sooner.  But on the other side of it, what would be our testimony?  “When I did this, the miracle happened.”  

Encounters with Jesus are happening all over the world at this very moment. He’s speaking to someone sitting at an airport gate, and another will feel His presence in the kitchen packing their child’s lunch.  You may sense a holy encounter when you see handwritten notes in your mother’s bible.  The Lord still changes bitter waters to sweet springs of Living Water.  

How I love this Charles Spurgeon quote:  

Do not call yourself Mara but remember the new name the Lord named you. Don’t be so ready to affix to yourself names of sad memorials; your griefs have tainted your memory.  Do not aid them to sting you. Call the well by another name.  Remember Jehovah Rapha, the Lord that heals both you and the waters. Record His mercy rather than the sorrows and thank the Most High God.

What About All The Promises?

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Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all his benefits—who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases. Psalm 103:2-3

God is holy and cannot lie. He is good for every promise that He has made.  God can, and will, heal every infirmity.  It is a certainty.  

Yet, I haven’t seen Jehovah Rapha heal every time I’ve asked for it.  Have you?  Instead, I’ve discovered that sometimes He heals now, ahead of heaven, and that is glorious! But for the rest of our infirmities, healing awaits on the other side.  Living in the ‘not yet’ doesn’t nullify any promise.  As Wayne Watson sang so long ago ….  “Home free, eventually. At the ultimate healing, we will be home free.”  

There are other passages in the Psalms that can be confusing as well. In Psalm 91, God promises that ‘nothing will harm us, and no danger will come near our tent.’ Yet, eleven of Jesus’ disciples died as martyrs.  Five missionaries were speared by the Auca Indians in 1957.  The persecution of Christians, right now, is on the rise. How can we understand these verses amidst the disappointment our hearts feel when God withholds what we believe He has promised?  

My father fought in WWII in the European theatre.  Before leaving boot camp, he memorized all of Psalm 91.  On the front lines in France, in a fox hole, he recited the passage all night long as the bullets whizzed by and mortars exploded in close proximity.  He saw buddies next to him die and was shocked the following morning to discover that he was the only one in his company still alive.  Did God honor Psalm 91?  Yes.  Yet I’m sure there were other soldiers, also believers, who clung to Psalm 23 and other promises.  Some, like him, survived.  Some did not. 

We can know this about Jehovah Rapha.

  1. All promises will be fulfilled.  Some now.  All later.  
  2. We should ask boldly for God to move now because we never know if His answer will be an immediate ‘yes’. 
  3. If God has us in a time of waiting, He will give us the grace to be more than a conqueror, forging through the pain to glory. 

Jesus came to suffer, to be crushed, and to show us the path to glorification.  God’s promises were an umbrella over Jesus’ life.  Some intersected His daily life with the miraculous.  But everything else was perfectly fulfilled when He breathed His last and entered glory.  We follow in His footsteps to ask for, and witness stunning, miraculous events.  And we also follow in His footsteps to lean into His Father with childlike trust.  He will give us the grace to endure with hope, no feelings of betrayal marring our countenance. 

I trust You, even in the waiting. Amen  

It Is a Certainty We Can Count On

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Whatever the Lord pleases, he does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps”. Psalm 135:6

Jehovah Rapha is our glorious healer.  He heals all things in eternity, but some He heals ahead of time. Beautiful stories are recorded for us in the Old Testament.  Naaman was healed when he dipped seven times in the Jordan river.  A young boy was raised from the dead when Elisha laid over his lifeless body.  The children of Israel were healed when they looked to the serpent on the pole.  King Hezekiah was healed from a terminal illness and given an additional fifteen years to live.  But just as many times, the righteous prayed for healing but weren’t granted it in their lifetime.  Like us, they held on to their glorious hope and found the fulfillment of God’s promise when they entered Abraham’s bosom.

When Jesus came, He spent much of His ministry healing people.  Blind people were given sight. Tumors disappeared.  The dead were raised.  Fevers left.  The lame, relegated to begging for a living, stood on their feet to begin a new life.  While His healing was widespread, He didn’t heal everyone either.  For those who were left lame, or with a thorn in the flesh like the Apostle Paul, hope was deferred, and God’s grace carried them to the end.

God is all powerful and can easily facilitate healing.  But healing is the exception.  Let’s face it.  We’re disappointed and continue to groan under the fall.  

When I was 29 years old, my mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer.  I begged God for her healing.  He didn’t grant it on this side of heaven.  In 2003, my father died of lung cancer. Again, I pleaded with God for healing and felt sure that He would extend my father’s life.  He didn’t.  I stood firm, waiting for this miracle, all the way to his last breath.  It didn’t happen.  

You have your stories too.  Perhaps you are in prayer, even today, for the healing of someone close to you.

God will fulfill every single promise He has made.  What do we do with Psalm 103:3?  “I will heal all of your diseases.”  We don’t run from it or misinterpret it.  We live in it and expect its fulfillment ~ but in context with the whole counsel of God’s Word.  More on that tomorrow. 

I’ve seen miracles.  And I’ve been disappointed, Lord.  Help me when I stumble over You.  Amen

Paved With The Finger of God

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While spending the night on the way to Bethlehem, I wonder if Mary thought of her home and her comfortable bed. The ground wasn’t very forgiving to her aching body. Joseph probably didn’t sleep much either, trying to do what he could to soften the place where Mary lay. We can imagine his kindness.

Joseph had to wonder what would happen when they arrived in Bethlehem. He could tell that the baby’s birth was near. He probably felt alone and weighed down with responsibility for their safety. For strength, perhaps he took a deep breath, reviewed the stories of his ancestral fathers, and trusted God.

Their safety was not dependent upon his own ingenuity. God was the Father, just out of sight, ensuring the safe arrival of the Promise. The redemptive plans of God, from before time, would break open upon the Earth and nothing would tamper with divine sovereignty.

My life has also been planned from before the creation of the world. God said so. My calling is as secure in God’s hands as the calling of Joseph and Mary. I can often feel the weight of responsibility, believing that I have more to do with determining my tomorrows than God does. I fear that my own ingenuity will make or break my future. Not so. The presence of God hovers near. His breath warms my way. I cannot miss the way if I am prayerful, if I am listening, because my Bethlehem is always within reach. My roadway has been paved ahead of time by the index finger of God.

What Happened Then?

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When the shepherds had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child.  Luke 2:17

What a person experiences long after a spiritual mountaintop is often withheld from a storyline.  After the shepherds saw the heavens open, and after they found Jesus, and after they witnessed what they saw, what happened next?  Did they continue to believe?  Did they keep track of Jesus until his parents took him to Egypt?  We’re not told.  

But we know the nature of mountaintops and valleys.  We know that not all the shepherds would have gone on to worship God with their lives. Holy moments dim with time.  Daily living consumes.  Holy moments are rare.  Holy men who go on to finish well are even rarer. 

My own storyline has been dotted with more God moments than I deserved, and yet, they didn’t always carry me through the dark times.  There were moments I still doubted and battled hopelessness.  It wasn’t that I didn’t remember the mountaintops.  I did.  But I couldn’t connect with them like I did just after they happened.  

We’ll never know how many shepherds were on the hillside.  We’ll never know if all of them left to go to Bethlehem.  We’ll never know if they were all equally impacted by the baby in the manger.  And we’ll never know how many went on to live changed lives from that time forward.  But some did.  God picks who will be privileged to witness the supernatural.  For some of them, it will be the defining moment that forever changes the direction of their lives. 

Take me back to the moments I need to review to be strengthened and re-purposed.  Amen

Wild, Yet Wonderful

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God is wild and wonderful.  He is also unpredictable.  He exalts the likes of Judah, the treacherous son of Jacob.  He blesses adulterers like King David.  He forgives betrayers like Peter.  He saves persecutors and murderers like Paul.  Judah, at the end of his life, offered to give his own for the life of another brother.  His father, Jacob, lived long enough to see Judah choose righteousness. The common thread in all of these stories was a heart of repentance.  God’s forgiveness was, and is, so radical that an entire past is put under His atoning blood.

No family is perfect. In the past few days, I’ve heard from more than a few who say that they have not seen their grandchildren in years. They grieve over that and feel embarrassed in public when others ask if they have children and grandchildren. Is the Gospel of Jesus Christ relevant to them? Is it relevant to us in the very places we long to see the righteousness of God revealed in the lives of our family members? Oh yes.

This Christmas, as we hear the Christmas story and are tempted to zone out at the reading of the lineage of Jesus, let’s wake up and sit on the edge of our seat.  When Judah’s name is mentioned, we can rejoice that God works in family messes.  No one is out of His reach.  We should never stop praying for forthcoming repentance.  God is good for every promise He has made.

For every family ‘Joseph’, there are tears of joy.  For every family ‘Judah’, there are tears of faith.  You are God over every family drama that is brought to your feet in prayer.  Amen