2002-01-01
Good Morning Dear Ones,
You will remember that in yesterday’s message, I cited EX 16: 18, which told us that God supplied all the manna the Jews wandering in the desert needed. This was mentioned in connection with exercising our responsibilities as a part of keeping our covenant agreements to live in a koininea relationship with God and with other believers. That means that we should care about God, fellow believers, and ourselves. We never have to worry about our always-righteous Deity not living up to His agreements with us. Our need is to concern ourselves with keeping our covenant promises to Him and to the others around us. I believe this responsibility should be extended to others who haven’t yet committed to the faith, but might some day. It is not our place to judge whether any individual will come to faith, because that is God’s sovereign decision. Some people whom we would least expect may be moved to come to faith by the Holy Spirit who leads us to say or do something to further this goal. One question that comes up is: If we, ourselves, need help, should we look to the government or to our fellow-believers for it? Certainly churches don’t have the means to provide for national defense, so it would be pretty unrealistic not to go to the government for that. But, for our other needs, our everyday ones, we must understand that we are not in a koininea relationship with the government. Even in matters of national defense, the government needs to recognize its need to look to the Lord for help. For God, alone, has the power to determine the course of human history [DN 4: 17, RO 1: 16-17]. It is God Who is capable and willing to supply us with all we need.
His love for us is so great that He has shown us that sometimes partners in a covenant share their names to establish participation in the other’s personhood (being). The simplest example of this is when a wife takes on her husband’s last name at the time of marriage. I know that I was honored to take on Peter’s name as my own. Sometimes, out of respect and love for a parent, an individual takes on the parent’s name and his own hyphenated, to acknowledge the importance to his life that this parent has. This practice of sharing names was done at times by God too. Let me share some examples. GN 17: 4-7, “I [God] make this covenant with you [Abram]: I promise that you will be the ancestor of many nations. Your name will no longer be Abram, but Abraham, because I am making you the ancestor of many nations. I will give you many descendants, and some of them will be kings. You will have so many descendants that they will become nations. I will keep My promise to you an to your descendants in future generations as an everlasting covenant. I will be your God and the God of your descendants.” Another example is in GN 17: 15-16, “God said to Abraham, ‘You must no longer call your wife Sarai; from now on her name is Sarah. I will bless her, and I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she will become the mother of nations and there will be kings among her descendants.” God knew Abraham and Sarah. Despite their imperfections, He loved them very much. One of God’s names in Hebrew is Yahweh (sometimes spelled in English translations with only four letters). The “heth” in Hebrew or “ah” in English was taken out of God’s name, Yahweh, and put in both Abraham’s and Sarah’s names.
REV 2:17 also exemplifies this sharing of names. “If you have ears, then, listen to what the Spirit say to the churches! ‘To those who win the victory I will give some hidden manna. I will also give each of them a white stone on which is written a new name that no one knows except the one who receives it.” The hidden manna referred to here is a reward. The white stone is a sign of righteousness, independence, and power over the coming temptation. The name is another expression of God’s love.
Part of this sharing in the oneness of covenant is friendship as well. The word, “friend,” is also a covenant term. Abraham was God’s friend, who put His trust in the Lord and was deemed acceptable to Him. 2 CH 20: 7 is an acknowledgment of this fact by King Jehoshaphat while afraid and praying to God for guidance at the time of a possible invasion of Judah by Edom, Moab, Ammon, and the Meunites. “You are our God. When your people Israel moved into this land, you drove out the people who were living here and gave the land to the descendants of Abraham, Your friend, to be theirs forever.” The subject of friendship is too delicious to be given short-shrift in this message, so I will continue discussing it in tomorrow’s. Throughout all the citations in today’s message we should see a pattern of God’s profound love for those who are His friends. Focus on RO 8: 28 to gain insight on just how much the Lord cherishes those who believe in Him that He has called to faith.
PRAYER: O Lord, we acknowledge the love You have for us and that what You provide for us is sufficient. We also recognize that You are the Supreme and Sovereign Power over every facet of our lives, including our congregations, our personal lives, our careers, and our governments. We stand in awe of Your righteous use of Your power. Our limited ability to understand things in comparison to Yours keeps us from sometimes recognizing Your long-range motives or the total depth of the love You have for us. You have demonstrated that in the example of sharing Your name with Abraham and Sarah. This has set a paradigm for us in sharing names at times in our covenant relationships with each other, for example marriages. You directed Jews to select Hebrew names that often reveal something crucial about the person’s personality or Your calling for him. You have directed us to honor our parents, and sharing their names is one way You have given us to do that. You have also called us to be Your friends. What a great blessing that is for us! The example of Abraham, which King Jehoshaphat of Judah recognized, gives us insight into what a privilege being Your friend is. For the love You manifest toward us every day of our lives, for the sacrifice of Your only begotten Son for us, and for all the blessings You make available to us, we pledge You our humble adoration, worship, loyalty, diligence, trust, obedience, glory, honor, praise, and thanks. In Christ’s holy name, we pray. Amen.
As promised above, I am led to continue discussing friendship with God as a part of the oneness of the covenant relationship we have with Him tomorrow. We can bask in the warm glow of our Lord’s profound love for each of us. We can carry that love, sharing it with others and knowing that these actions will honor our lives and our God. We are truly a blessed people when we dwell with Him in faith. God loves you and so do Peter and I.
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn