Total sufficiency – El Shaddai

Serving faithfully and living blamelessly only happens when we know the One who is All-Sufficient!

Photo by shioshvili via Flickr (Creative Commons)
Photo by shioshvili via Flickr 

When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to him and said, “I am El-Shaddai–‘God Almighty.’ Serve me faithfully and live a blameless life.  Genesis 17:1

I’ve been digging into the occurrences of words like ‘desire’ and ‘contentment.’  God really cares about what we want–even to the point of protecting us by saying, ‘No” when necessary.  I was sort of surprised to learn that contentment implies completeness and sufficiency.  Our only hope of sufficiency is God Himself.  He revealed Himself as El Shaddai to Abraham in Genesis 17:1.  The scholars say Shaddai is a combination of words meaning ‘who’ and ‘enough.’  Now, how cool is that?!  Our God is Enough.

Worship Him for who He is and all else falls into place.  

Godliness (aka reverence for Him) with contentment (His sufficiency) is great gain!

Writer of My Story

Jesus is the Author and Perfecter of our Faith.  That’s a title sweet to anyone who loves words and books!

God alone can write my story of faith because He alone knows the things about me that need His touch.  He knows my strengths, myweaknesses, my wounds and the ways that will work best to transform me!

He knows all that about you too.14310069428_097f9b6e18_z

Trust His authorship.  Let Him write without interference and rejoice at the storyline of your life.

He is the hero; you are His focus.

Health of My Countenance

You can usually tell when someone feels good–or not–simply by looking at their face.  Tucked away in Psalm 43:5 is an interesting look at a ‘name of God.’  The Psalmist says ‘I will praise the health of my countenance and my God.’

Kate Ter HaarI find it fun to explore the roots of words and the tools of technology make that fairly easy.  Here is the place I played with this verse.  Here’s what I see–keeping in mind I am not a Bible Scholar, simply a lover of God.

Health in this verse is a name we know well:  Yeshua.  Our salvation.  Face speaks to me of our direction, our future.  And God is the beautiful name Elohim.

When our soul roars within us–when everything seems out of whack and not what we want, quiet peace comes to our heart and our face when we remember what Jesus already provided because it was the will of God.  Let Him be the health of your countenance today!

Nothing quite captures the concept like this hymn–and the story behind it:

Gaining vision!

MarinesSweet name to consider this morning:  Lifter of My Head.  Sometimes my eyes get stuck in the yuck.  The heartaches, the sin, the stuff of life hold my gaze…and I fail to see the King of Glory.  Ah, but Psalms 3:3 tells me, HE is the lifter of my head.  I will wait for His touch and yield to it that I might see the next step!  He who promised to never leave is always with us.  In the mess, He can be seen if we let Him lift our eyes.      Choose Faith!

King of Heaven–and of Earth

Glory

Most everyone knows the title “King of Kings” but we don’t often live it.  What a privilege we have when the King rules our lives: we get to bring His Kingdom to this broken world!  We get to be used as the answer to our prayer:  “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done!”

Jesus told Peter the Keys of Heaven belong to those whom the Father reveals the Truth of Christ’s identity.  The keys of heaven are not ours so we can determine what is right and wrong for the world–what is bound and loosed.  That has been, is and will continue to be determined by God alone.

The King’s keys allow us to bring His view of Right and Wrong to a broken world in captivity to error.   And as we look at this, a reminder from My Utmost helps me focus.  Jesus also said don’t worry about the blind guides of the blind…they’ll fall into a ditch together.  Just focus on walking toward Jesus, trust His goodness and power to guide not your ability to walk well :).

Seeking God as a Treasure

Another concept name to feast upon today…In speaking of the Kingdom of Heaven–the dwelling place of our Savior and the Father, He (Jesus) said,

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls,46 who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it.  Matthew 13:45,46

Just prior to that teaching is another equating the kingdom with a pearl.  Isaiah used ‘diadem of great beauty’–a crown.  Scripture abounds with references treasuring God.  Here’s another favorite of mine:

And I will give you treasures hidden in the darkness–secret riches. I will do this so you may know that I am the LORD, the God of Israel, the one who calls you by name.  Isaiah 45:3

Miner, BiblioArchives
Miner, BiblioArchives

Diamonds and pearls (all precious ores) are created in the dark, either under great pressure or in response to an irritant.

Seeking God as our treasure requires us to press through the darkness, endure great pressure, get dirty and go through hard times.

He is worth it!  Press in.  Press on!!

Refuge of Rock

Paul spoke of his limits–his humble human-ness–with great eloquence in Romans 7.  Our desires, our hopes, our knowledge are limited–but Jesus Christ is not.  When He is our focus, our desired destination, we live in His refuge.  Enjoy the courage to live that comes with knowing Jesus by the Name of REFUGE!

The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, My God, my rock, in whom I take refuge; My shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.  Psalms 18:2
  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWXcRVZWTb8

Glory Glimpse: LIFE

Jesus Christ said, “I am the way, the truth and the life.  No man comes to the Father but through me.”  John 14:6

Nature Walk, Marla Reyes-McDavis (flickr.com)
Nature Walk, Marla Reyes-McDavis (flickr.com)

As LIFE, Jesus is the way we find God.  From conception to the death bed, there is LIFE.  Jesus Christ is life.  Faith sees HIM in every detail of life.

Oswald Chambers says the “natural becomes spiritual through obedience.”  A life of faith does not mean we live in a wacky, spiritualized version of ‘real life’–it means we seek reality–LIFE–Jesus–in the midst of our days.  Faith is the substance of things not seen but faith is lived out in the nitty-gritty of every day.

Look at Life.  Enjoy Life.  Celebrate Life.  And remember, Life is Jesus Christ, the way to the Father.

Glory Glimpse: God as ALL

I share with you this AM not a specific name but a concept throughout Scripture and supported by many verses.  The One true, triune God, is ALL–and all we need for a full, abundant life.

Colossians 1:17 is a great place to begin thinking on this.

“He existed before anything else, and he holds all creation together.”Laminin Molecule

In Revelation we looked at Christ as the Beginning and the End…He is everything in-between as well!  There are only two choices on how to live life:  trusting Him or not.  God longs for us to seek Him and know Him.  All of life draws us to make the ‘right’ choice.  Indeed, the “chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.”

Glory Glimpse: Banner leading to victory

Sometimes stating the obvious really does help.Flag Bearer, Timothy Tolle

We see what we look at.

If we spend our time looking at the things we stress over or hate–that is all we see!  That does not lead to victorious living.  Look to Jesus!

After the Israelites defeated the Amalekites, Moses built an altar to Jehovah Nissi.  The Lord, our Banner.  It is a beautiful name to remind us to look to God.  We are soldiers of Christ; there are battles in life.  We must look to God.

Another cool part of these double names is remembering what Jehovah means.  Here is a great insight from the Blueletterbible site:

The chief meaning of Jehovah is derived from the Hebrew word Havahmeaning “to be” or “to exist.” It also suggests “to become” or specifically “to become known” – this denotes a God who reveals Himself unceasingly.

God wants us to know Him and look to Him!