Names of God 4. Adonai

                     Names of God 4. Adonai

  Of course when I think of Adonai, the first thing that comes to my mind is

 

But for those who have no clue what I just posted, let me explain Adonai. In review we have looked at 3 names so far revealed to us by Moses' biography in Exodus and his recording of ancient history in Genesis as told to Him by God. Lets look at Exodus 3 and 4 to review and introduce this new name.

Exodus 3:1-6

Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. ² There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. ³ So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.”

⁴ When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!”
And Moses said, “Here I am.”
⁵ “Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” ⁶ Then he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.

    Moses knew Elohim. He realized when he killed the Egyptian and identified with the Israelites that he was identifying with their God - Elohim, the creator of the universe and God over all gods. He was a fearful, awesome God who demanded taking off his shoes and caused Moses to turn away. He is that God that says
           

 

Exodus 3:7-9

The Lord said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. ⁸ So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. ⁹ And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. "

 

Now Moses is introduced to El Roi, the God who sees in the above passage. Then Moses is introduced to Jehovah, the timeless, eternal God who wants to be in a personal relationship as seen by the passage below

 

Exodus 3:10-14

 

¹⁰ So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.”

¹¹ But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”
¹² And God said, “I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain.”
¹³ Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?”
¹⁴ God said to Moses, “I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’”

 

Have you ever been told that you have to do something that you just don't want to do so you make excuses? "I have a headache", "I have a sore throat", "I won't know anyone there", and the person you tell these excuses says "Here, take some Tylenol", "Here is a throat lozenge", "No, Billy's mom said he is going and you know him". Finally, you can see you aren't getting out of it because someone is in control over you and is insisting that, "Yes, you are going whether you like it or not!" This is what happens to Moses in the next passage

 

Exodus 4:1-14

Moses answered, “What if they do not believe me or listen to me and say, ‘The Lord did not appear to you’?”

² Then the Lord said to him, “What is that in your hand?”
“A staff,” he replied.
³ The Lord said, “Throw it on the ground.”
Moses threw it on the ground and it became a snake, and he ran from it. ⁴ Then the Lord said to him, “Reach out your hand and take it by the tail.” So Moses reached out and took hold of the snake and it turned back into a staff in his hand. ⁵ “This,” said the Lord, “is so that they may believe that the Lord, the God of their fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has appeared to you.”
⁶ Then the Lord said, “Put your hand inside your cloak.” So Moses put his hand into his cloak, and when he took it out, the skin was leprous—it had become as white as snow.
⁷ “Now put it back into your cloak,” he said. So Moses put his hand back into his cloak, and when he took it out, it was restored, like the rest of his flesh.
⁸ Then the Lord said, “If they do not believe you or pay attention to the first sign, they may believe the second. ⁹ But if they do not believe these two signs or listen to you, take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry ground. The water you take from the river will become blood on the ground.”
¹⁰ Moses said to the Lord, “Pardon your servant, Lord. I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.”
¹¹ The Lord said to him, “Who gave human beings their mouths? Who makes them deaf or mute? Who gives them sight or makes them blind? Is it not I, the Lord? ¹² Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.”
¹³ But Moses said, “Pardon your servant, Lord. Please send someone else.”
¹⁴ Then the Lord’s anger burned against Moses
                          
  By the time verse 10 comes around, Moses has realized that this fearsome creator God has come down in response to what He has seen,  offered to use Moses and go with him in a personal relationship and that you can't say no to Him if you are in a relationship with Him. He is Adonai. He is Lord. He is master of your life. You aren't in control anymore. You have to wave the white flag and surrender. As a side note, when you realize that God is Holy and you are separated from Him because of sin and enter into a relationship with Him through His son Jesus, as you get to know Him and grow in your Christian life you will realize that He doesn't want a part of your life, He wants it all. You must come to the point of surrender in your life as a Christian because as you see in verse 13,14 No,Lord is an oxymoron.

    Since Moses realized this about God, he could better recount the life of Abraham through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Abraham was from the line of Shem. This was the God-fearing line of Noah through whom the Messiah would come. Thus, he knew Elohim. In Chapter 12 Abraham is invited into a personal relationship with Jehovah which represents salvation by faith as seen in Hebrews 11:8-11,15,16

                                       Genesis 12:1-4
The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.

² “I will make you into a great nation,
    and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
    and you will be a blessing
³ I will bless those who bless you,
    and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
    will be blessed through you.”

⁴ So Abram went, as the Lord had told him

 

     Like me and probably a lot of us, when we first enter into a relationship with God, we come to Him in a very selfish manner, i.e. what does God have to offer me? Heaven? Health, wealth, prosperity? A meaning in life? A wonderful plan for my life? Sparing us from being "Left Behind"? Moses was also promised to be blessed, protection, a land, fame and he said, "Yes". However, like Moses, like Abraham, like you and me, God reveals that He wants all of us and he wants our unconditional surrender. For me, God asked, "Are you willing to be a missionary?" , and I said no for the longest time. For Moses He said "Are you willing to go to Egypt" and he sais, "No"for the shortest time. (Hey. if He can burn a bush He can burn me) For Abraham the call to be his Lord, his Adonai came in Genesis 14 and 15. Lot had been captured by 4 kings so Abraham summoned 318 men and travelled 240 miles to get Lot back. He defeated the kings, took all the spoils and 2 people met him after his victory, Melchizadek and the king of Sodom.

 

                                           Genesis 14:18-24

Then Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. He was priest of God Most High, ¹⁹ and he blessed Abram, saying,

“Blessed be Abram by God Most High,
    Creator of heaven and earth.
²⁰ And praise be to God Most High,
    who delivered your enemies into your hand.”

Then Abram gave him a tenth of everything.

²¹ The king of Sodom said to Abram, “Give me the people and keep the goods for yourself.”
²² But Abram said to the king of Sodom, “With raised hand I have sworn an oath to the Lord, God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth, ²³ that I will accept nothing belonging to you, not even a thread or the strap of a sandal, so that you will never be able to say, ‘I made Abram rich.’ ²⁴ I will accept nothing

                                        Genesis 15:1-6

After this, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision:

“Do not be afraid, Abram.
    I am your shield
    your very great reward”

² But Abram said, “O Jehovah Adonai, what can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?” ³ And Abram said, “You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir.”

⁴ Then the word of the Lord came to him: “This man will not be your heir, but a son who is your own flesh and blood will be your heir.” ⁵ He took him outside and said, “Look up at the sky and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”
⁶ Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.


    Notice in verse 1, Abraham was afraid. What was he afraid of? What was Adonai calling him to surrender?
     1. Safety, security, health, revenge.. He was a small group of people who had won the battle through the miraculous intervention of ElElyon (a different name for a different day) and would presume that they would want revenge. Adonai told him, don't worry," I am your shield". How much do you worry about these things. They say the fear of death and the fear of cancer are 2 of the top human fears. When we make Jesus, Lord/ Adonai of our lifes we are putting our lives into His hands. With me, this fear of being a missionary and getting killed was keeping God from being my Adonai, and until I surrendered that to Him, I was just one of those Christians living for myself rather than God.
     2. His future. He was still the guy with the bad land, had insulted his neighbors, and had turned down enough wealth to make him the richest man in the known world. Nothing had changed for him - actually it had gotten worse. God took him to the stars and renewed His promise with him. How much do you worry about your future, your finances, your legacy, your retirement fund? Adonai says, "put your life in my hands and you don't have anything to worry about. I promise to take care of you" (Matt.6:33)
    3. His family. He wasn't getting any younger, his wife was menopausal, and Viagra hadn't been invented. How was he going to have a family? He needed to surrender that to Adonai. Are you worried about your family? Maybe you are single and there are no immediate prospects for a future family. Maybe you are infertile. Maybe you have kids and are worried about their grades, their college, their popularity or lack thereof. Maybe they have begun driving! Turn that over to Adonai. Do you realize He cares for them more than you do? He knows the future and it turns out good for you.

     

    Tony Evans gives the illustration of a password into your email account to demonstrate what happens next. He says that Lordship is the access code into everything else God has for you. If you make Him your Adonai, doors are opened to more revelation of God to you. If you don't, you hit a dead end. You stay a baby. When you look at this Genesis passage, what was opened to Abraham through surrender?

 

    1. A new revelation of God. God revealed Himself as El Elyon. You won't know God better until you give Him everything

    2. His word. (Gen.15:1) Are you reading scripture and it is like blank words on a page? My guess is there are some Adonai problems

   3. His presence (Gen. 15:5) When is the last time you felt God's presence in your life? Does He feel distant or like He has abandoned you? My guess is there are some Adonai problems

   4. Revelation of His worth - He is the reward. It isn't Heaven, it is the God of Heaven. John Piper says, "The critical question for our generation—and for every generation—is this: If you could have heaven, with no sickness, and with all the friends you ever had on earth, and all the food you ever liked, and all the leisure activities you ever enjoyed, and all the natural beauties you ever say, all the physical pleasures you ever tasted, and no human conflict or any natural disasters, could you be satisfied with heaven, if Christ was not there?" If God hasn't become your heartbeat, maybe you are holding something back.

  5. A secure salvation. - vs.6 is quoted in Romans 4 the chapter about salvation through faith as illustrated through the life of Abraham. We see from Abraham that his salvation is so secure as he makes God his Adonai that God gives him a ceremony where He walks between animals cut in two and basically says may it be done to me as it has been done to these animals if I don't do what I have promised.

 

Here are a few diagnostic questions to see if you have made Jehovah your Adonai as gleaned from Tim Keller.

 1. Am I willing to obey no matter what God says, no matter how I feel about it?

 2. Am I willing to thank God for whatever happens in this situation even though I have no idea why?

 3. Am I relying on anything other than God for my hope and meaning in life?

 

  Here is a worship song that you can sing to Adonai

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1jgD69WzMY

Names of God 3. El Roi

                   Names of God 3. El Roi

  As we go through the names of  God, progressively revealed through scripture we come to El Roi - the God who sees. We find this in Genesis 16 in the story of Hagar but before that we see it in Exodus 3. You might say, "wait a minute, isn't Genesis before Exodus?" Yes, but in a chronological way, not an authorship way. You remember, Moses writes Genesis. How? He wasn't there so God meets with Moses, Numbers 12:8, and Moses writes the book of the law during Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. So when Moses writes about El Roi, he has already met Him in Exodus 3:7 "I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt" and Ex. 32:9, "I have seen these people... they are a stiffnecked people" ( in regard to the golden calf) so as he pens the account of Hagar he introduces, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, El Roi to us.
  
   Here is Genesis 16
    Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian slave named Hagar; ² so she said to Abram, “The Lord has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my slave; perhaps I can build a family through her.”
Abram agreed to what Sarai said. ³ So after Abram had been living in Canaan ten years, Sarai his wife took her Egyptian slave Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife. ⁴ He slept with Hagar, and she conceived.
When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress. ⁵ Then Sarai said to Abram, “You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. I put my slave in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the Lord judge between you and me.”
⁶ “Your slave is in your hands,” Abram said. “Do with her whatever you think best.” Then Sarai mistreated Hagar; so she fled from her.
⁷ The angel of the Lord found Hagar near a spring in the desert; it was the spring that is beside the road to Shur. ⁸ And he said, “Hagar, slave of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?”
“I’m running away from my mistress Sarai,” she answered.
⁹ Then the angel of the Lord told her, “Go back to your mistress and submit to her.” ¹⁰ The angel added, “I will increase your descendants so much that they will be too numerous to count.”
¹¹ The angel of the Lord also said to her:

“You are now pregnant
    and you will give birth to a son.
You shall name him Ishmael,
    for the Lord has heard of your misery.
¹² He will be a wild donkey of a man;
    his hand will be against everyone
    and everyone’s hand against him,
and he will live in hostility
    toward all his brothers.”

¹³ She gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her: “You are the God who sees me,” for she said, “I have now seen the One who sees me(El Roi).” ¹⁴ That is why the well was called Beer Lahai Roi; it is still there, between Kadesh and Bered.

¹⁵ So Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram gave the name Ishmael to the son she had borne. ¹⁶ Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore him Ishmael.

  A bit of a disclaimer - my wife taught this this week- so I am quoting her as best as I can because she was awesome.
    God sees.
       1. Yet... He doesn't interfere with our free will or choices. God promised Abram a child through his genes but not necessarily through Sarai's so they decide to help out God through polygamy and slavery. This was not God's plan yet He allowed it to happen. He sees yet usually doesn't stop us because free will is so valuable to Him. God can't truly get pure love from us unless we can choose to love Him. That's why He put the tree in the garden even though He knew it would cost Him His Son. This is why Calvinism grates me so much... but that is another blog.
      2. God sees the future .... If I was God, I would have let Hagar die; after all, have you heard of Al Queida? Have you heard of ISIS? Arabs have been the bane of Israel's existence and this child is the father of the Arabs. However, His ways are above ours. He is letting things play out for some reason. Who knows, could this all it will possibly be instrumental in bringing back the return of Christ?
     3. God sees people everywhere yet uses imperfect people - like us. Isn't it nice that God "found" a nobody like Hagar and saved her life and made of her a great nation. God picked a woman like Sarai who would laugh at God's promise, who would put her husband in the arms of another woman then blame him, that would send a pregnant woman into the desert to die, that would tell a slave woman she had to have sex with someone...  God chose a wimp like Abram who wouldn't stand up to his wife but let her do to Hagar whatever she wanted even though Hagar was carrying his child! This was our Father of faith? And God chose you, with all your flaws to represent Him to the world
    4. God sees us and counsels us when we want to run. He says,
        Remember who you are
        Remember what you've done (own your slice as Andy Stanley would say)
        Running is not the answer
        Go back and deal with it - submit
   5. God saw Hagar and sent her back into a situation where nothing was changed. Don't you think he should have said, "Go, Abram wants you back", "Go, Sarai's heart has softened towards you. God uses trials to change us. See James 1:2-7
        Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, ³ because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. ⁴ Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. ⁵ If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. ⁶ But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. ⁷ That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord.
      God sees, yet keeps us in the trials because it is meant to strengthen our faith, give us perseverance, and make us mature and complete
     6. God sees - and this is the bottom line and the coolest thing - and doesn't deliver us because He is not interested in our comfort but our character. He is going to meet us in the midst of these. The Angel of the Lord - the preincarnate Jesus- meets the lowly Hagar. She is the least unworthy (if there is such a thing) of people in the Bible to receive a Theophany yet she does. And what does she say? "I have seen the God who sees me and lived to tell". God, El Roi, is the God who sees, yet through His grace and mercy also allows us to see Him, and unfortunately the best glimpses of Him are in times of trial. A glimpse of Him allows us to go back into our situations even though nothing has changed, with a whole new attitude and hope. The author of Hebrews says

    Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. ¹⁵ For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. ¹⁶ Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. Hebrews 4:14-16

     We have a High Priest who doesn't promise to get us out, but in the midst of trials promises to give us more of Him as seen in the beatitudes also.

   Blessed are those who mourn,
    for they will be comforted. Matt.5:4

 Haralan Popov wrote a book called "Tortured For His Faith" and in it he recounts one of the times where in his dark cold cell without food or stimulation for days he thought his life would end as he could take it no more. Just as he was about to give up he recounts,

"A light glow began to shine and a warming sensation filled the cell and enveloped my weakened, starved frame. I felt strong arms around me, cradling me in the arms of Christ Himself."

     Here are a list of verses you might want to look up in regard to God seeing and write next to it what God sees and the result and application to you that He sees.

    Gen. 6:5,12

     Gen. 29:31

    1 Kings 21:29

    1 Chron. 21:15

   2 Chron. 12:7

   2 Chron. 16:9

   Ps. 10:11

   Ps.  14:2

   Ps. 33:13

   Ps. 53:2

   Ps. 94:7

   Ps. 102:19

  Ps. 138:6

  Ps. 139

  Isa. 11:3

   Isa. 29:15

  Isa. 58:3

   Lam. 3:50

   Jonah 3:10

   2 Thes. 1:5-10

 I'm having a hard time coming up with a song for this but there is this old Dallas Holm song.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNyzrtz7KPk

   If you can come up with a better one (and there has to be), leave a comment.

 

Object lessons - 5 minute devotionals to give - Seeds

      Object lessons - 5 minute devotionals to give - Seeds

           

 The point of these blogs is to give you something to share at dinner, at Upward Basketball, Children's sermons. anytime when you have to give a short devotional. Usually object lessons hold people's attention better and are more easily remembered.

                         "  Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. ⁸ Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. ⁹ Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. ¹⁰ Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people"  Gal. 6:7-10

       If you have ever heard the expression, "You reap what you sew", it is taken from this verse in the Bible. The point is, if you are doing bad things and being bad to people you can't expect life to be good to you. On the other side, if you do good to everyone and live a good life you can expect good to come your way. Is that the way it is though? How come some of the richest people in the world are tyrannical and the salt of the earth just found out they have cancer? Life is not fair (see Psalm 73) So is this passage wrong?

      Take this apple for example. Cut it in half. What do you see? Seeds. Now if I plant this seed in good soil and water it what will happen? It will grow an apple tree. How many years until I can eat an apple off of it? About 10 years! That is a long time. Now looking at this verse, Paul is warning us not to become weary in doing good because at the proper time we will see results. This is true about bad deeds and good deeds. Evil people may seem to be prospering but eventually their life will fall apart either in this life or maybe not until the judgment day. Good deeds will eventually pay off either here or maybe at the judgment seat of Christ. If this life is all we have, as Paul would say in 1Cor. 15, we as Christians are most miserable.

      Along with this we have the example of Christ. Jesus says in John 12:23-25  "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. ²⁴ Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. ²⁵ Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life."
     Jesus was that seed that died, was, buried, and through raising to life has given life to many others. Do you think God thinks the growth is slow? Yes! 2000 years later He is seeing you and me growing and sprouting. Some day He will harvest all His fruit when the last tree grows.

      Have you received the seed of Christ into your heart? If not, you are producing bad fruit or at best fake fruit and someday when the harvest comes you will be left behind. If you have received Christ, you need to grow Jesus fruit. How does that happen? Like Christ, we need to die to live. We must decrease and He must increase. Represent! And don't make Him wait, and wait.....

Milwaukee Brewers Top Prospects 2015

                                 Milwaukee Brewers Top Prospects 2015

 Here are my list of top prospects for the Milwaukee Brewers based on 2014 stats. I haven't seen most of them play, so these are based simply on the line stats on MiLB.com. I apologize to all those statistic geeks who know so much more than me. I'm old school and still think RBIs are good and K's are bad. Haha .I will list my best per position.

   Pitchers

      SP  Tyler Cravy  8-1  1.72 ERA   73IP   47H   WHIP  .85  Would have been nice to have him in September. Ended up throwing some in rookie league. Don't know if he got hurt or limiting innings. He is why we don't sign Gallardo

            Tyler Wagner  13-6  1.86 ERA  Finished up at AA. Hopefully will impress in spring training and join the team sometime in 2015. Tyler Thornburg, who?? Probably our minor league pitcher of the year (unless they give it to Fiers or Nelson)

           Hobbs Johnson  12-8  2.93 ERA  1.09 WHIP. Moves to AA next year. I get to see the Stars when they play the Smokies so looking forward to seeing Wagner, Johnson, Bradley

          Joshua Torres     4-0    1.92 ERA    1.10 WHIP    .239 BA against

          Jungman and Bradley. Drafted out of college they have advanced slower than high schoolers. I had basically given up on both but they somewhat resurrected their careers.  Don't resign Estrada


      LR   Michael Strong  2.50 ERA  1.04 WHIP

              Zach Hirsch - lefty at Helena 41 IP 5BB 40K 1.17WHIP

      SR    Greg Holle  2.31 ERA  .94WHIP

               Mark Williams  1.61 ERA  .81 WHIP

              Gian Rizzo   2.22 ERA  3BB  32K   .78 WHIP

              Kaleb Earls   2.08 ERA  17IP  4BB  24K   .87 WHIP

              Luke Curts   24IP  23K  .99 WHIP   BA against .200

Cravy, Wagner, and Johnson were also on my list last year along with Nelson who moved up to the big time.

   Catcher - Clint Colter   .287/.410/ .520 /.930   Probably our minor league hitter of the year. Unfortunately Brewers will be slow with him and he will go Brevard 15, Huntsville 16, Nashville 17, Brewers 18. He was my pick last year too. Wasn't he a number 1 pick? Is that possible that one would pan out???

        Backup  Matt Martin, Gregory McCall, or Jack Cleary. Start thinking outfield, 1B, or 3B boys.

  1B Matt Clark .313/.371/.605/.976   Great pick up by Melvin

  2B Nathan Orf .288/ .388  Great OBP Had him at 3B last year

  3B  Jason Rogers  .313/.371/.605/.976   Save some money and don't sign Ramirez

   SS  Orlando Arcia  .289/.346  31SB  Came up clutch in AA playoffs. Before extending Segura, let's check him out.

   Utility - Eugenio Valez. Yah, he is old but what can you say about a guy that keeps hitting over .300 at AAA. We should have brought him up to PH

  OF = Here is it really gets weak. I still have hopes for Victor Roache and Tyrone Taylor, but they really need to start dominating weaker pitching. So, here are my 2 outfielders because that's all I can find.

      Monte Harrison .261/.402/.339  32 SB and 2CS. And just out of HS. Plus he didn't go to Nebraska as a WR so gotta be a Wisconsin fave.

      Joantgel Segovia  .384/.457/.446/.903 In the Dominican league as a teenager. He is my new favorite! Hope he can make the leaps

  So there it is. Once again one of the worst farm systems in the majors. That's why we need to give up guys like  Cain, Brantley, Odorizzi, Haniger because we never have anyone to bring up to help us in the pennant runs. There will be a shakeup in the drafting now. Lets see what happens but Kodi our 1st pick is going to be another bust.

Names of God 2. Jehovah / Yahweh

                Names of God 2. Jehovah / Yahweh

  In review, if you can spare 17 minutes of eternally well spent time, watch the following video by Louie Giglio that illustrates Elohim - the Creator

 

In Genesis 2:4, suddenly we see God revealed as Lord God. No longer is He just Elohim but He is Jehovah Elohim. We will get more and more names of God progressively revealed to us throughout the Bible and throughout eternity - God is just that big. It's as if He revealed Himself all at once, He would literally blow our minds. Watch this video of The Matrix

 

 

I like the part where they say, "he's going to pop". That's what I'm talking about.

 

So what does this new name Jehovah add to our understanding. Lets go to Exodus 3 where it is first revealed. How can it be first revealed 2000 years later? Because Moses was writing the books of the law - Genesis through Deuteronomy - throughout his lifetime as he and God met. He obviously was told about creation, since he wasn't there, and through divine guidance felt like chapter 2 needed another name for God, the one God taught him at the burning bush. I like the song "So You Wanna Go Back to Egypt" by Keith Green especially where he says "Moses seems kind of idle, he just sits around and writes the Bible"

 

 

Look at Exodus 3

Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. ² There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. ³ So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.”

⁴ When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!”
And Moses said, “Here I am.”
⁵ “Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” ⁶ Then he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.
 ¹⁰ So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.”
¹³ Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?”
¹⁴ God said to Moses, “I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’”
                    
The Hebrew rendering of this name is YHWH. Scholars, wanting to interpret this have found it to be derived from the verb hayah which means to be or to exist thus they translate it I Am or probably more properly I Be. For 900 years it was written YHWH because scribes thought to put it in a spoken form would violate the 3rd commandment. Finally it was given vowels from the word Adonai and it was pronounced Yahweh. The English translation became Jehovah (made famous by Indiana Jones).

 

So what does this name reveal us about God? Lets look at 5 things

 

1. God is a person, not a force. Wheras Elohim is seen as the fearsome awe inspiring creator and King of the universe and owner and judge, Yahweh comes into the picture as relating to man. God having a personal relationship with man. You see the Lord God in Genesis 2 noticing Adam's loneliness, planting a garden, creating a wife, communicating, walking in the garden, etc. You could say, if Elohim is the one who creates the bread, Yahweh is the one who disperses it. What does that have to do with anything? A lot! Mankind in general knows and believes in Elohim but they have never experienced the personal relationship that He offers. In fact when Satan tempts Eve, he takes out the Jehovah part of the name and infers that the impersonal creator wants to withhold something from her and when she responds back to him, she leaves Jehovah out too.

 

2. Self-existent . He is. Or He be's. He never was or will be but always is. He is the only truly independent being in the universe. He is the ultimate cause. When people argue about the existence of God, one of the main arguments for is the argument of cause and effect. Here is what Gotquestions.org , a very reliable source for Biblical based answers, has to say about it;

 

The Law of Cause and Effect. This law of science states that every cause has its effect and every effect has its cause. This law is the basis of all science. As such, this law bears a relationship to the origin of the heavens and the earth. In fact, scientists agree that the universe has not existed forever, that it had a beginning at some point in time.

The theory of relativity, which is almost universally accepted among scientists, has certain implications for this Law of Cause and Effect. One is that the universe, defined as time, space, matter, and physical energy had a beginning, that it is not eternal. And it is through Einstein’s equations that scientists can trace the development of the universe back to its very origin, back to what is called the “singularity event” when it actually came into being. Science has proven that the universe really did have a beginning. This means that if the universe had a starting point in history, then it obviously began to exist, and it must have a cause for its existence.

Therefore, if the universe needs a cause for its coming into being, then that cause must be beyond the universe—which is time, space, matter, and physical energy. That cause must be something similar to what Christians call “God.” Even Richard Dawkins, probably the most prominent proponent for atheism in our time, admitted in a TIME magazine article that “there could be something incredibly grand and incomprehensible and beyond our present understanding.” Yes, and that is God!

We can best summarize this cosmological evidence with the following statements:
(1) Whatever begins to exist must have a cause for its existence.
(2) The universe began to exist.
(3) Therefore, the universe must have a cause for its existence.
(4) The attributes of the cause of the universe (being timeless, existing outside of space, and so on) are the attributes of God.
(5) Therefore, the cause of the universe must be God

 

3. Doesn't change - immutable. We can trust in Him because His mind never changes, His promises never change and His word never changes. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

 

4. Can't become irrelevant. He is always current because He is outside of changing times. He gives unchanging standards. Look at what Piers Morgan had to say about God's word;

 

 

Or Grammy award winner Macklemore with his song "Same Love" says this;

 

"The right wing conservatives think it's a decision

And you can be cured with some treatment and religion
Man-made rewiring of a predisposition
Playing God, aw nah here we go
America the brave still fears what we don't know
And "God loves all his children" is somehow forgotten
But we paraphrase a book written thirty-five-hundred years ago"

 

5. God isn't who you want Him to be - you can't determine what kind of God you want because He Is. We have to adjust to His character not vice versa. Tim Keller refers to this as a "Stepford god";

 

If you don’t trust the Bible enough to let it challenge and correct your thinking, how could you ever have a personal relationship with God? In any truly personal relationship, the other person has to be able to contradict you.

“For example, if a wife is not allowed to contradict her husband, they won’t have an intimate relationship. Remember the (two!) movies The Stepford Wives? The husbands of Stepford, Connecticut, decide to have their wives turned into robots who never cross the wills of their husbands. A Stepford wife was wonderfully compliant and beautiful, but no one would describe such a marriage as intimate or personal.
“Now, what happens if you eliminate anything from the Bible that offends your sensibility and crosses your will? If you pick and choose what you want to believe and reject the rest, how will you ever have a God who can contradict you? You won’t! You’ll have a Stepford God! A God, essentially, of your own making, and not a God with whom you can have a relationship and genuine interaction.
“Only if your God can say things that outrage you and make you struggle (as in a real friendship or marriage!) will you know that you have gotten hold of a real God and not a figment of your imagination.
“So an authoritative Bible is not the enemy of a personal relationship with God. It is the precondition for it.”

 

 

So how do we go from Elohim to Jehovah Elohim? Or how do we got from religion to relationship. How do we go from head knowledge to heart knowledge? Lets go back to Exodus 3 in conclusion where the name is introduced. (many of these thoughts courtesy of Tim Keller) This account appears to be when Moses went from knowing about Elohim to knowing Him, Yahweh.

1. Realize how far you have fallen - Moses, educated, trained in the leading country in the land had become a sheepherder in Midian. Verse 1 says "Moses was tending". The verb actually means tending and tending and tending... It implies monotony. People coming to God, almost always are in a crisis. That is why so many conversions happen in prison, on death beds, and in impoverished countries on mission trips. People need to know they are in a crisis and...

2. Their old paradigm for life isn't working. They need a new paradigm - something completely different i.e. a bush that doesn't burn up. They need to realize that their old way of thinking is not answering life's questions. There is something supernatural outside them that is a better explanation...

3. There is a God of fire - He doesn't need fuel to burn, He is self sufficient. Like fire He is consuming, unyielding, beautiful yet terrifying. The real riddle is not that the tree doesn't burn up but that a whiny Moses standing in the presence of a God of fire doesn't combust. And the answer is...

4. The Angel of the Lord was in the fire. Who's that? Jesus. A theophany or Christophany. A preincarnate Jesus who stands in the gap for us so we can be in the prescence of God and says in John 8, "before Abraham was, I Am".

5. Lastly, how do you know religion went to relationship. Two ways - Go and Glo. When God appeared to Abraham, Isaiah, Moses, Paul, they were given the command "Go". For us, we get new marching orders. God says to us" you are now an ambassador for the kingdom of Heaven. Go represent Me with your uniqueness I gave you. And like Moses, whose face glowed in the presence of God, we are to shine for Christ. God now lives inside of us and people should see a difference.

 

So, for us who are saved, how do we rekindle that relationship with God? We need to go explore that fire. Verse 4 says"Moses had gone over to look" literally detoured. He needed to break free from the usual and go meet with God. We need to turn off the TV, cell phone games, internet, Netflix, and meet with God. Take a detour - the route marked Jehovah!

 

What does Jehovah / Yahweh / YHWH mean? How about the personal, eternal, revealing, God of absolute truth.

 

For your quiet time this week

1. Read Psalm 19. Notice the abrupt change in the middle from Elohim to Jehovah. How does that closeness affect David in verses 13,14?

 

2. Read Psalm 8. When he considers Elohim, what is he amazed about in verse 4?

 

                      

The Names of God 1. Elohim

                                   WEEK 1 Elohim

   Read Matthew 28:17-20  "When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. ¹⁸ Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹ Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

   If you were to list all the important items in this Great Commission, you would most certainly list evangelism, discipleship, missions, baptism, God's presence and authority, the end of the age... but how many would say "the Trinity". It is assumed throughout the Bible but never mentioned by name. Yet it is in the background (or foreground) throughout the Old and New Testament. Here we see the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit and the word "name" in front of them, not "names". Three yet one. When we look at how the Christian faith has defined the trinity (and as different as all the denominations are, they all concur) it is summarized in The Baptist Faith and Message; " The eternal triune God reveals Himself to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, with distinct personal attributes, but without division of nature, essence, or being." In the Westminster Confession; "In the unity of the Godhead there be three Persons of one substance, power, and eternity: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. The Father is of none, neither begotten nor proceeding; the Son is eternally begotten of the Father; the Holy Ghost eternally proceeding from the Father and the Son."
  
   How can we make sense of this. The following links http://www.trinity.la/trinityinnature.htm and http://fervr.net/bible/is-the-trinity-like-h2o-an-egg-or-a-triangle give some examples like eggs, water, colors, sun, time, etc. but suffice it to say none are nearly adequate. Imagine living in a chalkboard. You are a 2 dimensional person - height and width relating to other blackboard people - how I don't know because you wouldn't be technically able to see them because they have no depth or thickness. But assuming you can, someone from outside the board puts the bottom of a coke can flush against the board. What would you see? A circle only. If the person outside said, "no, it is a cylinder", you would have no concept of what they are talking about! This is how it is with God and the trinity. We can't even comprehend the thought because we are finite and God is so "other". Don't you love it that the God we worship is so great that there are things we don't understand! No wonder man made religions don't believe the trinity. What else would you expect?

  Another example in scripture of the trinity is at Christ's baptism but the one that I want to focus on in the remainder is Genesis 1. When you look at Genesis 1:1,2 and join that with Col. 1:16 we see God the Father, the Spirit hovering, and Jesus creating. The first name for God revealed to us is Elohim which has a plural ending - him. In Genesis 1:26 we see God say, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness..." Note the plurality - us, our. Even from the beginning we see the trinity. To be made in His image is to be triune - body, soul, spirit. Animals have a body and soul but no spirit. We are different from them because we didn't evolve - we were created. Lets look at this part of the name Elohim and conclude looking again at the trinity.

    Elohim can be described as the one yet triune strong God, Creator, Judge,King, Lord, Savior. He is the capital G God over all small gods. We see this illustrated in Acts 17:22-31 where Paul enters Athens and is distressed by all the small g god's idols. Paul said that he represented The God over all these gods. They were worshipping the god of the ocean, Paul says let me introduce you to the God who made the water. They were worshipping the god of the sun, he said let me introduce you to the God who made the sun - and so on.
      So what, what does that mean to me? Well, first of all, you aren't an accident. You have a purpose, a future and meaning. You are God's workmanship (Eph. 2:10) so if you don't like what you see take it up with God. You are His work of art. When he got done creating us, He rested. That doesn't mean He was tired, but the "rested " word means He looked at us and said, Aaah, perfection. I'm done.  http://www.thoughtsfromtherightbrain.blogspot.com/2011/12/kids-devotion-self-image.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5l1zxoCOmY
       Secondly, Elohim created Ex Nihlo (out of nothing). Even the big bang had to start from something. If God made this whole universe out of nothing, then your problems, which seem to have no solution in sight, can easily be solved by a God who can create something out of nothing. If anything gets God chapped, it is when we doubt His power. (See Sarah who laughed and the mute Zechariah)  Don't stress - "Be still and know that I am God"
       Third, you have an owner - He made you, He owns you. Thus you have an owners manual! http://www.thoughtsfromtherightbrain.blogspot.com/2014/09/object-lessons-5-minute-devotionals-to.html
       Lastly in the same light, "formless and void" alludes to waste or a garbage dump. God can take the garbage dump of your life and turn it into something beautiful. He can take your darkness and turn it into light.

       In closing, we see that Elohim gives our life meaning but it possibly also explains what we are made for. Tim Keller has a heavy message on this from John 17 called "The Glory of the Triune God" and if I could summarize (which I adequately can't) it goes something like this. Jesus in John 17 gives us some insight into what the trinity is like before He came to Earth. He says that He was glorifying the Father and the Father was glorifying Him. He was loving the Father and the Father was loving Him. He was serving the Father and vice versa.Nabeel Quereshi in his book "Seeking Allah and Finding Jesus had a breakthrough in science class as he, a vehement denier of the trinity had this moment of clarity;

"… The professor was teaching rarefied science, describing the subatomic world. At that level, things happen that make no sense to those of us who conceptualize the world at only a human level. Even the apparently simple idea of atoms is baffling when we think about it. It means that the chair I am sitting on is not actually a solid object, innocently supporting my weight. It is almost entirely empty space, occupied only in small part by particles moving at incomprehensible speeds. When we think about it, it seems wrong, but it’s just the way things are in our universe. There’s no use arguing about it.
I turned my glance away from the other students, concluding they had not blindly accepted a nonsensical concept. They had just realized before I did that there were truths about our universe that do not fit easily into our minds.
My eyes rested on the three separate structures of nitrate on the wall, my mind assembling the pieces. One molecule of nitrate is all three resonance structures all the time and never just one of them. The three are separate but all the same, and they are one. They are three in one.
That’s when it clicked: if there are things in this world that can be three in one, 3even incomprehensibly, so then why cannot God?”

In light of that, Imagine an atom with the parts all circling around each other in a magnetic field. Then picture the trinity - the three parts revolving around each other through all eternity worshipping, loving, serving, glorifying each other in ultimate joy. Why did God create us? Because He was lonely? No, he had complete fellowship through all eternity. Because He needed someone to love? No, He had complete love thru all eternity. Because He needed worship? No, He had that, too. Then why? Maybe because God wanted us for all eternity to enter that "magnetic field" , that revolution of joy with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Not that we become part of God or Gods ourselves, but rather that circle of joy for all eternity found in worshipping, loving, serving, glorifying Him. And that begins now. If that's what we are designed for, doesn't it make sense that we would get the ultimate fulfillment out of life now doing those same things? And if all believers are going to be joining us in this, shouldn't we be loving and serving one another now?

     What's in a name? Hopefully Elohim means a lot more to you now. Meditate with this song by Phil Wickham  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjfi8p_7axg