Pondering God (Part 16)

16 May. Continuing our thoughts and pondering of God. Who is He? Today, God is Author. I love to read, and am frustrated this week that my time is fully engaged in other things, preventing a quiet night with a good book. But I do get to read highlights of the news in the paper, and some kind comments from others on FB and emails. But an author. That's another category of writing altogether, you know?

Do you know the Strong's Concordance? Look what it says about this word. 795 [747] archeœgos, n. [806 + 72]. author, originator, founder; leader, ruler. These are the variant renderings of the Greek word. The one who starts things. He initiates. He authors something significant according to the writer of the book of Hebrews. "Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God." (12.2)

Yeshua is the author of faith.
He initiates faith. He helps us in our weakness to gain faith.
He fills us with faith in Himself. 

How did He do that? He went to the cross in Jerusalem, was executed for crimes He didn't commit, enduring all that suffering for the joy of bringing us to His Father.
Wow, that's authorship. That's taking the initiative. That's love. 

He's not the author of confusion.(1 Cor. 14.33). He wants you to have peace and the joy of knowing the Father. Today...why not pray and ask Him for such peace today. Even now.

Pondering God (Part 17)

17 May. Continuing our study of God...who is He? He is the finisher of our faith. The brings to completion what He begins. I continue to hear of people (I met a few tonight) who were diagnosed with ADD or ADHD. They have a great self-image, but their sentences never seem to finish. Their projects lie half-completed in their basements. They start so many things, but never finish them.
God, however, is not like that. He always finishes what He begins. Imagine that! Imagine being the boss of someone like God. 

Give him an assignment and you can be sure that it will be finished. Ask him to visit someone or to write a symphony or to answer your emails that are backing up in your in-tray... and voila, in due course, you are sure they will be done. That, my friend, is comforting. 

Paul was a rabbi who knew well how to begin things, but wasn't sure about their endings. He wrote, "He who began a good work in you will complete it until the day of Messiah Yeshua." (Philippians 1.6)
And yesterday's verse from 16 May, says this, "Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God." 

How do I know Jesus will perfect my faith? On the cross Yeshua received the sour wine, and said, “It is finished!” And He bowed His head and gave up His spirit. (John 19.30) The word "it is finished" (tetelestai) has the same root as the word in Hebrews for "perfecter" of our faith (teleiotes). God said it; that settles it. He will bring it to pass. 

Does that bring you comfort today?

Pondering God (Part 18)

18 May. Continuing our study of God. His nature. His being. Probably the hardest of all concepts. He is Tri-une. God in three persons, blessed Trinity. I remember when Pam and John were witnessing to me in Volker Park in Kansas City in 1971. I told them I was Jewish. Immediately one of them turned in their Bible to Genesis chapter 1. They quoted verse 26, "God said, 'Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness...' " And thus I should believe in their Jesus, they asserted since God was plural. Wait, I grew up learning in an Orthodox Jewish school and synagogue. God was one. That number I knew like the back of my hand. Echad. One. Not two.
We even sing in the Adon Olam (a closing prayer often sung in synagogue prayer services), v'hu echad, v'ein sheni. He's one, and not two. OK, so this business of the multi-god just didn't jive. I'm Jewish. Check. There's only one God. Check. Jesus is God... nope!
But over time, and with more and more study of the Older and of course the Newer Testament also, I have found God is three-yet-one. (Isa 48.12-16, Proverbs 30.1-4 and so many more) And that compound unity is fascinating in its implications. 

It means God is in Himself community.
It means God in Himself displays unity and humility and servitude and acquiescence.
It means God in Himself shows us how to live and how to get along with one another in Australia, in Israel, or wherever we are just now.

It means when the Father turned His face away from His only begotten Son at the time of the crucifixion in Jerusalem nearly 2000 years ago that the penalty of our sin could be finally dealt with. It means we can be eternally forgiven because of the death of Yeshua. 

Without the sinless Son of God Himself dying for us, we would have remained without hope. 

Thank you, Father, Son and Ruach Hakodesh for your love and mercy and in your unity, your teaching to us of community.
God is indeed Echad. He is One.

Pondering God (Part 19)

19 May. Continuing our study and ponderings of God. Who is He? God is good. Wasn't that one of the first things you learned to pray as a child? "God is great, God is good. Let us thank Him for our food. Amen." But wait a minute, there are tens of thousands of babies born monthly with birth defects. What's good about that one? Wars are killing thousands weekly whenever they happen in Gaza, Syria, Africa, in the drug kingdoms of Central and South America...and any other hot spots. God is good in light of those? You've got to be kidding! 

On Friday, school shooting #6 in the US this year, with more students and maybe others killed. God is good? Ha!
What is the argument that people make about God not being good? Usually it's about people and the inhumanity of people towards each other. Infidelity in marriage, gossip which is tantamount to murder in office and neighbourhood conversations... it's all about man vs man. God is rarely invoked and if he were, it would be a fake God anyway. The real God is good.

He's good when the world treats others badly.
He's good when nations learn war against one another.
He's good when bad people do bad things to others.

He is good, all the time. All the time God is good.

The Hebrew midwives experienced God's goodness (Exodus 1.20) in helping them in their work. 

One day a young rich man came sincerely to Yeshua. He knelt down in front of him as a sign of respect. He began, "Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" (Mark 10.17) The question is odd. Think about this. How does one inherit something? By doing anything? Nope. But rather by BEING someone. The young man had some confusion based on his Jewish upbringing. I too, have a Jewish upbringing, and similarly learned that when God wanted to bless us, He would do so with finances and other riches. But Yeshua had just spoken (verse 15) about being a child and inheriting the Kingdom of God. It's a matter of receiving, not earning. It's based on relationship, not on rewards. 

But before Yeshua addressed this issue, which He does, He starts with a question about the man's salutation. Yeshua asked the man, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone." 

Yeshua was NOT telling the man that he was not God, nor that he wasn't even good. What he WAS saying to the inquirer, was that HE was God, and that if the man would see that, his life would be different. Acknowledging Yeshua as God in the flesh, which is an amazing concept in itself, and acknowledging His goodness, will change your life forever. Why? Because it changes us from earners to receivers. 

God is good. Let us thank Him for food. And for our lives. And for our station in life. And for His plans for us. And for eternity which He extends to those who put their trust in Him. 

Shabbat shalom.

Pondering God (Part 28)

28 May. Continuing our study and our pondering of God. He is Friend. Now that sounds downright primary school. "OK kids, everyone choose a partner and get on the bus" And before I let you think otherwise, stay there for a minute. What did that friend on the bus accomplish? 

That friend was there if you weren't, and told the teacher of your missing. That friend was a conversationalist. That friend was a sport's compatriot. Yes, that's what a friend accomplishes.

But wait, there's more. 

A friend sticks closer than a brother. (Prov. 18.24)
A friend loves at all times. (Prov. 17.17)

Some people think that a person who gives them things is a friend. The man who always picks up the tab (the guy who shouts the bar) has many friends. But we would put the word in quotation marks. The Bible simply says it like this: "And every man is a friend to him who gives gifts." (Prov. 19.6)

The idea of a friend and having God as friend is something more than all human enterprise. Some want God on their side adn to have everyone else along as well. The Bible makes it clear (James 4.4) "You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God."

I guess the battle for friendship has to do with loyalty. Who is #1 in your life? Yeshua? Great. He wants to be your friend. Your eternal forever friend. He wants to defend you against school-yard bullies and to listen to you when you are hurting, as a kid or as an adult. 

Yeshua makes this new relationship with God clear as crystal in "No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you." (John 15.15)

Intimacy of relationship and conversation, confidence to disclose and to come alongside...that's God. With us. Immanuel. What a friend... all our sins and griefs to bear.

Pondering God (Part 29)

29 May. Continuing our study and our pondering of God. The most amazing and the most important summary statement of it all... God is Love. I looked back to ensure that I hadn't written this before. Surprised, eh? 27 other attributes and characteristics of the Almighty, and love was not (yet) included.

When I say love, do you think of John Lennon and the Beatles singing that's all you need? When you hear the word love, do you think of famous people with that last name like Kevin from the Cleveland Cavaliers or Mike from the Beach Boys or Courtney who was married to Kurt Cobain?

Love is more than a passing fancy or a clever surname. Love is an attitude long before it's an action. So it stems from commitment. It's an action long before it's a renewed feeling. And when feelings take over and it's 'all about love' then we often get confused and have to re-sort out lives. 

When we say "God is love" it sounds like a bumper sticker. Which, by the way is not a bad idea if you know how to mass produce those. It could be a Chinese fortune cookie insert. God is love. It can be so nebulous

When you take a word like love it can mean so many things. I love my wife. I love my dog. I love cappuccino. I love baseball when we win.

To explore human love is a massive mystery, but to ponder the love of God, buckle your seatbelt. If you don't love your neighbour whom you have seen, how can you say you love Him? (1 John 4.20)

God is love means "God cares."

Creation speaks of a loving God.
Redemption speaks of the depth of love of God.
The empowering of the Spirit in our lives is God's love in our lives to fill us with Him to live this out.

When John the Apostle said, "God is love" (1 John 4.16) he is saying we should replicate the love of God in our relations with one another. 

It all summarizes in this: 1John 4.9 "By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him."

God so loved the world, that He did something.
When you love, you do stuff. 

What did God do? He sent His only Son into the world that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but rather have eternal life. (John 3.16).

Wow...that's love. 

That's a God thing. That's God.

Pondering God (Part 20)

20 May. Continuing our study of the being we know as God. Today: God is Great. Just what does that mean, anyway? Great like a football victory? Great like the answer to 'How do you feel today?" Or what was dinner like last night at that 3 Hat restaurant?
In a way, they ARE the same. We use the word 'great' to be a superlative. Dinner wasn't only acceptable or pleasant. It was superb. The footy ended well and our team came out on top and the victory was magnificent. The concert, the play, the movie, the feelings we enjoy when things are beyond normal. That's 'great.'

Moses reported something about God to the Jewish people in Deuteronomy : “You shall not dread them, for the LORD your God is in your midst, a great and awesome God." ( Deut. 7.21 ) The word for 'great' there is 'gadol', often simply 'big' or 'large.' But the addition of the word 'Awesome" which means 'to be feared' adds weight to the argument. 

What argument you wonder? The allegation that these slaves, recently freed from Egypt, who barely know anything about the international political scene, are about to go into a new territory, today called Israel, then the land of 7 nations, and the former-slaves are going to destroy the other guys.
“When the LORD your God brings you into the land where you are entering to possess it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and stronger than you, and when the LORD your God delivers them before you and you defeat them, then you shall utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them and show no favor to them." (verses 1-2) 

No wonder the Almighty has Moses build up their confidence. He says the God who delivered you from Egypt and Pharaoh is the same God who will lead you into a new place. He was GREAT then; He will be GREAT again! And this time, don't fear the other gods of Egypt or the strong taskmasters there, but fear the God who is the Big one. The Great one. 

Don't dread the 7 nations.
Don't dread the troubles you might have to suffer.
Fear God because He's #1. 

But if you've all been reading along with me this month, you know that fearing God is healthy and right, because HE IS GOOD, and compassionate and faithful and alive and ever was and is and will be. His nature is to be for us. 

King David said it, "Great is the Lord."
Nahum the prophet said it.
Will you say it?

God is great. Rest in His power and His being. Sing of His greatness today. Tell of His greatness to any and all. Don't be ashamed of Him. We are on His side. Hallellujah!