I Am the Lord Your God (part 8)

Praise God from whom all blessings flow. It is God, who decides from where and from whom is His church. In Mark 16:18, where He talks about the miracles and being able to cure the sick and recover from incredible odds, that does not come from the technology of men but the workings of the LORD. In all things, He purposes me to bring people to Him, so that they can come to know His wondrous works, His miracles, things that I could never do. A few years ago, I had spectacular flowers from day lilies to rose bushes to chrysanthemums, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. I didn’t do this. God did it. All I did was plant. But the colors were so beautiful, I couldn’t have done that on my own. This is His miracle. His triumph. He has set up a Holy Mountain and a Jerusalem that all will come to and all will bend their knee to Him, in a much greater way than we could ever hope to imagine. Zechariah 2:10,11 says, “Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion: for lo, I come, and I will dwell in the midst of thee, saith the LORD. And many nations shall be joined to the LORD in that day, and shall be my people: and I will dwell in the midst of thee, and thou shall know that the LORD of hosts hath sent me unto thee.” And again in Zechariah 6:15, “And they that are far off shall come and build in the temple of the LORD, and ye shall know that the LORD of hosts hath sent me unto you. And this shall come to pass, if ye will diligently obey the voice of the LORD your God.” And again in Zechariah 8:20-23 says, “Thus saith the LORD of hosts; It shall come to pass, that there shall come people, and the inhabitants of many cities: and the inhabitants of one city shall go to another, saying, ‘Let us go speedily to pray before the LORD, and to seek the LORD of hosts: I will go also.’ Yea, many people and strong nations shall come to seek the LORD of hosts in Jerusalem, and to pray before the LORD. Thus saith the LORD of hosts; in those days it shall come to pass that ten men shall take hold of all languages of the nations, even shall take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying ‘We will go with you, for we have heard that God is with You’.” These are prophesies not of the rise of the Jewish nation as many are wont to say, but these are prophesies for the formation and growth of the Bride of Christ. Of the miracle that God works among all nations to bring all to Himself in Christ. This is God’s will that all shall come to Him. Zechariah is predicting that God wants us to be joyous in Him. LORD GOD, may I truly see Him for what He is, a loving great God that wants all to come to Him, so much that He sent the flesh of Himself, God with us, Emmanuel.

I Am THe Lord Your God (part 8)

But only God gives us this strength through His grace. (1 Thes 1:1) Only God, through His son Jesus, makes us whole. Only God gives us peace. I do not love peace, I want to fight every living creature in my wake that stands in my way in the name of being righteous. God tells me in His Name stop and think about what I am doing. He cries out for peace through David (Ps 133:1) How can there be peace without unity among people that call themselves Christians? As long as there are so many differences how can there be unity? I hear preachers that want unity, and it makes me wonder. Do these preachers realize that what disunites churches are not the little peripheral things, although these have indeed split up churches? No, what really splits a church are fundamental acceptances or non-acceptances of the ideals that God considers important, baptism, the Lord’s Supper, why worship on Sunday as opposed to another day. Christians think of the bible as static, as one-dimensional like a map. The Bible on the other hand is God’s Word. It is not just a map, but it is alive and living. (Heb 4:12,13) And it only becomes real and not paper when I live or my Christian neighbor lives in accordance with Jesus’ principles and God’s Spirit which is alive in His Word. God is the God Almighty. I am instructed by God through Paul not to go beyond what is written. In 1 Cor 4:6 Paul warns not to put man’s ideas above God’s. Why? Because God is the authority. There is no confusion in Him, in man there is, as I change each minute, God doesn’t. He is the Great I AM.

I Am The Lord Your God (Part 7)

God is in complete and utter control. He has chosen Jerusalem as His central Holy point. Jeremiah 3:17 says “At that time they shall call Jerusalem the throne of the LORD; and all the nations shall be gathered unto it, to the name of the LORD, to Jerusalem; neither shall they walk any more after the imagination of their evil heart.” And further in Jeremiah 4:2, “And thou shall swear, ‘The LORD liveth, in truth, in judgment, and in righteousness’; and all nations shall bless themselves in Him and in Him shall they glory.” The LORD GOD is in control. It is to Him that all nations shall come, it is His Name they will long for. This is evidenced in Jeremiah 16:19-21 and Jeremiah 31:7-34. He decides who can come, and it is His desire that all come (John 3:16), but they have to do so via Jerusalem. Does this mean the biblical Jerusalem? Maybe a remnant of that, the law, the holiness, the purity relating to the attitude of the biblical Jerusalem. Certainly not the corruption that was that led to its destruction. When Christ came to tear the temple veil, it was the separation of man from God, nothing more, nothing mystical, but representing the commingling of blood and spirit, of purity and fleshliness that is this human race, of heart, soul, body, and mind that God wants all of. It represented the commingling of the perfect (God) with that which would never be perfect (man) until death was overcome and man crossed through the portal to God. So is it the physical place? I don’t think so. I think like so much of God’s word it is figurative, a representation of things yet to come, the representation of a place that God has built for me and you and you and you and all those who believe. Jerusalem is the Kingdom of God, in which He makes the rules and He calls whoever He wants to citizens. Jerusalem is the Kingdom that Daniel described in Daniel 2:35-45. And He will provide for His. A perfect example of this is given in Amos 9:11,12 with the destruction of Jerusalem and rebuilding of Jerusalem. Doesn't this give the same attitude of the old covenant being nailed to the cross with Jesus and the new covenant was used to rebuild the temple of God within each of us. For that is where the new covenant is. And once again I am fooled because I fully believe that Amos is speaking of a physical temporal experience and he in fact is not. Amos is in fact telling me that within my very soul God will rip the veil separating me from Him. His Son’s death and resurrection will accomplish this. And my participation in the act of repentance, faith, and baptism will be to raise the temple within me to the former glory, that is the former reverence of God. I will be come as a priest in the temple. God doesn’t make me as a leader in the sense of coming in on a white horse and slashing everything in its pathway. God makes me a free thinker, one who can stand on my own two feet and a peacemaker. That is God’s strength.

I AM THE LORD YOUR GOD (Part 6)

For those who think God is not active, God promises in Is 62:1-7 that He won’t rest until purity is restored and there will be no peace until righteousness and salvation comes. Christ was consciously put here by God so that I would know what faith in Him is and what real salvation is. God sees all. He knows all. From the day He created this universe until the day He decides to end this creation, He knew and knows what He has in mind to accomplish. (Col 1:15 –28) At the same time, He wants to let us know that His servant (Jesus Christ) is on earth and that He promises comfort. (Is 66:10 – 14) Why shouldn’t I rejoice and be exceedingly glad? After all, in my attitude is where I receive the blessings of the Father. (Gen 12:3) God’s rulership comes out of Judea; that seems to be the game plan from the day He told Abraham to pack up and leave Ur with His wife. No doubt about it, because along comes the Christ child, who was of lineage of David, and was to be the High Priest for his people, not someone from the tribe of Levi. My attitude is not to worship God in splendor or adornment, not to worship in a display of my talent, but to worship in reverence and on my knees in front of the King of Kings. If I make a golden calf, as the Jews did in Deuteronomy 32:21, of my talents and abilities, if I make a statement saying “Look what I am doing to express my love for God”, it means nothing. Nothing. God looks and says, “That’s fine, what are You doing to show Me, the real Me to them. How are you reflecting Me?” That can only be done with His truth and explaining His power. In Exodus, God was angry with His people and wanted to destroy them, and it took Moses to bring Him to forgive them, to remind Him to forgive them. He will provide, as He says in Psalms 2:8 and again in Psalms 69:35-36, but He will only provide for those who love His Name and long to worship Him, not the image of Him I give off by my all too human interpretation when ever I write a story or play music or dance to Him. Those are personal things to Him from me and if someone wants to go on their own search because of me, more power to them but that is just my interpretation of who I think God is. The true God is in the gospels, and walked with the apostles. And David knew this and foretold the coming, as did Isaiah, as did other prophets and finally John the Baptizer. My attitude is not to sing so that other people can see me sing to Him, but to sing to Him.(Ps 66:4), praise Him (Ps 68:31,32). As we will be glad in the LORD because He has made it and all the world is under His control (Ps 113:3; 118:4)