American Idols

We have a television show called "American Idol" and it fascinates me.  The idea is to find a Superstar amongst the many obscure talented performers who audition to be on the show.  After culling through thousands of applicants, viewers of the show have the ability to vote for their favorite entertainer.  Over the series' season, the audience becomes more and more invested in their Superstar performer. It is a reality show where viewers take part in choosing an American Idol of pop culture. 

Unlike this show, we don't intend to make things our idols.  Over time we find the process just happens.   It could be people we start to admire.  It could be our health, our wealth, our beauty, our family, our cars, our homes or even worse, our animals. We start to give the object of our attention more and more of our thoughts and affection.  It no longer becomes a person or place in our lives...it becomes our life!

But, the thing that rattles my heart and mind is what God said about idols in the Ten Commandments, "I am the Lord your God...you shall have no other gods before me.  You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.  You shall not bow down to them or worship them..."  IF we take those words to heart, we must decide what 'worship them' means.  In order to worship something, the worshiper must give the object an elevated status. It must be worthy to adore, honor and praise.  And when we have found something or someone to put that amount of effort into, we have given 'it' our heart.  We have heard it said, "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."  And though some of the things we give our attention to are good things, we are prone to put too much of our heart into their outcome.

What consumes most of your thoughts?  What do you find yourself serving? Is it your lifestyle, your bank account, your family prodigy, your self?   God's word says 'you shall not' because His desire is that you love Him first.  No one can serve two masters.  When you do try to serve both, you find yourself divided...you are loyal to one and despise the other.  I found a great commentary on Israel's role to God in www.enduringword.com while studying Isaiah 41:8-16:


"But you, Israel, are My servant," In contrast to the God-rejecting and idol-making people in distant lands, Israel - remember the name means, “Governed by God” - Israel is the servant of the LORD. A servant of God would never make God into his own image, his own idea of what God should be. Servants don’t tell their masters what to do, or what to be. Servants know who the master is and who the servant is."

The television show is an excellent example of how slippery the slope can be when we begin to travel down the wrong path in our journey of faith with the God of Israel.  What is starting to take up your attention lately?  How difficult is it for you to turn away from it, put it down, shut if off, not pick it up, or even stop? There is a fine line between what is good and what is not.  We are warned to be mindful of this trajectory toward idolatry. The attention we want to pour into serving others can even become tainted with self-promotion.  Would you consider the First Commandment of God as His way of speaking to you today?  If so, you will find Him able to help you turn away from that which wants to steal your attention from Him.

"They turned from idols to serve the living and true God." (1 Thessalonians 1:9)

Read and Pray.

Perfect Covering

It is cold where I live.  There is a covering of ice and snow over the land.  But, God is faithful, He gave us the knowledge to design outerwear.  A friend of mine who is rather new to the area from sunny California told me a story about waiting for the bus the first winter she spent here.   She stood with her husband outside in the 15 degree temperature and started to panic because she could no longer feel her ears!  Then her face started to tingle.  She said, "Something weird is happening to my face!  I think I am starting to get frost bite!" It's true - she was!  She said after six years she has figured out how to dress for the occasion of winter in this new place she calls home.  And it no longer feels as cold.  But, of course we all know it is still cold in Chicago - but now she has the proper covering.

It doesn't take much for my thoughts to travel... to wondering how we have the choice to wear the proper garments for the climate we are living. Her illustration reminded me of Adam and Eve in the garden.  As a consequence of the fall of man to the temptation to eat of the fruit of the tree that they were told not to eat (Genesis 2:17), they felt they needed to make their own garments to hide themselves from God. Apparently, they too felt the coolness of the air on their skin and did the best they could do to cover up!  But, as my friend figured out, the proper covering would come a bit later.   First, Adam and Eve had to recognize they were no longer in sunny California - oops, I mean in the state of innocence for which they were first created.  They chose to leave their place of rest in the Sovereignty of God who gave His instruction regarding from what tree to eat.  They had a choice. They chose to depart from His covering.  In doing this, they would eventually answer to God  who in turn would make them a new type of covering.  They would now be wearing garments of 'skin' and not the inadequate fig leaf.

You see, God has always been in the clothing industry.

Noah was told to make a covering.  It was a boat or more specifically, an ark.  And God told him how to build it, why he's building it, who to put in it, and how long it would take to make it - 120 years (Genesis 6:3) .  Noah did everything just as God commanded him.  And sure enough, it happened just as God said it would - and only those who received the direction from the Lord on getting into or under His covering would be saved from the oncoming flood.  God runs a tight ship and His covering was adequate to salvation.

Moses preached about the God of Israel, and God instructed Moses on how to bring Israel to safety.  He told the community of Israel to take blood of a lamb and put it on the sides and tops of the doorframes of their houses.  On that same night,  God would pass through Egypt and see the blood as a sign where His people lived.  And when God saw the blood, He would pass over them. (Exodus 12:6-13)  That was God's perfect way to cover His believing people - the shed blood of a lamb without defect.  And there were numerous ways God protected His people through 40 years of wandering in the desert...covering them with a cloud by day and light by night.  Covering them with His protection in the wilderness - all to protect the promised One to come through a protected people.  When sin abounded in the camp of Israel, God sent the Law to keep them from harming themselves and His future Messiah.  Israel needed to exist, not for Israel's sake, but for the sake of God's Holy Name.  Though I never forget that God loves Israel and so do I.   First of all, that she was entrusted with the very oracles of God.  And through Israel's obedience and trials, and God's faithfulness, His Word was protected by those people so we can read them today.  Secondly, theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of the Messiah, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen.

And then Jesus comes to earth - protected and Protector.  And in Him, through Him, and by Him, all Righteous clothing is received.  In us there is no good thing, though we may try to be good.  But, our good seems to fall short.  Almost like a jacket that doesn't keep us warm enough.  The works we do don't last - the good thoughts we have don't stick around - and the surrender to God is only in moments.   But now apart from the law -  the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets of the Tanakh testify.  This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus the Messiah to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile (though we tend to struggle with that fact),  for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,  and yet all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Jesus the Messiah - for all who believe.  Clothed in His Righteousness - perfect covering for sin. Try it on -  I would be very surprised if it isn't the Perfect fit.
 
"I delight greatly in the LORD; my soul rejoices in my G-d.  For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels." Isaiah 61:10

"I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from G-d, prepared as a bride beautifully clothed for her husband." Revelation 21:2

Denying

http://www.givesmehope.com/view/GMH/50245

Why would any human being want to deny that the events of the Holocaust happened? For what reason would you want to deny the testimony of these children in this film?  Or the people who still live today to tell their painful story.  It is like denying the testimony of the peoples who witnessed the events of the Bible.  

I believe the reason for denying the facts of the Holocaust are for the same reason people want to deny the events of the Bible.  In doing so, we choose to dismiss the Sovereignty of the God of Israel,  His Promises,  His Righteousness,  His Judgement of what we are doing compared to His Standard. 

And then the trajectory begins ... we deny that He has chosen a people.  And that through those chosen people that we deny,  we also deny His chosen Messiah. We then deny that He would come, and has come, and will come again.  We often dismiss the Truth when it means we have to adjust our own thinking. 

"The eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped"

The prophet Isaiah says in chapter 35:1-6, "They shall see the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God....Behold, your God ...Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy." 

There was another prophet some 800 years later, John the Baptist, who was the first to point to Jesus as the Messiah of Israel.  Jesus said of him, "Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist." If Jesus is the Messiah, then that is a high honor to be called the greatest among men.  And, John the Baptist was a man and like all humans, we can have a crisis of faith.  We can be raised with faith, we can come upon it later in life, we can even dip our toes in the water of it and not jump in fully.  But, at some point we are faced with the decision about what we believe, and no matter what the outcome or circumstance, we are going to stand in the stand we have taken.  That is true for an atheist or person of faith.  We die in the stand we've taken. 

So, doubt brought John to ask of Jesus, "Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?"  And Jesus sent back an important response.  He said, "Go and tell John what you hear and see; the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is the one who is not offended by me." (see Matthew 11:2-7) The response is so important because Jesus used the words Isaiah prophesied.  And John had to either believe (again!) or not.  Isaiah's words told us that when we behold our God, He will come and save you (Is 35:4).   And Jesus is saying that He himself, is opening the eyes of the blind, unstopping the ears of the deaf, and the lame man can now leap like a deer because they can walk!  John would receive this message while in prison - and would know the Word of God as spoken through the Torah and the prophets before him that Jesus was quoting Isaiah.  He still had to line it all up and decide for himself.  And, he had to do so in a hurry, because what we know from scripture is that John was beheaded shortly after that while in prison.

Jesus also added something to his response, "Blessed is the one who is not offended by me."  I believe He said that because either you are so grateful for what He did - 'save you' as Isaiah prophesied, or you are completely offended by the idea that you need saving.

And you will call Him Immanuel - which means "God with us"

The prophet Isaiah said those words some 700+ years before the baby born in Bethlehem named Jesus came and made His home amongst us.  Rabbis have argued that the sign of a child born to a virgin/young maiden in Isaiah 7:4 was not the Messiah. That the baby Isaiah prophesied was not Jesus of Nazareth - born in Bethlehem.  At one point I wanted to believe their instruction.  It seemed too simple. 

Then, when I read the New Covenant in Matthew 1:23 that clearly states, "All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: "The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel" - which means, "God with us" it now became a matter of faith.  In order for me to believe in the Messiah Yeshua, I must take hold of those Old Covenant prophecies He  fulfilled  as stated in the testimony of the New Covenant.  Either, I believe Jesus was the fulfillment of that baby and promised Messiah as written by the incredibly-obedient-unto-death prophet, Isaiah,  and the incredibly-obedient-unto-death apostle, Matthew, or I believe the Rabbis.  The choice was clear and G-d pierced my heart.  It was as simple as 1-2-3 or Matthew 1:23.  Merry Messiahmas

"Put a mark on the foreheads of those who grieve and lament..."

I had a very intense dream about 6 years ago that comes back to memory every so often.  I rarely have them.  But, when I do, they go into a journal because they are so incredible!  This one was about an evening of celebration in a room full of people known to me. We are in a high rise overlooking the city.  I was near the window and saw a convoy of helicopters. One helicopter came so close to the window - it looked like it was inspecting us.  It tipped from side to side, slowly.  I immediately jumped back from the window and felt panic for my daughters.  But, when I looked at them, they had raised cross like forms on their foreheads.  Immediate relief came to me and when I turned to look at that helicopter it slowly turned away from the window.  I woke up.  Very strange. But, there has been revelation of this dream over the last 6 years. 

2 years later in 2008 I was watching a sermon that was teaching on Revelation 22:13, "I am the Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End." and the pastor was preaching on the Hebrew letters Aleph (greek=Alpha) and Tav (greek=Omega).   The symbol of the Aleph is a picture of an ox head, or in ancient Hebrew culture, a sacrificial animal, and the symbol for Tav in ancient Paleo-Hebrew is like a cross or funny 't'.  The pastor put it together that Jesus the Messiah was the Aleph - or sacrifice via the Tav -  or cross. 

So last week, I am reading Ezekiel. In chapter 9, God shows Ezekiel a man clothed in linen who is to mark the foreheads of those who grieve and lament over the idolatry being done in His Holy Temple. In doing some research, I found that this word 'mark' is written in Hebrew as the Tav.  Fascinating.  So, the Tav was the symbol of God's covering from the wrath to come written on the foreheads of those He had marked to be spared. And even though  Ezekiel cried out for God's people -  God would not stop the plan and warned, and in the last verse of chapter 9 it is written, "Then the man in linen with the writing kit at his side brought back word, saying, 'I have done as you commanded.'"

Another man said 'It is done' - Jesus of Nazareth.  As He died upon the cross He said, "It is finished."  and in Revelation 21:6 Jesus said, "It is done.  I am the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End." He did not turn back either.  He did as commanded by God and was the sacrifice on the cross for the sin of the world. 

What do we do with the wrong in our lives?  Do we just keep on doing it because we have done it for so long?  Or, do we come to a point in time where we recognize we don't want to keep on the same way, with the same thoughts and the same responses.  We begin to grieve and lament the darkness in our own lives.  And that is what the people of Ezekiel's time did as they saw what was going on with God's People and His Holy Temple.  Their grief over sin blessed God.  He was attentive to them because they recognized their life choices were not in line with His goodness and commands. 

It is the same for us now.  We need to look at ourselves and grieve and lament our own choices.  The God of Israel, who is a God of Justice,  has declared in His Word that He will punish the earth and everything in it for her sin.  We can't escape that truth, but we can be marked as His.  His choice of mark this time is the blood shed on the Cross. 

Do you receive that statement as from Him?  Some 5000+ years ago Israel had to believe that the shed blood of a lamb on a doorpost would save them from God's declared wrath.  Moses told them. Do you think Israel might have had a difficult time understanding that mark? Oh, you betcha it would have been difficult to believe...until the actual wrath of God passed!  And now, every year since the first Passover, that is what we remember... the people of Israel doing as God commanded, and living.

Today, God is asking us to paint the doorpost of our hearts with faith in the blood of the Messiah shed 2000 years ago.  Another difficult concept, but just as the people of Ezekiel's time might have thought grieving was not enough to be marked.  It was.

I pray for dreams of many with the 'cross like' symbol upon their foreheads.  It gives me great peace to know that no matter what happens, those whom God has marked will be eternally safe in the palm of His hand.  He has promised.  In fact, it is written, "See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me." Isaiah 49:16

 

To know the God of Israel

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Exodus 5:1-2 "Afterward Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said, “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘Let my people go, so that they may hold a festival to me in the wilderness.’ Pharoah said, "Who is the Lord, that I should obey him and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord and I will not let Israel go.' ”

Wanting 'to know' God has been my personal journey.  Pharaoh admitted he did not know the Lord - fair enough - he didn't - yet.  He was very busy making himself to be god to those under his jurisdiction.   But,  if you know a bit about the plagues and Red Sea crossing, it is fair to say that God brought before Pharaoh many examples and signs of Who He is and His power. God even brought a witness of Himself through the man of Moses. Has He ever done that for you?  Has He ever brought someone before you to witness or testify of God's great power and love? He has for me.  I thought they were a bit annoying at first.  Persevering with their message of Hope and Salvation.  But, there was a day that I just prayed a simple prayer, "God, what is the Truth."  And as far as I am concerned, He spoke to me through signs and people and eventually through His Holy Word.

Pharaoh can no longer stand before God and claim that he did not know God...God was faithful to show Himself to Pharaoh.  Pharoah just did not want to believe what he heard or saw.  How about you?

So, the reason this scripture leaped out at me this morning was because of my study on the term, "God of Israel" and noting that the first time it was attributed to the God of the Bible was in Exodus.  Cool.

The funny thing is I wanted to really talk to you about "knowing" God - and that is just how it works sometimes.  My mind says stay the course on one thing - the topic of the God of Israel,  but my heart has another prompting, and God combines both my heart and mind in one verse.  The Exodus passage speaks at first about the God of Israel and then of the enemy of God who doesn't know Him.  Do you know God?  Tell me how He has revealed Himself to you - I love to share the story...

We can back track a bit and discuss the name 'Israel' which was given to Jacob (Genesis 32:22-32) when God changed Jacob's name to Israel because he "struggled with God and with men and have overcome." (verse 28) The very translation of the Hebrew word, Israel, means 'he struggles with God."  In my opinion, this exchange is the essence of what God wants to do in all of us. It is the first step in getting to know Him.  It's personal wrestling with God in your desert - just like Jacob.  Growing up, I remember that I prayed to the "God of Jacob" not really knowing who or what that meant outside of religious rote prayer.  And God was so patient to draw me to know that part of Him.  He wants us to struggle with Him and seek to know Him with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength.  Then, when we seek Him, we will find Him when we seek Him with all our heart.  It worked for Jacob and God promises it will work for you too.  Pharaoh did not seek God with all his heart.  He opposed whatever was brought to him about God.  How do you respond when others share what God has shown them with you?  My responses weren't always so gracious.  Sad to say.

But, this is a journey and a forum to discuss the God of Israel.