We live in a noisy world; many sounds contend for our attention.  Although the beloved disciple, John, says the voice of the Lord is ‘great’ and ‘like a trumpet,’ our ears are often distracted by the competing noise.  Like the people of Isaiah’s day, we hear sounds but fail to understand Truth with our hearts.  Until Truth penetrates our hearts and becomes a part of us, it is subject to theft from the enemy.  Praise God, He never stops calling; His Voice is always gently, firmly, lovingly revealing Truth again and again until understanding takes root.  Amidst the noise of life, His tender voice faithfully resonates.

Proverbs tells us there are two voices:  the voice of wisdom and the voice of the ‘adulteress.’  There is the faithful voice of the Lord; and the deceived (and deceitful) voice of the unfaithful.  The voice we heed determines the outcome of our lives; we need to hear and heed the Voice of Jesus.  It is a beautiful voice with a message our hearts are longing for…choose to filter out the competing songs and listen to Him.  

God’s Word is His personal letter to us.  We need to read it daily and let the Words sink deeply into our heart.  God always has a message just for us—a unique, personal message designed for our heart.  For example, consider the passionate love revealed in Song of Solomon.  Jesus’ entrancement with the beauty of the believer beckons every heart–for the truth is we all long to love and be loved.  In the New Testament, Jesus reminds us that He will never abandon us.  Our slowness to respond, our failures and missteps do not repulse Him.  He faithfully works and waits for us to hear His voice—and heed His call.  As God’s Word, His letters, draw to a close in Revelation, the Savior reminds us that He is ever at the door of our hearts knocking and longing to commune with us.

God created humanity for fellowship with Himself and He is never silent.  His love speaks eternally and He longs for each of us to hear and understand His Word.  Reject the competing sounds and focus on that loving Voice today.  

If you are enjoying this journey, there are two formats of these devotions on Amazon. You can find one here: Alphabet of Names

Today’s focus on the Lord will lighten our burdens:  He is the Upholder of all things!  Back at the beginning of our journey, we considered the truth that Jesus is the Bearer of sin.  The freedom in that is the hope of our souls.  Contemplating Christ as the Upholder of All frees us to go through life unhindered by weights that hold us captive.  Holding onto burdens God never intended for us to carry keeps us from His glorious plans and purposes.

The old saying that ‘God never gives us more than we can bear’ is true only if we allow Him to be the One who carries us through the hardships of life.  Sometimes the consequences of living in a sin-wrecked world deliver greater heartache than even the strongest soul can take.  Hebrews 1:3 tells us that Christ upholds all things by the power of His Word.  Jesus is the Word in flesh.  The great truths of scripture walked the earth in the life of Christ; the great truths of scripture conquered death and restored the hope of life to mankind.  Only the Word of God has power to bear all that this world delivers.

Our human limits are a blessing!  Until we reach the end of ourselves, we do not even recognize the need for Christ’s unlimited ability to bear our burdens.  The New Living Translation renders Proverbs 24:10 as “If you fail under pressure, your strength is too small.”  Praise God that the pressures of life make it very clear to us that our strength is too small!  God’s Word consistently records the limits and failings of Bible greats.  It is in our humble acceptance of limits that we are of the most use to God.  Self-sufficient saints discourage seekers.  Do-it-yourself Christianity–pull yourself up by the bootstraps theology–lacks the resilience needed to accomplish eternal good.  Many things are too hard for us.  The key to praising God in all things is realizing that nothing is too hard for Him! 

Indeed, we can do all things–but only in Christ Jesus!  The Psalmist describes Israel’s deliverance in Egypt as the Lord removing their shoulder from its burden.  Is there a burden God wants to remove your shoulder from?  Faith allows us to step aside and let Christ be our Upholder.  The weakness that moves us into partnership with Christ becomes divine strength that brings the glory of God to the world.  

Finally, we are to remember that Christ bears not only our sins and burdens; our eternal souls are in His care.  The Upholder of All secures our souls.  Our very life is in Christ—who sits at the righteous right hand of the Father!  Our journey through this life rests in the One created, redeemed and sustains all.  The security of that removes all weights!  We can cast all of our cares on Him—throwing off the weights that entangle—to bring His light into the world that God loves!

If you are enjoying this journey, there are two formats of these devotions on Amazon. You can find one here: Alphabet of Names

The Tabernacle of God—the Tent, the Meeting Place—is our precious Lord Jesus Christ!  The disciple, John, told us in his gospel that God pitched His Tent—Jesus—with us.  In the Revelation given to John, he shared the vision of the Tabernacle descending permanently as mankind’s dwelling.  The richness of considering Christ as the Tabernacle is more than we can grasp—but let’s look to our fullest!

The ’tent’ picture first appeared when the delivered nation of Israel chose to worship the work of their hands:  the calf idol formed from golden treasures.  Moses, after giving God’s rebuke, pitched the ‘Tent of Meeting’ outside the camp.  Moses sought the Lord inside that Tent; those who chose to seek God’s direction went to the Tent.  Indeed, the picture still speaks truth:  we must go beyond our earthly securities and beyond our chosen idols to meet with God!

After the Tent of Meeting, God gave Moses instructions for the Tabernacle that would become the center of Israel’s lives.  Every aspect of the Tabernacle pattern speaks of Christ.  From the outer boundary to the Holy of Holies, pictures of Christ emanate from the Tabernacle design.  Separation, cleansing, sacrifice, worship, holiness—Jesus Christ is all and in all!  Just as the Tabernacle was at the center of the nation of Israel’s life, Christ is to be at the center of our life.  He is to be our all and in all—and, believe it or not, that means more than just being the center of our life!

God has even greater plans and purposes for the Tabernacle than it being the center of life!  The birth of Christ—the incarnation—gives even more breath-taking revelations of Tabernacle truths.  Christ as the Center of our lives is a beginning, not an end!  All the fullness of God came to dwell in a human tent at the birth of Jesus.  As the Tabernacle, Jesus is the very life of God.  Our Creator not only wants us to place Him at the center of our lives—He wants to be our Life as well.  Indeed, without Him there is no life!

From the Tent of Meeting to the Tabernacle of Christ, we see the glorious realities of Godly love, righteousness and justice poured upon the earth.  Sin separated us in the Garden of Eden from His glory—from Life itself.  The sinless love of God fuels His Righteousness and Justice to accomplish the redemption of fallen man.  The cost of redeeming us took all the power and glory of God dwelling in a human Tabernacle:  Jesus Christ.  That precious Tabernacle took upon Himself the combined pain and suffering of sin to conquer death.   The resurrection and ascension of the Tabernacle is the Hope every human heart needs.  Jesus is the Tabernacle, which descends in Revelation!  Jesus is the Tabernacle, which we are to live in today.  As Paul said, ‘in Him we live and breathe and have our being…’  Rejoice in the Tabernacle today and invite others in!  

If you are enjoying this journey, there are two formats of these devotions on Amazon. You can find one here: Alphabet of Names

Our look at the Lord today focuses our eyes on a vital role of Christ—a role that we are to imitate–Servant of the Lord.  Imagine!  The Creator, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, accepted the role of Servant that He might redeem us from the cruel master we rebelliously chose over Him!  Without the willing Servant, all humanity would remain eternally separated from the glorious goodness of God.  With the Servant, all things become possible–for the glorious goodness of God becomes our inheritance!

The life of Christ radiates the beauty of His servanthood.  Centuries before Christ lived, God allowed the prophet Isaiah to glimpse that beauty and record it for us.  In chapters 40-55, Isaiah expounds on God’s chosen servant, Israel—and the righteous Servant to come:  Christ.  Like Israel, we are useless servants—blind and deaf—without the chosen Servant.  We choose idols of earthly things; we choose death over life; we choose self over the Sovereign Lord.  Yet the Servant came to bring us back to the good purposes of God.

Submitted to the will of the Father, the Servant came to this fallen world with gentle power.  Quietly, confidently, and with great compassion, the Servant fulfilled the purposes of God and brought humanity out of the captivity of sin and death.  The victories of the Servant, though, came through great suffering.  The incongruity of King and Servant—Victor and Sufferer—has concealed the righteous servant from the chosen servant, Israel for a time.  In the fullness of God’s perfect timing, He will one day reveal the Servant’s victory in its complete glory to all.  For believers today, gazing upon the Servant prepares us for the life of service He calls us to live.

The Servant of the Lord demonstrated service to mankind but He does not serve man.  Heeding that distinction in our servanthood is vital.  The Greek word most often used for servant in the New Testament focuses on the relationship of one to the Master; it reflects submission to the will of the Master. Servants of the Lord value the relationship with the Master above all else.  Eternally valuable service flows only from a heart devoted to the Master.  Serving the needs of man derails many from living as servants of the King. 

As Servant of the Lord, Christ never served ‘self.’  He served the will of the Father—choosing God’s will above His own even to the point of death.  We are to serve in the same way preferring the will of God above our self-will and self-interest.  Sincere servants never seek their own glory or even their own spiritual growth.  The passion of the servant is the will of the Father.  

With such a passionate preference for the Lord, servants become friends of God understanding His purposes.  Christ, the Servant of the Lord, learned obedience through suffering.  He came to deliver us not as a King but as a Servant enduring unbelievable hardship to fulfill the will of the Father.  He calls us to the same kind of servanthood that He might elevate us to friends of the Father!  May our focus on Christ as Servant inspire us to live as servant-friends!

If you are enjoying this journey, there are two formats of these devotions on Amazon. You can find one here: Alphabet of Names

But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.   Hebrews 11:6

Our journey through the alphabet of names for God brings us to an awesome truth with “R.”  God is a Rewarder of those who seek Him—and even better—HE is the Reward!  Perhaps best of all, the Reward of God Himself is a gift of His grace.  No human endeavor can entitle us to earn such a great reward.  We cannot work hard enough or be good enough to deserve such a treasure as the Lord Himself.  This is a Reward of such magnificent proportions we actually never possess it; the Reward encompasses us and becomes our life.  

Like Abraham, we enter into its riches through faith in the goodness of God.  In the Reward, the Giver of Life–the Creator of all–enters our days bringing vast unearthly treasures.  God, who spoke the universe into being, infuses our personal reality and speaks life into everything we encounter.  When God first said, “I am thy exceeding great Reward,” He was revealing Himself in a new way in response to an act of faith on Abraham’s part.  Abraham, having just refused an earned reward from a battle, receives the ultimate Reward of God Himself.  Abraham demonstrated his confidence in the goodness of God by refusing earthly reward.  Such a heart attitude is necessary for receiving God as our Reward.   We must remain confident of God’s existence and God’s goodness!  Life has a way of casting doubt on the goodness of God.  Tragedies and struggles cloud our eyes to the good plans of God.  Yet clouds are the cloaks with which God disguises Himself.  When we insist on stubborn confidence in God’s goodness, we receive Him—life itself—and our darkness becomes a place for His glory to shine.

Receiving the Reward has a danger we must avoid.  Our worship must never be for the benefits of the reward.  Our eyes tend to focus on the earthly results of allowing God to flow through us.  We begin to mistake the Reward for ourselves.  We fail to remember we simply are recipients of the Rewarder—privileged to reflect Him.  Our ‘goodness’ becomes our treasure, and we relish the praise of men.  We misuse the Spirit in our own pursuit of wealth or honor.  We find greater pleasure in our service to God than in His great goodness.  His rewards are not what we are to revere…we are to remember He is the Reward. God’s great desire woven throughout scripture is that we will know Him…and when we know Him purely; His greatness becomes our sole focus.

He is the treasure we are to seek for He is Worthy!  Seek Him today…enter into thy exceeding great Reward. 

If you are enjoying this journey, there are two formats of these devotions on Amazon. You can find one here: Alphabet of Names

We have an interesting aspect of the Lord to consider today:  He is Quick!  It is not the quick we think of—hurry, hurry, hurry.  The rushing quickness of modern life brings death, but the Quickness of Christ is life giving.  As the Messiah, He has quick understanding of reverence for the LORD.  That quickness allows Him to be joy-filled, wise and just.  

As the Last Adam, He is a quickening spirit—the One who gives life.  Without His Quick-ness, we have earthly life, which gives us a grand illusion of fullness.  However, it is only when we receive the Quickening Spirit that we actually have abundant, lasting life.  

As the Word, He is quick, powerful and sharp—dividing our soul and spirit perfectly.  The Quick Word gives us the understanding to discern between God-life and man-made life.  We need to have the Quick-ness of Christ to live well.

Isaiah prophesied of the coming Savior that He would be of Quick Understanding (Isaiah 11:3); the essence of this Quickness is reverence of God.  The Messiah’s Quickness of Understanding is the source of His wise judgment…and salvation does not come without judgment.  At the time of Christ’s coming, the nation of Israel was feeling the pain of judgment.  They had gone their own way and landed in subjection to Rome…captives to cruel rulers because they refused reverence for Jehovah.  The Spirit of Christ brings the character of God to life; His Quick Understanding gives vitality and freedom to God’s children.

The Spirit that ‘quickened’ Jesus in the resurrection is the Spirit dwelling in every believer.  Because the Spirit quickened Christ, He lives.  That resurrection life is available to us.  His life gives us the potential for life.  That Jesus is quickened—and willing to quicken all who will trust in Him—is the hope we all need.  The Quickening Spirit is the key not only to living; it is the key to living in a way that brings life to others.  Man-made life offers temporary pleasures and blessings; God-made lives bring hope to a world under judgment and captivity.

Finally, the Quick-ness of the Word allows us to understand the difference between delusion and truth.  The human soul finds great delights in physical life; the Spirit, though, longs for eternal meaning.  The Word dissects our lusts and our longings so that we can choose life.  Just as Joshua offered the people of Israel a choice:  blessing or cursing, life or death, God offers us a choice:  live for ourselves or live for Him.  Christ, the Quick, gives us the understanding, the freedom and the discernment to choose wisely—to choose Him!

If you are enjoying this journey, there are two formats of these devotions on Amazon. You can find one here: Alphabet of Names

Christ, the Power of God, is our focus today.  When we accept the precious gift of eternal life in Christ Jesus, we actually receive God Himself into the clay jar of our human life!  Eternal life is not just a gift from God; it is the gift of God Himself: what an exciting distinction!  Our weak, frail bodies become a receptacle for the life-giving, life-transforming Power of God.  I find great comfort in understanding that the weakness of my clay is the key to releasing eternal Power into the world!

We love to feel strong…to feel that we understand this Christian life and are on the way to Victorious Living!  Our human nature glories in strength.  We do not want to be needy; we want to be strong and independent.  Yet, life has many ways of humbling us.  Glory to God, that weakness is the key to receiving His abundant generosity and releasing His Power in our lives and others.  

The grace of God is always the joyful companion of the Power of God.  We must receive from Him; our strength is a barrier to His generous grace.  Only when we are broken and emptied of strength, do we begin to see the glory of receiving from Him.  As we see the hope-filled potential of His Power, we become willing to release not only our weaknesses but also our strengths to Him.  Submitting to the Power of God allows His life-giving Power to flow in and through us.

God Himself shows us the power of submission.  It is a nearly incomprehensible truth that the Creator of the Universe subjects Himself—His power–to us, to fallen humanity.  He subjects Himself to our will both before and after salvation.  Each soul has the privilege of accepting the gift of God—or not.  After that choice, we have a continual choice:  our power or the Power.  That choice is ours only because Jesus made the choice to submit to persecution and death that He might become our Power.  Despite our personal records of failure and rebellion, God willingly chooses to submit and entrust His Power to our care! 

God chooses to submit Himself to us because He knows that our weakness is the best showcase for His Power!  Our weaknesses are never to be an excuse for failing to live with Power.  Instead, they are a doorway for the life-giving Power of God to flow forth!   The Power which conquered death—the Power which restored life to our Savior’s beaten and crucified body—lives with you and I!  He, the Power, waits within us ready to meet every challenge we face.  His Power surges in us, longing to break out and make our lives a fruitful, sustaining garden for others.   All earthly power is limited and eventually ends in death.  Let us choose to submit our weaknesses—and our strengths–to His Power that we might become a wellspring of life in this dry land!

If you are enjoying this journey, there are two formats of these devotions on Amazon. You can find one here: Alphabet of Names

The name we will consider for our Lord today typically appears as part of a title: Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega—the beginning and the end.  Our attention today, though, will focus primarily on how He is the Omega, the fulfilling End of all.  Jesus ascribed this title to Himself in the opening of His Revelation to John.  Christ said ‘this is who I am—tell the churches!’  It is a title offering confident rejoicing and purpose to His Body.  

John gave us wonderful insights in his gospel about the Alpha portion of this name.  “In the beginning was the Word…without Him not anything was made.”  Life itself begins in Jesus.  Life also finds its completion in Jesus.  Christ embodies the totality of the purposes of God.  He is the ‘end of the law’ and the ‘last Adam.’ His perfection—His completeness is the source of eternal life for us!  He is the source of fulfillment in our earthly lives as well.  Nothing else will satisfy…we will continue to seek until we find the End!

As the End of the Law, Christ fulfills the law as only He can.  The end of the law is righteousness:  He is that End for He is Righteousness.  Christ became sin, though He was sinless, so that He could give us His righteousness!  When we pursue righteousness on our own—through good works and self-initiative, we are derailed from the End.  God gave the law that we might glimpse how lacking in righteousness we are.  It is but a shadow of the plans He desires for every man—the plans Christ fulfilled.  The purpose of the Law is creating a thirst that only finds satisfaction in Christ:  the End, the fulfillment of the law.  

Jesus as the End not only gives us a future; He gives us purpose in the present as well!  Paul tells us in Corinthians that the first Adam was a living soul.  Adam was able to see, feel and interact with the blessings of the world.  This world is an amazing place, full of great beauty and adventure.  Our soul thrills to the things this world offers. Yet, all that it is in the world ultimately leaves us empty—there is no end to seeking until we find the End, the last Adam:  Jesus.  He is the quickening spirit who brings life to the world.  Without the presence of the End, the pleasures of the world simply pass away.  

Sadly, though, life has a way of deceiving our hearts and turning our eyes from the perfect End!  The blessings of earthly things draw us into pursuing them—and leaving the Way to true fulfillment.  Financial security, the praise of men, the accomplishments of goals and the pleasures of life become substitutes for the presence of God.  We seek the gifts and not the Giver and end up with only fleeting benefits.  Disasters destroy our savings, fickle friends destroy our confidence and pleasures often produce destruction of our bodies and minds.  Mistaking blessings for evidence of God’s love derails us from the Way.  He must be the End we pursue.  

If you are enjoying this journey, there are two formats of these devotions on Amazon. You can find one here: Alphabet of Names

Jesus of Nazareth, the Nazarene, is our focal point today.  Though the Old Testament does not mention the village of Nazareth, Matthew declares that Jesus dwelt in Nazareth “that the words of the prophets might be fulfilled.”  Jesus referred to Himself as ‘of Nazareth, demons used the title and the cross of our Lord bore the reference.  That Jesus was of Nazareth—was a Nazarene—has tremendous significance for us.  

Nazareth was a small village in Galilee near the border of Samaria.  Passing by the village was a well-traveled trade route that would have brought the ‘world’ into view for residents.  In the eyes of those passer-bys, Nazareth was a community of backward, uncultured people.  Devout Jewish people looked down upon this village almost as much as they despised Samaritans.  In the eyes of the religious, Nazareth was a community of pagans.  Very few saw the truth of Nazareth from God’s view.  Even the people of Nazareth failed to recognize Truth—for they would reject the One who came from them.  The disciple, Nathanel, conveyed the sentiments of the day toward Nazareth with his question, “Can anything good come from Nazareth?”  

Indeed, we know great good came from this despised village!  As the Crusaders of the 12^th century inscribed on a church erected in Nazareth, “Here the Word was made flesh.”  For centuries, the prophets proclaimed the coming Messiah.  Some prophecies revealed His Kingly nature—some His Suffering Servant role.  Our human tendency is to hear and see that which promises pleasure:  preferring power to persecution is human self-preservation.  It is comfortable for us to be blind to Truth when it does not fit our plans and pre-conceived ideas.  Our Jesus, the Nazarene, calls us to seek the Father’s perspective and His acceptance above all else.  Jesus of Nazareth reminds us that God’s ways our not our ways.  

Just as man erroneously judged the village of Nazareth, so, too, man mis-judges Jesus.  As Isaiah prophesied of the coming Messiah, Jesus was ‘despised and rejected of men’.  The plans of man have no room for suffering.  Yet, God chose Nazareth as the hometown of the Savior because rejection of the world is the path to acceptance of God.  Embracing the Nazarene, the One the world rejects, is the only way of acceptance for each one of us.  Only in Him–the Beloved–can God accept us.  This world, though created, loved and redeemed by Him, received Him not.  The world prefers the darkness of its own plans above the Truth and Light of the Father’s plans.    Love of the world cuts us off from the love of the Father.  May our hearts rejoice that Jesus, our Savior, accepted the path of rejection that acceptance would be ours.

If you are enjoying this journey, there are two formats of these devotions on Amazon. You can find one here: Alphabet of Names

There are many stars mentioned in the Bible, but today’s look at the Lord focuses us on one star in particular:  the Morning Star.  Way back in Numbers 24, God gave the message of the Morning Star to a conniving prophet named Balaam.  Hired to curse the Israelites, Balaam thoroughly irritated his employer because he could utter only the blessings placed in his mouth by God.  One of those prophetic blessings revealed a Star that would rise up out of Jacob.  Later, the star of Bethlehem announced the fulfillment of that prophesy when God took on flesh and entered the earthly realm as a baby!  In Revelation 2, Jesus promises the “Morning Star” to those who hold fast to His ways and overcome the world; in Revelation 22, Jesus reveals that He Himself is the Morning Star!  

The Biblical definition of Light represents Jesus is self-igniting and self-sustaining—the Morning Star is the Light and Life of Christ.  Recognizing Jesus as the Morning Star is the key to allowing His life to dawn—to rise up—in our own lives!  Peter helps us grasp the Morning Star as he instructs us to heed the message of the prophets and those like him, who personally witnessed the true Light of the World.  Heeding—applying oneself to the truths revealed in the Word—is key to the dawning of the Morning Star in our lives.  Only that dawning produces the transformed life God intends for His children.  

The dawning of the Morning Star has great resistance.  There is a deceptive light in our world that seeks to keep the Morning Star hidden.  The source of that blinding light is Lucifer.  The prophet Isaiah spoke of this counterfeit ‘morning star’ in relation to the fall of the king of Babylon.  The king—and Lucifer—set up their own plan for success and glory.  Both were doomed for only the plans and purposes of God are eternal.  Yet the do-it-yourself plan for glory still traps light-seeking souls.  The imitation light-bearer promotes an external transformation instead of the Morning Star dawning.  He offers a do-good and be-right lifestyle that panders to human pride and self-initiative.  Rather than the diligent seeking of Light from the Word, persistent pursuit of one’s own purposes becomes the light that leads astray.  As believers, we need the light of the Morning Star illumining our path and the world around us.  Any other light deceives and destroys.  

Let us claim the promise of Jesus and receive Him through our pursuit of His ways and His will.  May Jesus, the Morning Star, dawn in our hearts in the coming week!

If you are enjoying this journey, there are two formats of these devotions on Amazon. You can find one here: Alphabet of Names