Posted: December 8, 2009
"I say to you I will say to all: Keep awake.” --Mark 13:37
(Read Mark 13:32-37)
We who know Christ are given a hope that comes with faith- - but we are warned to be prepared for the master’s return.
What does this mean for us today?
While many of us do look forward expectantly to the “last days” when Christ will come again, the hope of Advent is immediate. We must look to the eternal “now”, the call for preparedness in the present moment. We never know when Christ will knock at our door, and we must be ready.
Advent opens the door to ...
Posted: December 7, 2009
Dear God,
As we begin our Advent pilgrimage,
grant us the courage to hope.
Hope for your presence,
Hope for your peace,
Hope for your promise.
Amen.
Now let’s be honest! For many people, Christmas is a busy, hurried lostness; it is confusion, bedlam, uproar. This is a fact. Now I don’t want to waste one minute fussing about that. We all know it well enough. Besides, there is too much good news to proclaim - - the good news that God speaks in spite of the uproar, above the noise. This is what Christmas is about- - a light ...
Posted: August 20, 2009
Jehovah, an English rendering of the Hebrew Yahweh, is the special name by which God revealed himself to the ancient Hebrews. It was considered to be so sacred that it was never uttered except by the high priest on the great Day of Atonement. Whenever it occurred in the sacred books, they pronounced it as “Adonai” (i.e., Lord). It is the name for God that is used in the Old Testament more than any other – more than sixty-eight hundred times. (In English Bibles, it is usually translated as “the Lord”.) This name literally means “to be”. It has been ...
Posted: August 20, 2009
“The Lord Our Banner”
“And it came to pass, when Moses held up his hand, that Israel prevailed: and when he let down his hand, Amalek prevailed. And Moses built an altar, and called the name of it Jehovah-nissi” (Exodus 17:11, 15)
When God called Moses to lead His people through the wilderness journey, and Moses claimed inadequacy, God instructed Moses to use the staff that was in his hand. In his first encounter with the Pharaoh, he used the staff. In Exodus 17, Israel was at war against the Amalekites, he again had a staff in his hand.
Could ...
Posted: August 20, 2009
“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want” (Psalm 23:1)
Whenever I think of the Twenty-third Psalm, especially when it is used to describe our Lord Jesus as the Great Shepherd, I like to think of it as part of a trilogy. Trilogy comes from a Greek word that means “a series of three” – three dramas or literary works, etc. The three classic literary works here are Psalm 22, Psalm 23, and Psalm 24, better known as “The Cross, the Crook, and the Crown”.
Psalm 22 pictures our Lord on the cross where he suffered, bled and ...
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