living words.

"he (moses) was in the assembly in the desert, with the angel who spoke to him on mount sinai, and with our fathers; and he received living words to pass on to us..." -acts 7.

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living words.

words alive with the breath of God, the power of God, the wisdom and the promise of God.

words spoken long ago and carried for thousands of years, moving and creating and establishing and upholding until this very day.

words that do not return void.

words bound up in a holy book, every moment available to us.

LIVING WORDS.
LIVING WORDS.
LIVING WORDS.

the very words of GOD!

wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow!

praise the L-RD,
praise the L-RD,
praise the L-RD!

Name.

"the name used most often for G-d in jewish texts is also the most mysterious and intimate. in hebrew it's actually a word with no consonants and all vowels. it's unpronounceable. when you try to say it, you hear the sound of a breath, a simple exhale. what is the teaching? the name of G-d is not meant to be uttered, but to be breathed."

He was what He was.
He is what He is.
He will be what He will be.

blessed be the Name.

excerpts quoted from rabbi irwin kula.

holy, holy, holy.

Ah,
those who never give a thought
to the plan of the Lord,
and take no note
of what He is designing.

Ah,
those who say,
'let Him speed, let Him hasten His purpose,
if we are to give thought;
let the plans of the Holy One of Israel
be quickly fulfilled,
if we are to give heed.'

Ah,
those who are so wise
in their own opinion;
so clever
in their own judgement!

_

for My plans are not your plans,
nor are My ways your ways
-declares the Lord.

but as high as the heavens are high above the earth,
so are My ways high above your ways
and My plans above your plans.

_

the Lord is NOT SLOW in keeping His promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.

_

holy, holy, holy!
the Lord of Hosts!
His presence fills all the earth!

_

isaiah 5. isaiah 6. isaiah 55. 2 peter 3. amen.

tear it open.

something something something,
always working to make God seem so small.

and yet, beyond this veil thrown over our eyes,

GOD REIGNS.
GOD REIGNS.
GOD REIGNS.

tension.

sometimes the worst thing for faith is our ideals.

the beauty of following Jesus does not grow from His removal of life's messiness;

the weight and the power and the glory of following Jesus manifests in the fact that amongst all of life's chaos and failure and struggle and tension,

the power of the resurrection, the living Word, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the gentle One, Victor and Shepherd and Defender, King of all kings,

MESSIAH,

resides with us in the midst of it,

and breathes, speaks, creates,
resurrects

new life.

(amen).

holy, holy, holy.

א בִּשְׁנַת-מוֹת הַמֶּלֶךְ עֻזִּיָּהוּ, וָאֶרְאֶה אֶת-אֲדֹנָי יֹשֵׁב עַל-כִּסֵּא רָם וְנִשָּׂא; וְשׁוּלָיו, מְלֵאִים אֶת-הַהֵיכָל.

In the year that king Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated upon a high and lofty throne, the skirts of His robe filled the temple.

ב שְׂרָפִים עֹמְדִים מִמַּעַל לוֹ, שֵׁשׁ כְּנָפַיִם שֵׁשׁ כְּנָפַיִם לְאֶחָד: בִּשְׁתַּיִם יְכַסֶּה פָנָיו, וּבִשְׁתַּיִם יְכַסֶּה רַגְלָיו--וּבִשְׁתַּיִם יְעוֹפֵף.

Seraphs stood in attendance on Him. Each of them had six wings: with two he covered his face and with two he covered his legs, and with two he would fly.

ג וְקָרָא זֶה אֶל-זֶה וְאָמַר, קָדוֹשׁ קָדוֹשׁ קָדוֹשׁ יְהוָה צְבָאוֹת; מְלֹא כָל-הָאָרֶץ, כְּבוֹדוֹ.

And one would call to the other, 'Holy, holy, holy! the LORD of hosts! His presence fills all the earth!'

ד וַיָּנֻעוּ אַמּוֹת הַסִּפִּים, מִקּוֹל הַקּוֹרֵא; וְהַבַּיִת, יִמָּלֵא עָשָׁן.

The doorposts would shake at the sound of the one who called, and the House kept filling with smoke.

ה וָאֹמַר אוֹי-לִי כִי-נִדְמֵיתִי, כִּי אִישׁ טְמֵא-שְׂפָתַיִם אָנֹכִי, וּבְתוֹךְ עַם-טְמֵא שְׂפָתַיִם, אָנֹכִי יוֹשֵׁב: כִּי, אֶת-הַמֶּלֶךְ יְהוָה צְבָאוֹת--רָאוּ עֵינָ.

I cried, 'Woe is me; I am undone! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; Yet my own eyes have beheld the King LORD of hosts.

-isaiah 6.

God-sufficient.

To God alone nothing is necessary. He did not bring His worlds into being to meet some unfulfilled need in Himself. The word necessary is wholly foreign to God.

Since He is the Being supreme over all, it follows that God cannot be elevated. Nothing is above Him, nothing beyond Him. Any motion in His direction is elevation for the creature; away from Him, descent. As no one can promote Him, so no one can degrade Him. To believe in Him adds nothing to His perfections; to doubt Him takes nothing away.

The picture of a nervous, ingratiating God fawning over men to win their favor is not a pleasant one; yet if we look at the popular conception of God that is precisely what we see. Twentieth-century Christianity has put God on charity. So lofty is our opinion of ourselves that we find it quite easy, not to say enjoyable, to believe that we are necessary to God.

We commonly represent Him as a busy, eager, somewhat frustrated Father hurrying about seeking help to carry out His benevolent plan to bring peace and salvation to the world, but, as said the Lady Julian, 'I saw truly that God does all things, be they ever so little.'

I fear that thousands of younger persons enter Christian service from no higher motive than to help deliver God from the embarrassing situation His love has gotten Him into and His limited abilities seem unable to get Him out of.

Again, God needs no defenders. He is the eternal undefended.

To be right, we must think worthily of God.

That God exists for Himself and man for the glory of God is the emphatic teaching of the Bible. The high honor of God is first in heaven as it must yet be in earth.

Unbelief is actually perverted faith, for it puts its trust not in the living God but in dying men. The unbeliever denies the self-sufficiency of God and usurps attributes that are not his. This dual sin dishonors God and ultimately destroys the soul of the man.

In His love and pity God came to us as Christ. In recent times, this has come to mean something different from, and less than, what it meant to the early church. The Man Jesus as He appeared in the flesh has been equated with the Godhead and all His human weaknesses and limitations attributed to the Deity. The truth is that the Man who walked among us was a demonstration, not of unveiled deity but of perfect humanity. The awful majesty of God was mercifully sheathed in the soft envelope of human nature to protect mankind.

Christians today appear to know Christ only after the flesh. They try to achieve communion with Him by divesting Him of His burning holiness and unapproachable majesty, the very attributes He veiled while on earth but assumed in fullness of glory upon His ascension to the Father's right hand.

This truth, while a needed rebuke to human self-confidence, will when viewed in its Biblical perspective lift from our minds the exhausting load of mortality and encourage us to take the easy yoke of Christ and spend ourselves in Spirit-inspired toil for the honor of God and the good of mankind.

For the blessed news is that the God who needs no one has in sovereign condescension stooped to work by and in and through His obedient children."

-aw tozer excerpts, the knowledge of the holy.

kept.

"to him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy - to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power, and authority, through Jesus Messiah our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore!

amen."

-jude, vs 24-25.

the Lord's favor.

"the spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me;
He has sent me as a herald of joy to the
humble,
to bind up the wounded of heart,
to proclaim release to the captives,
liberation to the imprisoned;
to proclaim a year of the Lord's favor
and a day of vindication by our God;
to comfort all who mourn -
to provide for the mourners in Zion -
to give them a turban instead of ashes,
the festive ointment instead of mourning,
a garment of splendor instead of a drooping
spirit.
they shall be called terebinths of victory,
planted by the Lord for His glory."

-isaiah 61.

"today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." - Jesus, Luke 4.

awake.

I adore you, O Lord, my strength,

my shield, my mighty champion, my haven.

He reached down from on high, He took me;

He brought me out to freedom.

the Lord, my God, lights up my darkness.

Your care has made me great.

awake, I am filled with the vision of You.

-excerpts, psalm 17, 18

He Himself.

"Assuredly, thus said the Lord: I graciously return to Jerusalem.

For the Lord will again comfort Zion; He will choose Jerusalem again.

Jerusalem shall be peopled as a city without walls, so many shall be the men and cattle it contains. And I Myself - declares the Lord - will be a wall of fire all around it, and I will be a glory inside it.

Shout for joy, Fair Zion! For lo, I come; and I will dwell in your midst - declares the Lord.

-excerpts, zechariah 1, 2.

tales.

"You, O Lord my God, have done many things;
the wonders You have devised for us
cannot be set out before You;
I would rehearse the tale of them,
but they are more than can be told."

-psalm 40.

darkness.

"and the LORD led the sea with a mighty east wind all night, and He made the sea dry ground, and the waters were split apart. And the Israelites came into the sea on dry land, the waters a wall to them on their right and on their left. And the Egyptians pursued them and came after them, all Pharaoh's horses, his chariots, and his riders, into the sea. And it happened in the morning watch that the LORD looked out over the camp of Egypt in a pillar of fire and cloud and He panicked the camp of Egypt..." -exodus 14.

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in the morning watch. By Israelite reckoning, the last third of the night, from 2:00 am to 6:00 am. The Hebrews, then, would have marched through the Sea of Reeds during the night, literally plunging into the dark, for the pillar of fire would have been behind them rather than leading them on their way. -robert alter.

-----

startling.
amazing.

the israelites, terrified and fleeing the egyptians, walked through that wall of water in complete darkness. and they could not see because God was behind them, DEFENDING AND PROTECTING THEM.

a needed lesson for me today, as I cautiously plant one foot in front of the other.

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"The LORD shall do battle for you, and you, you shall keep still." -exodus 14.

the freedom of God.

"To assume that the world for all its immense grandeur is a little cymbal in the hand of God, on which at certain times only one soul vibrates though all are struck; in other words: to assume that the entire complex of natural laws is transcended by the freedom of God, would presuppose the metaphysical understanding that the laws of nature are derived not from a blind necessity but from freedom, that the ultimate is not fate but God. Revelation is not an act of interfering with the normal course of natural processes but the act of instilling a new creative moment into the course of history."

-abraham joshua heschel.

the first days.

"For, pray, ask of the first days that were before you, from the day God created a human on the earth and from one end of the heavens to the other end of the heavens, has there been the like of this great thing or has its like been heard? Has a people heard God's voice speaking from the midst of the fire, as you yourself have heard, and still lived? Or has God tried to come to take Him a nation from within a nation in trials and signs and portents and in battle and with a strong hand and an outstretched arm and with great terrors, like all that the LORD your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? You yourself were shown to know that the LORD is God, there is none besides Him. From the heavens He made you hear His voice to reprove you, and on the earth He showed you His great fire, and His words you heard, from the midst of the fire. And since He did love your fathers He chose their seed after them and brought you out from Egypt through His presence with His great power..."

-torah, deuteronomy 4.

the appearance of the semblance of the Presence.

"Above the expanse over their heads was the semblance of a throne, in appearance like sapphire; and on top, upon this semblance of a throne, there was the semblance of a human form. From what appeared as his loins up, I saw a gleam as of amber - what looked like fire encased in a frame; and from what appeared as his loins down, I saw what looked like fire. There was a radiance all about him. Like the appearance of the bow which shines in the clouds on a day of rain, such was the appearance of the surrounding radiance. That was the appearance of the semblance of the Presence of the Lord. When I beheld it, I flung myself down on my face. And I heard the voice of someone speaking..." -ezekiel 1.

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this portion of ezekiel's vision fascinates me.

look at the words he uses; sapphire, amber, fire, radiance.

these are powerful descriptors, conjuring up images of a form and a being that is beautiful and mighty beyond our understanding.

and this is merely a retelling of the appearance of the semblance of the Presence of the Lord. all that radiance and gleaming amber and framed fire is just a limited, far off, layered version of what God truly is. the reality of God is far too pure and holy for any man to look on in full.

the mere appearance of the semblance of the Presence of the Lord caused ezekiel, God's own prophet and priest, to fling himself down on his face in reverence and fear.

And this is the God who is mindful of us?

this is the God who chooses us?

this is the God who speaks (!) to us and calls us by name?

...

what grace. what heavy, heavy grace.

details.

If you want to know God a little better today -

if you want to get a glimpse of what He is like -

read Job 38 and 39.

How much care and pride God has for His world!

He is so wise, so sovereign, and so involved in its details.

Amazing.

Astounding.

Incredible.

Blessed are you, O Lord Our God, Master and King of the Universe!

a word of His power.

"If the distance between the earth and the sun (92 million miles) was reduced to the thickness of a sheet of paper, then the distance between the earth and the nearest star would be a stack of papers 70 feet high, and the diameter of the galaxy would be a stack of paper 310 miles high - and yet the galaxy is nothing but a speck of dust, virtually, in the whole universe, and the Bible says that Jesus Messiah holds this whole universe together with a WORD of His power - His pinkie, as it were.

...

...is this the kind of person you ask into your life to be your assistant?

-----

question of the day: am I available to God, or do I expect God to be available to me?

Arise, Shine.

"In your lifetime, what you need to know is this:

God has chosen you. God has called you. God has taken you by your right hand. He has strengthened you. DO NOT BE AFRAID - I AM is at your side. DO NOT BE DISCOURAGED, looking away in fear - I AM will take hold of your right hand.

You do not need to worry about the outcome. God will control the outcome.

He needs us to be faithful in our day, and church: this is our day. None other.

This is our day.

ARISE, SHINE on the world.”

– steve deneff.

—–

“ARISE, SHINE, for your light has come,
and the glory of the LORD rises upon you.

See, darkness covers the earth
and thick darkness is over the peoples,
but the LORD rises upon you
and his glory appears over you.

Nations will come to your light,
and kings to the brightness of your dawn.”

– isaiah 60.

—–

do not be afraid.

the LORD has chosen you.

Arise.

Shine.

for the glory of the LORD rises upon you.

-----

New Worship.

Recommended listen for the day:

"A New Worship," by Steve Deneff. (released 9/26).

Click here for the podcast:


http://itunes.apple.com/podcast/college-wesleyan-church-podcast/id276086842


Some excellent thoughts on WHO GOD IS and how our perspective concerning His character affects everything we do and are.