Pondering God (Part 9)

9 May. Pondering God. He is gracious, compassionate, abounding in mercy and truth. That's in the Older Testament, again and again. (Exodus 34.6, 2 Chron. 30.9, Deut. 4.31, Jonah 4.2) When asking most people, on the street, or in church, or in shule about who God is, the majority answer with words like Judgmental, Powerful, Fierce, Angry. In fact angry is the #1 answer. 

VERY few answer and mention His grace, His rachmones, His kindness. 

But God is all that and more. GRACIOUS. Giving us what we don't deserve. MERCIFUL. Not giving us what we deserve. In other words Mercy keeps us from hell; Grace gives us heaven. 

GRACE, like a musical grace note, adds something significant but you barely notice it. 
Today, I call you to notice. And to give him thanks.

Pondering God (Part 10)

10 May. Continuing our study of God. He is Comforter. A place to rest. I don’t have to live up to anything. I don’t have to think about anything. He welcomes me into his arms like a parent when the child scrapes his leg by falling outside. We run to Him for comfort. God knows how to comfort us and performs it for His pleasure. We benefit both ways. 

Isaiah said (quoting God) “comfort my people” (chapter 40.1) Nahum was the prophet whose name means “comfort.”

Yeshua said, “the Comforter, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things” ( John 14.26 ). The Greek word for comforter there is parakaleo which can also mean advocate or lawyer. Not that lawyers generally bring people comfort. But a helper. Called to help me. Little old me. 

Thanks be to God for His personal comfort to me. And to all who trust Him.

Pondering God (Part 11)

11 May. Continuing our daily God pondering. Singer. Yes God sings —even over us. His song is not one of mockery or conquest. It’s not to celebrate His marvelousness or the emptiness of the idols. His song is love. 

Zephaniah the prophet wrote, “The LORD your God is in your midst, A victorious warrior. He will exult over you with joy, He will be quiet in His love, He will rejoice over you with shouts of joy.” Quiet and rejoice and shout and sing. That’s such a deep thought to ponder. 

What makes the robin sing in the USA springtime? What makes the crested cockatoo screech in its singing or the young man to serenade his intended?

It’s love. 

God seriously loves us with deep commitment. Each of us. 

Listen for His song. Today, tonight—. When you are alone or in a crowd. Listen and smile. Even now.

Pondering God (Part 12)

12 May. Continuing our study of God. He is Lord of the Sabbath. Lord, from Latin word Dominus, sounds like One who dominates. Think of a triumphalist wrestler after a televised match, fist bumping his chest and bouncing around the ring. Domination like we expect when our football team plays against the team in last place, at the bottom of the ladder. Domination, like we want when we sit an exam, taking the SAT, and come out with a high score. We 'killed it,' we shout. Domination. 

Except that's not how God is. Every other conqueror throughout history, after a victorious thumping of the losers, demands payments, tributes, taxes, honor from the conquered. But God is not like that at all. He OFFERS to be our Lord. What???

Yes, He is Lord of heaven and earth. Yes, He can dominate. Yes, He will establish His kingdom and HIs ways. Yup...that's all correct. 

However, unlike any other ruler in history or in the future, He OFFERS Himself to us, to be our God, for us to be His servants, and even His friends. Who does that?

The Lord of the Sabbath could give us regulations and demands. He could sit back, behind a desk of angels, with rings of layers of separation from us, and require our compliance. Maybe He would turn and notice, but that's unlikely. 

Nope, the Lord of the Sabbath actually came and walked among us. He showed us what Sabbath (rest) was about. It's about sharing life together. He healed the broken on the Sabbath; He brought life where there was only death and insignificance. 

He cured the disabled man. (John 5:6, 8); the man with the withered hand (Matthew 12:13); the infirm woman (Luke 13:13); the man with dropsy (Luke 14:4). When He healed the blind man (John 9), the world turned upside down. No one shouted, "Hallelujah!" which is seriously sad. Not the man's parents, or his neighbours, or the Pharisees -- all of them should have rejoiced. 

Yeshua who performed those and dozens of other miracles, offered Himself to the man born blind. And then and only then, did Yeshua become Lord of the Sabbath and Lord alone, for the former blind man. 

God has done amazing things on the planet, and in your world. 

He offers Himself to you, to be your Lord, today on the Sabbath, and any day. Will you turn your life and your will over to the care of this God, to Yeshua, made in His image and likeness, the Messiah, the Lord of all, the Lord of Sabbath?

Pondering God (Part 13)

13 May. Continuing our study of God....who is He anyway? Shepherd. Taking the lead in walking with animals isn't an easy thing to do. Shepherding sheep is about more than walking. It's about sleeping in their space, and taking them to proper locations for food and drink. It's about protecting them from wolves and other predators. It's a gig that includes healing or fixing their legs when they are damaged, and dealing with new births when lambs are first on the scene. 

To be a shepherd means to care, and to give up your life for the sheep. 

Adonai Roi. The Lord is my shepherd. Probably the most known psalm of King David. Psalm 23. It's recited at every Jewish funeral. What does it mean that He's my Shepherd? 

It means He guides me. He looks out for me. And He has been doing so for a long time. He did not begin this ministry of care for me last year, or 40 years ago, but when I was born, and even before. He has always been my shepherd.

Yeshua is the Great Shepherd of the sheep (Heb. 13.20), that's His gig, His ministry. He tends to us, feeds us, cautions us, guides us...in all circumstances of life. No wonder when there are others, whom we call pastors (another English translation of the word for Shepherd) who are caring more for themselves than for the sheep, the Almighty gets really upset. Note what Jeremiah the prophet said, "Woe to the shepherds who are destroying and scattering the sheep of My pasture!” declares the LORD...You have scattered My flock and driven them away, and have not attended to them; behold, I am about to attend to you for the evil of your deeds,” declares the LORD." (Then to fix things up, He continues) "I shall also raise up shepherds over them and they will tend them, and they will not be afraid any longer, nor be terrified, nor will any be missing,” declares the LORD." (Jer. 23.1-4)
Even when false or fake pastors come in, God will still be involved and both judge them and bring in others to guide us. What love! What care! Thanks be to God for His watchcare over you. And those you love. 

"Now the God of peace, who brought up from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant, even Yeshua our Lord, equip you in every good thing to do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight, through Messiah Yeshua, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen." (Heb. 13.20-21)

Pondering God (Part 14)

14 May. God is.... the Blessed God. Now this might sound a bit redundant or unusual to you. Am I saying that God is the dispenser of blessings? Sort of, but not quite. He's not the eternal Pez dispenser. In fact, blessed sounds like an objective adjective. That is, He is the recipient of blessings, which makes no sense to those who know that He is above it all. In other words, He needs to receive no blessing since He IS blessed.

Usually I write my own devotional thoughts on these ideas, but when I found John Piper had written something so clearly to explain this, I feel it best to cite him particularly and quote his answer to this odd adjective.

John Piper: "My thesis is that in the Scripture when God "blesses" men they are thereby helped and strengthened and made better off than they were before, but when men "bless" God he is not helped or strengthened or made better off. Rather (with C. A. Keller in THAT, I, 361) man's blessing God is an "expression of praising Thankfulness" (ein lobendes Danksagen), when the OT speaks of blessing God it does not "designate a pro­cess that aims at the increase of God's strength" (THAT, I, 361). It is an "exclamation of gratitude and admiration" (THAT, I, 357).

This is not at all a strange semantic phenomenon. If God is the primal and inexhaustible "blesser," then he must be above all others in a "blessed" state—the fullness and source of all "blessing." If this is so, then a most nat­ural burst of praise would be "You are blessed!" That this recognition and joyful exclamation of God's blessedness should then be described as "blessing God" is not unusual. Other analogies, though not exact, would be our expressions like: "I mag­nify the Lord" or "Let us exalt his name." Both of these expressions properly recognize and give joyful expression to God's magnificence and his exalted status. They do not mean that we make God larger or higher. So to bless God means to recognize his great richness, strength, and gracious bounty and to express our gratitude and delight in seeing and experiencing it."

Piper goes on to cite some Older Testament uses of the word 'bless' as a verb to apply to some action we take towards the Lord. 

Deuteronomy 8:10 And you shall eat and be full, and you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land he has given you.

Here "bless" is virtually identical to "thank" or "gratefully recognize as the giver of blessing."

Psalm 100:4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name!

Psalm 145:10 All your works shall give thanks to you, O Lord, and all your saints shall bless you!

Psalm 103:2 Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits,

Psalm 96:2-3 Sing to the Lord, bless his name; tell of his salvation from day to day. Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among all the peoples!

Here bless probably means: joyfully announce all these good things about God."

Does that help you today?
Then let us with full voice give thanks and Bless the Blessed God!

Pondering God (Part 15)

15 May. God is.... the Word. I know you are thinking that Grease is The Word. But that's a latecomer to the contest. In the Beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God.
You might be saying, "Wait, if something is _with_ another, then it cannot _be_ the other." And your quick assertion is a reasonable conclusion. Except that we are talking about the Almighty. And His ways and HIs nature and His characters are not always our ways. 

When I say God is The Word, I mean that everything God says about Himself is completely reliable. I mean He is His own best promise. "I give you my Word," people say when they mean, "I promise you." This also means as reliable as they are, so is their word. When God says, "I promise" whether it be re: a flood, or a covenant with Abram, Isaac, Jacob, David, and Yeshua, it means God is giving us His Word. 

But He is more than promising. He is saying, If I don't come through, then you can disregard me. In the book of Hebrews, we read, "so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us." (6.18)

Promises made; promises broken. That's the way of the world. Promises made; promises kept. That's the way of God.

If you know yourself, you know that you make and break promises even if you don't want to do so. 

If you know the Lord, you know He is entirely trustworthy. He is His Word. If He fails in HIs promises to us, He is a failure and then He implodes. He is the Word. 

Yeshua is God's Final Word to humankind. What God said in Yeshua is completely reliable. Yeshua is completely reliable. How great is our God!