The Names of God - The Glory of Their Strength

The Glory of Their Strength

Psalm 89:15-17 (ESV)

Blessed are the people who know the festal shout, who walk, O Lord, in the light of your face, who exult in your name all the day and in your righteousness are exalted. For you are the glory of their strength; by your favor our horn is exalted.

Everything presented to our senses is filtered through our experiences. Our brains are programmed to view our world (sight, sound, taste, touch, smell) a certain way from data we have collected during our life. You know when you see a small black animal with a white stripe down its back that you need to run the opposite way. The scar on the tip of the finger is a reminder not to touch a hot skillet or glowing ember. These are static experiences that will always be true. The ones that cause us the most grief are the encounters with other people because the responses are so varied based on the experiences of the other person.

We call this pre-programmed response to people “prejudice,” which usually has a negative connotation because it means, “to prejudge.” Your senses give you a narrative of what another person is like before you even hear a single word from their mouth or observe a single action. We do this out of reflex based our previous experience.

Others do the same thing with us. We know who we are and totally understand our motives, but others do not. Occasionally, my wife and I will go to a place (store, restaurant, recreation area, etc.) and are amazed that it is crowded. We exclaim, “We know why we are here, but why are all of these other people here?” The truth is, each of us do this every time we encounter another human. “I know what I'm doing, but what are they doing?”

As children we are taught to fear the stranger. We are instructed to “be careful” when attempting even the most menial task. As we grow we encounter “bullies” or “mean girls” that wreak havoc on our self-esteems and cause us to begin digging the foundation for the walls we will construct over a lifetime of experiences. However, there is a different way!

The psalmist that penned Psalm 89 knew something about the character of mankind and found a remedy for the dreadful predisposition toward pre-judged actions based on experience. It requires conscious effort, but the rewards are worth every bit of energy expended. Look at his words again:

Blessed are the people who know the festal shout, who walk, O Lord, in the light of your face, who exult in your name all the day and in your righteousness are exalted. For you are the glory of their strength; by your favor our horn is exalted.

God created you to have interaction with those around you in a good way. When we know the “festal shout,” or as the King James Version says, “joyful sound,” it becomes a new point of reference for us. The affect of God's love and forgiveness in our life allows us to erase many of the life experiences that cause us pain and allows us to see others with a fresh perspective. We can see them as God created them, not what their life-choices has created.

When we “walk in the light of Your (the Lord's) face” we can trust in the “glory of their (those who know the festal shout) strength,” which is the Spirit of God abiding in us. God's Spirit is the great “neutralizer” when it comes to human encounters. Through Him we can love the unlovable, enjoy peace with warmongers, and live a life of freedom because of the righteousness given to us through salvation in Christ. This is not a panacea. It is the reality of the life reconciled to God.

If Christians- those transformed from darkness to light, from death to life, from hopelessness to faith - do not reflect this “glory of their strength” then the world we touch will be unaffected by the sacrifice of Jesus. We must allow the reverberation of the “festal shout” that changed us to be heard by everyone we have opportunity to engage. Let us be intentional in our transparency so the “light from His face” will be seen instead of our own prejudice or fear.

We do this by remaining in the posture of those who “exult in Your (the Lord's) name all the day.” It's a choice we must make. As we do, God will meet us there with grace.

The Intersection of The Law and Grace

The Intersection of The Law and Grace

I’ve been spending the past few days looking at Grace and The Law. Some very interesting things have turned up as I’ve searched through the various passages that mention these topics by name. However, I’ve come across another topic of interest that is at the very crossroads of these two gifts from God.

I plan to spend more time on this later, but I have come to believe that the Mercy Seat is the very place where our salvation was provided. If you remember, the Mercy Seat that was atop The Ark of the Covenant in the Moses’ tabernacle is where God’s presence was found on earth. He met with the High Priest once a year when the priest brought the blood of the lamb to atone for the sins of the people.

If you read Hebrews you find out that the plans for the tabernacle given to Moses by God were taken from the dimensions of the real tabernacle in Heaven. This is where Jesus took His own blood, the blood of The Spotless Lamb, the Son of God, and placed it there as an eternal sacrifice to not just cover sin, but remove it from us forever.

It is at the Mercy Seat where God’s Justice that demanded death for violation of The Law came in contact with God’s Grace, His desire to redeem man and restore their relationship lost in the Garden; God the Father in agreement with God the Son, in the middle of God’s Presence, the Holy Spirit. The Triune God had completed His plan of redemption.

Once we are In Christ we live our life from that place, the Mercy Seat, immersed in the presence of God forever.

More On The Law

More On The Law

I read, with interest, a quote regarding law from a very unlikely source; Bob Dylan. He said, “If you choose to live outside the law, you must follow the law more stringently than anyone else.” In this particular case he was speaking of civil law, and he’s absolutely correct.

An example of this is someone who decides to drive after having a few drinks, or smoking some pot. They follow the laws of the road strictly by driving below the speed limit, coming to a complete stop at stop signs, and so forth. The reason is they do not want to get caught violating the one law they chose to disregard: driving under the influence.

This process is flawed from the beginning. Because of their impaired state they cannot successfully adhere to the remaining laws even though they try very hard. There is a similar thing that occurs with someone trying to obey The Law of Moses.

If a person chooses to try to obtain their righteousness by keeping The Law, we already know from scripture that they will fail. However, people still try and fall victim to becoming the judge of others in the process. If you attempt to keep The Law by your own power and realize that you missed it in a particular area, you become aware of everyone else that fails in the same area. Not only do you notice it, you become very critical of them by pointing out their sin to others, and possibly even to them directly.

This is one of the reasons the scribes and Pharisees were such vicious people. They knew in their hearts they were living beneath God’s standards, but they attacked anyone who outwardly violated The Law. This is a defense mechanism. If you can deflect the attention away from yourself no one will pay attention to your shortcomings.

This is why they despised Jesus. He always saw through their smoke screen of accusation and spoke directly to the sin in their own heart.

What are we to do? First of all we must admit that we are not capable of keeping The Law. When we acknowledge it in ourselves we can then accept the reality that no one else can keep it either. Then we must accept, by faith, the salvation provided for us by grace through Christ. At that point we become ambassadors to share this Good News with others.

Let us lay aside a critical spirit and embrace those we meet today with the love of God that has come to us through Jesus. Let’s be redemptive in our approach to relationships so others can experience a restored relationship with Father.

More On Grace

More On Grace

So, what role, if any, does The Law have in the life of the Believer? Jesus said that not one iota would pass from The Law until all is accomplished.

Matthew 5:17-20 (ESV) “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

If The Law is still in effect for the Believer (not one iota would pass from it) then we must keep EVERY law, no exceptions, in order to attain righteousness. You cannot omit (relax) ANY of them, or teach anyone to omit any of them. The scribes and Pharisees were those considered blameless in The Law. Your righteousness based on keeping The Law would have to exceed theirs, who were blameless.

The sad truth about the scribes and Pharisees is they did “relax” some of The Law, otherwise they would never have been able to keep it.

Jesus is not trying to tell His followers that they must continue to keep The Law. Far from it! Instead He is assuring them that once He has “fulfilled The Law” that our righteousness would be based on something greater than The Law. If we would identify with His death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and seating at the right hand of Father, and receive the gifts that Christ sent us in the Holy Spirit, our righteousness would be based solely on His sacrifice, not our own keeping of The Law.

The only way our righteousness could “exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees,” who were blameless, is for us to be judged based on the righteousness of Jesus.

Romans 3:21-26 (ESV) But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

The Law was necessary so Christ could come and fulfill it, allowing us to partake of the salvation provided by His sacrifice through faith. Give Him praise!

Grace Lost, and Grace Restored

Grace Lost, and Grace Restored

When I was growing up sugar was sold in five-pound bags. It had been for years. One day while buying groceries, I was comparing prices and noticed a larger-than-normal difference between the name-brand and store-brand sugar. It’s then that I noticed the store-brand was a four-pound bag, as opposed to the name-brand that was still five pounds.

Before long the store-brand was changed to a four-pound bag, but kept the price at the five-pound bag price. That’s a 20% increase in price and no one ever raised an eyebrow. In these days of low-inflation, manufacturers have to get creative to raise profits without causing customer push-back. Customers reached for their trusty bag of sugar and never even noticed the size difference.

Genesis 3:1 (ESV) Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made.

If current marketing ploys can pull off a coup like the sugar down-sizing, how much more capable is the enemy? Adam and Eve were not gullible. They were created in God’s image, which included a free will to choose. They knew what God had told them about the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. However, when the serpent urged them to partake of the fruit of the tree, they considered what he said.

“Why wouldn’t God want us to know good and evil?”, they thought. Without even realizing it they had broken covenant with the One who loved them unconditionally. God had kept that one tree from them so they could love others unconditionally. He knew that the moment they became aware of good and evil their lives would change forever.

You see, knowing the difference between good and evil gives man the ability to judge another man. The only problem is that he doesn’t judge them based on the whole truth, only what he deems to be either good or evil. Without being God, man still presumes to know enough to pass judgment on another man.

With one motion the enemy brought man down from God’s level to his level. Man never envisioned that the first evil they would encounter was their own. They fell from Grace that day. Knowing good and evil made them aware of their separation from God. They feared what He might do to them. They hid, and mankind has been hiding ever since. It is only by a new encounter with Grace that man can come out of hiding.

Innocence was lost, but through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ we can once again regain innocence and be restored to right relationship with our Creator. Jesus took away the curse of “knowing good and evil” and restored access to the “life” of God. That is the Great Exchange: our death for His life. Grace has returned!

Studying the Book of Books – The Bible

Studying the Book of Books – The Bible

A few weeks ago my wife and I began a journey of going through the entire Bible during our discussion times. We chose a book to help with this process, "What the Bible Is All About", by Dr. Henrietta C. Mears. It is proving to be a rich time of learning, and re-learning, the events recorded in scripture.

There are a few things so far that have brought questions, and even more that have reminded me of the goodness of God. First of all I’ll mention some of the questions.

Why did Cain and Abel bring sacrifices to God? My guess is that it came from the covenant that God made with Adam after he sinned. God made a promise to Adam that He would bring an end to the enemy’s ability to control man. Even though it was not recorded, there could have been consequences added to the covenant that required sacrifice to atone for their transgressions of the terms of the covenant. We don’t know.

Why was God pleased with Abel’s offering and not Cain’s? The answer I’ve always heard is that Abel’s offering contained blood. Another plausible explanation is that Abel brought the “firstling” of his flock; Cain brought “fruits” from his harvest. I personally believe it had to do with the heart. Clearly Cain had some heart issues.

Why did Lot choose to go to the small city instead of to the mountains where the angels tried to direct him? The next morning he headed for the mountains. Why did the angels allow him to do this?

There are several more, but there’s no need to look at all of them. The best thing that came from our discussion so far is how God interjected Grace into the Old Testament stories recorded for us.

The first one came when Adam was displaced from the Garden. We know it was because of the Tree of Life. God said He did not want Adam to live forever. This is Grace! Because of sin Adam was now separated from God. He could no longer have the relationship that they once enjoyed. God did not want Adam to be separated from Him forever. Therefore, Adam had to die. God put a plan in motion that would eventually allow Adam to once again have the face-to-face fellowship that they once enjoyed. This plan was eventually completed in Jesus Christ.

After Cain killed Abel God made a covenant with Cain. God declared that anyone who brought harm to Cain would have to deal with God Himself. That is Grace! Cain did not deserve having his life spared. But God, in His never-ending love for mankind, wanted to show that there was always hope found in Him.

The ark that Noah built was a picture of Grace. God found a way to spare mankind from His wrath. Through Noah, eventually Messiah would come and redeem man.

The dispersion of the people from Babel was an act of God’s Grace. If they had continued pursuing their plan to “make a name for ourselves,” God knew they would have to die. Confusing their speech caused them to spread out and fill the earth as God had previously commanded them.

The blessing of Ishmael was a picture of God’s Grace. God had a plan for Abram. He blew it in an attempt to help God. However, because God had already decreed that Abram’s descendants would be blessed, He blessed Ishmael. God is true to His word, even when we are unfaithful with His plans for us.

Again, there are many more. All of this came from just the first two-thirds of the first book of the Bible. I can’t wait to see all of what the Lord will show us in the remaining 65 books. I love His Word!