"Y" is for YAHWEH

This is week 25 of the Blogging Through the Alphabet Challenge by Through The Calm and Through the Storm and Adventures With Jude. Only one more week to go to complete the challenge :-)  This week's letter is "Y" and I chose YAHWEH.

I was going to write my own thoughts, but found this article by John Piper and nothing I would say would be better than this!

God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations.” (Exodus 3:15)

"God’s name is almost always translated LORD (all caps) in the English Bible. But the Hebrew would be pronounced something like "Yahweh," and is built on the word for "I am."

So every time we hear the word Yahweh, or every time you see LORD in the English Bible, you should think: this is a proper name (like Peter or John) built out of the word for “I am” and reminding us each time that God absolutely is.

There are at least 10 things the name Yahweh, “I AM,” says about God:

1. He never had a beginning. Every child asks, “Who made God?” And every wise parent says, “Nobody made God. God simply is. And always was. No beginning.”

2. God will never end. If he did not come into being he cannot go out of being, because he is being.

3. God is absolute reality. There is no reality before him. There is no reality outside of him unless he wills it and makes it. He is all that was eternally. No space, no universe, no emptiness. Only God.

4. God is utterly independent. He depends on nothing to bring him into being or support him or counsel him or make him what he is.

5. Everything that is not God depends totally on God. The entire universe is utterly secondary. It came into being by God and stays in being moment by moment on God's decision to keep it in being.

6. All the universe is by comparison to God as nothing. Contingent, dependent reality is to absolute, independent reality as a shadow to substance. As an echo to a thunderclap. All that we are amazed by in the world and in the galaxies, is, compared to God, as nothing.

7. God is constant. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He cannot be improved. He is not becoming anything. He is who he is.

8. God is the absolute standard of truth and goodness and beauty. There is no law-book to which he looks to know what is right. No almanac to establish facts. No guild to determine what is excellent or beautiful. He himself is the standard of what is right, what is true, what is beautiful.

9. God does whatever he pleases and it is always right and always beautiful and always in accord with truth. All reality that is outside of him he created and designed and governs as the absolute reality. So he is utterly free from any constraints that don't originate from the counsel of his own will.

10. God is the most important and most valuable reality and person in the universe. He is more worthy of interest and attention and admiration and enjoyment than all other realities, including the entire universe."

"X" Is For The Shape Of Andrew's Cross

This is week 24 of the Blogging Through the Alphabet Challenge by Through The Calm and Through the Storm and Adventures With Jude.  The letter this week is "X".  If I am honest, I have been dreading this week as I just don't know a lot of words beginning with "x".  I looked up a list of words and there are a lot more than I knew, but it didn't help as I didn't know what most of the words meant. I chose a couple and looked them up and they just weren't very exciting :-(  And then I remembered that one of Jesus' disciples was crucified on an "X" shaped cross, so I thought about investigating that.

Tradition says that Andrew (the brother of Peter) was martyred by being crucified on cross in the shape of an "X".  Some sources said the reason for that is he did not consider himself worthy to be crucified on the same type of cross Christ had been (which was a "T" shaped cross).

Here is the quote from Wikipedia "A saltire is a heraldic symbol in the form of a diagonal cross, like the shape of the letter X in Roman type. Saint Andrew is said to have been martyred on such a cross.^{[by whom?]} The word comes from the Middle French sautoir ("stirrup"), possibly owing to the shape of the triangular areas in the design.^[1]

It appears in numerous flags, including those of Scotland and Jamaica, and other coats of arms and seals. A variant, also appearing on many past and present flags and symbols, is the Cross of Burgundy flag.

A warning sign in the shape of a saltire is also used to indicate the point at which a railway line intersects a road at a level crossing."

I did not know there was such thing as a St. Andrew's cross and it is used in many country's flags. 

This is Scotland's, others can be viewed here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saltire

Another interesting point is In Greek, the first letter for Christ (Chi) also happens to be 'X'-shaped, as in the Chi Rho Cross.  Again from Wikipedia "The Chi Rho (/ˈkaɪ ˈroʊ/) is one of the earliest forms of christogram, and is used by some Christians. It is formed by superimposing the first two (capital) letters chi and rho (ΧΡ) of the Greek word "ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ" = KRistos = Christ in such a way to produce the monogram.^[1] Although not technically a Christian cross, the Chi-Rho invokes the authority of Jesus, as well as symbolising his status as the Christ.^{[citation needed]}

The Chi-Rho symbol was also used by pagan Greek scribes to mark, in the margin, a particularly valuable or relevant passage; the combined letters Chi and Rho standing for chrēston, meaning "good."^[2] Some coins of Ptolemy III Euergetes (r. 246–222 BC) were marked with a Chi-Rho.^[3]

The Chi-Rho symbol was used by the Roman emperor Constantine I as part of a military standard (vexillum), Constantine's standard was known as the Labarum. Early symbols similar to the Chi Rho were the Staurogram () and the IX monogram "

This is week 23 of the Blogging Through the Alphabet Challenge by Through The Calm and Through the Storm and Adventures With Jude.  The letter this week is "W" and I have chosen the word "Wages".

Miriam Webster defines Wage as:  a payment usually of money for labor or services usually according to contract and on an hourly, daily, or piecework basis —often used in plural.  Other words for wage is recompense or reward.

Most of us have done some kind of job in our past where we expected to be compensated. We would not have accepted the job if the wages were not fair for the work that we did.

Romans 6:23 says, "For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."

We are all sinners.  No matter how hard we try there is not one person who can live life without doing anything wrong or having a wrong thought.  Once Adam and Eve accepted the offer of Satan and didn't believe in what God had said would happen, sin entered the world and from that day on it was impossible for anyone to live a sinless life.  But because we have a God who loves us more than we can imagine He provided a way for us to live a sinless life.

2 Corinthians 5:18-"We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.  For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God."

Have you ever said to yourself there is no way that God could forgive me for___________?  Satan wants us to believe that we are unforgiveable, but he is a liar.  God gave His son as a sacrifice for ALL, so that we can be forgiven.  Not just forgiven but He forgets our sin "For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.” (Hebrews 8:12)

What an amazing gift, from an amazing God!!  Forgiveness of sins so that we might become righteousness of God.  Too good to be true?  Yes indeed!  But it even gets better!!  While the wages of sin is death the FREE gift of God is eternal life!  You can't get a much better reward than that!!
Thank You, Father God!

View From Heaven

This is week 22 of the Blogging Through the Alphabet Challenge by Through The Calm and Through the Storm and Adventures With Jude.  The letter is "V" and I chose the word "VIEW". (click on one of those links to see what other "v" words people chose)

We took a week break from Blogging Through The Alphabet and this post would have been perfect for last week, but I went ahead and decided to post it today.

On Easter weekend a friend named Beverly, posted on her Facebook page "I woke up singing Worthy is the Lamb by Darlene Zschech this morning. It has this line about Jesus: "the Darling of Heaven crucified." As I've spent the last few reflecting on Holy Week, I've been trying to imagine the scenes in Heaven as the angels watched it all unfold. Don't you know they were in "ready, set, go" position, waiting for Father God to blink His eye just right at them. The heavenly view must have been the hardest of all! What a horribly dark day. What a gift from the Love of all Loves! May our lives reflect our deep deep gratitude! "

I was telling my husband later that day, that I had thought of God many times on the day Christ died, but I had not thought about the angels and what they were doing that day.  He sad that when he was in seminary that his friend Gerry delivered a sermon about that same subject and equated it  to a General and his army.  His army would be by his side during the war just waiting for the general to send them into war and would be eager for him to give them their order, so they could beat the enemy.  In this case the angels were waiting for God to give the order for them to go save Jesus.  

In Matthew 26, Peter cuts off the ear of a soldier who was trying to arrest Jesus and Jesus tells him to put away his sword because if He wanted to, He could ask God and He would send 12 legions of angels (72,000) to save Him.  They were just waiting for the "call", but because of His love for me and for you, Jesus chose to go through the horrible crucifixion.  I had never thought about all the angels having to watch that terrible day and hearing God's cry into heaven "Father, why have you forsaken me?"  But then Sunday came and imagine the party in heaven when Christ rose from the dead!! The only party that will ever equal it is when God sends Him to bring us all home and we join the angels in Heaven worshiping at His feet!

....As Paul Harvey used to say "and the rest of the story"....as I was looking up the Matthew 26:53 about the legions of angels it led me to a link about the song "He Could Have Called 10,000 Angels" and I found the story about the writing of the song fascinating.

" Rarely has a hymn-writer been led to Christ by his own song, but such was the case with Ray Overholt.

       In 1958, at the height of his show-business career, Ray Overholt wrote his now-famous song, Ten Thousand Angels.

       Here is his story as he related it—

       One day I thought to myself: I’ve written secular songs, I’d like to write a song about Christ.

       I opened the Bible. I knew a little about it from my mom. I began to read how Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane told Peter to put away his sword. Jesus told Peter that he could ask his Father and he would send twelve legions of angels. I didn’t know at the time that would have been more than 72,000 angels. (cf: Matthew 26:53)

       I thought a good title for a song would be He Could Have Called Ten Thousand Angels. The more I read about Jesus, the more I admired him for what he had done.

       I was playing in a nightclub in Battle Creek, Michigan, when the Lord impressed me to write the song. I wrote the first verse and put it in my guitar case. I then told the club that I was quitting.

       I finished the song and sent it to a publishing house, which reluctantly agreed to publish it.

       Sometime later I found myself singing at a small church. I sang He Could Have Called Ten Thousand Angels.

       Following my singing, a preacher spoke a message that gripped my heart. I knew I needed Christ. So I knelt there and accepted, as my Savior, the One whom I had been singing and writing about.

       Ray Overholt became a traveling singer and preacher.

—Lindsay Terry

       Ten Thousand Angels

      

(1) They bound the hands of Jesus in the garden where He prayed;

They led Him thro' the streets in shame.

They spat upon the Savior so pure and free from sin;

They said, "Crucify Him; He's to blame."

      

CHORUS:

He could have called ten thousand angels

To destroy the world and set Him free.

He could have called ten thousand angels,

But He died alone for you and me.

      

(2) Upon His precious head they placed a crown of thorns;

They laughed and said, "Behold the king."

They struck Him and they cursed Him and mocked His holy name.

All alone He suffered ev'rything.

      

(3) To the howling mob He yielded; He did not for mercy cry.

The Cross of shame He took alone. And when He cried, "It's finished," He gave himself to die;

Salvation's wondrous plan was done.