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Tag: God

  • Reflections: Eden

    Reflections: Eden

    Genesis 2 English Standard Version (ESV)

    15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying,

    “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

    18 Then the Lord God said,

    “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”

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    Examine the Biblical text from ‘in the beginning;’ for before the beginning, GOD IS.

    The LORD יְהֹוָהYĕhovah GOD אֱלֹהִים‘elohiym

    made adam אָדָם ‘adam

    in his Image צֶלֶם tselem.

    First: LORD GOD, Yehovah elohiym; not Allah, not any other NAME. The LAW, or first five books of the Bible are a narrative written by Moses for the Hebrew people – God’s Chosen people. It is not an eyewitness account – Moses was not a reporter in the garden of Eden – yet Moses spoke directly with Yehovah elohiym. GOD told Moses!

    Second: The LORD God put Adam in Eden to work it and keep it.

    Third: The LORD God had not only created Man, God created everything in the heavens and the earth and made man in His Image in this place to glorify Him.

    God met with, spoke to and had a personal relationship with man in this special unspoiled garden. It was a place where the LORD God walked and talked with His beloved man of His creation, Adam.

    Think about it: the ALL-POWERFUL CREATOR of ALL, walking in a place with a creature of His creation – GOD carrying on a conversation with adam, enjoying the good of His creation with His personal friend, Adam.

    Would one made in the Image of a good God, a loving friend, not want to do all the Lord commands?

    Adam is an innocent sinless child of God! The first man and the first woman have no father and mother. They were both created by the LORD God!

    Does it matter if the LORD created them in His Image?

    Yes.

    Does it matter if the materials were dust or rib?

    Does it matter where an archaeologist might dig up this garden paradise?

    Could it possibly matter to a generation gorged on the tree of speculative knowledge when all of this took place?

    What, then, is important from the Biblical account of Genesis?

    The LORD raised Adam and raised Eve in the garden as a Father raises his innocent children.

    God provided. God gave them their purpose. God gave them love.

    And as a good father will do, God gave them a rule for their own continued good (as ones made in the Image of the God of Perfect Good).

    The LORD God did this for the perfect pleasure of the man, of the woman and of the LORD!

    (Note: If you haven’t followed the links to root definitions, you ought to – especially this last one.)

    To be continued…

  • Reflections: Before adam, I AM

    Reflections: Before adam, I AM

    creation-of-adamReflect though the window of time on the Person of God.

    touch of mirror

    For now we see in a mirror dimly but then face to face.

    Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. – 1 Corinthians 13:12 

     John 1 English Standard Version (ESV)

    The Word Became Flesh

    1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

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    Without here debating the nature and essence of the One true God; without here dissecting God’s purpose and relationships of each Person of the Trinity of the One God: let us examine the Person to person relationship of the LORD to a few historic real souls, men and women of flesh and blood in a relationship with the Living GOD.

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     14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

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    Prior to the incarnation of God in the birth, death and resurrection of Christ Jesus, God met man in many times, in many places and in several ways. Yet man sins; in every time, in all places and in many ways.

    Mankind sins again and again and yet again throughout the generations. Evil draws us further from the glory God has given to us; glory to worship the LORD in whose Image we are made.

    Any reflection of the mind of man cannot conceive even a mirror Image of the LORD GOD, HOLY AND ALMIGHTY, a loving Father to all He created.

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    Genesis 1:

     26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image…

    To be continued…

  • Reflections in Windows of Time

    Reflections in Windows of Time

    Looking back, running away from God is nothing new. We who would be so critical of Peter denying Jesus three times have now looked back to others faithful to God with moments of doubt.

    Note: Our Lenten reflection continues from where ‘Running from God‘ left off – an introduction to examining a history of relationships between God and believers.

    Moses, God’s chosen Prince, Prophet, Law Giver, Chief Justice, Administrator of the day-to-day lives of the rescued Hebrew nation: even Moses had had it!! – with these rebellious chosen people. Moses was ready to give up on the whole exodus thing more than once during their forty years stranded in the wilderness.

    Elijah, God’s great Prophet who stood against the evil King, with his foreign Queen – Elijah, a true Prophet of God who mocked the false prophets, who mocked the false idols – Elijah, God’s Prophet who both predicted and demonstrated the immeasurable Power of the One Almighty Creator of the heavens and the earth!! as the LORD Jehovah came into the place of his witness – Elijah turned from the victory of God and ran in fear for his own life.

    Christ Jesus never shrunk back from the fearful inevitable providential call of the Lamb of God to become the Living Perfect Sacrifice for our sins.

    Not only Peter turned away from what seemed like defeat for God – defeat for righteousness – defeat for the witnesses of God’s true word and God’s true will.

    You and I turn from God as well, in our everyday lives.

    Look through the many windows of time. What do you see?

    Are the reflections of our unrighteousness not evident in every millennium, in every century, in every generation?

    Look though the reflection of time: at Jerusalem; at Israel and Judah; look at the Hebrew people before they had a King, before they conquered a land; look before Judges and Generals, reflect before Moses and Abraham: what do we see through the reflections of the windows of time?

    We see God’s patience, God’s mercy and God’s love.

    IF YOU were God or if I was God, WE would have done it differently, wouldn’t we?

    None of this rebellion stuff! None of this disobedience allowed! And the SIN… why.. we would wipe it right out EVERY time, just like in the days of Noah and just like when God destroyed the evil men and the evil women in Sodom and in Gomorrah.

    I do not think you or I could be a merciful God (not even in our best moments).

    No work of any good man or any good woman is sufficient to the Holiness of God.

    The Bible only gives us glimpses into the windows of time at just part of the lives of a few righteous imperfect examples of God. Yet these good men and these good women had their moments of failing – every one of them.

    Jews and Christians and Muslims, who all believe in the ONE GOD, all tend to hold up story lines of convenience, while failing to acknowledge the sins and failings of our fathers of the faith.

    ALL men and ALL women of faith fail in the light of the example and teachings of Jesus Christ!

    The zealous and learned Jew and Pharisee, Saul of Tarsus, who we know as Paul, addresses God’s righteousness in Romans 3:

    “None is righteous, no, not one;
    11     no one understands;
        no one seeks for God.

    David, in a moment of weakness appeals to God:

    Psalm 143

    Hear my prayer, O LORD;
    give ear to my pleas for mercy!
    In your faithfulness answer me, in your righteousness!

    Enter not into judgment with your servant,
    for no one living is righteous before you.

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    We are too harsh! God is merciful.

    King David was not only God’s anointed King who united the Hebrew tribes into a United Israel; David, recall, was an adulterer and murderer.

    According to the Law of Moses, should not David have been executed for his sins?

    We see even through the broadcast windows of these evil days, merciless zealots of a false prophet executing judgment without mercy!

    God is patient; God is merciful. Our loving God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ will save yet more enemies of the One True God. Was Saul of Tarsus not one of these?

    God seeks repentance in the hearts of all men and all women of every faith; that these will come to the love and grace of His mercy through Jesus Christ, Son of Sacrifice for the sins of the world.

    Look through the windows of time with eyes to see and ears to hear. God has given us the Holy Bible. NO other book is Holy!

    History reveals the hearts of men and women are only continually evil. Why should we worship any man or woman who is NOT God? Why would we kneel or bow down at their idols or lift up their ancestry or follow their teachings from man-made books?

    None is righteous, no not one. Yet God in His mercy reveals both His love for us and our own failings in the lives of the best of us.

    To be continued…