Category: Awesome God

Isaiah 9:5-7                                                            Christmas Bells

“For every warrior’s sandal from the noisy battle, and garments rolled in blood, will be used for burning and fuel of fire.  For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government will be upon His shoulder.  And his name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.  Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end, upon the throne of David and over His kingdom, to order it and establish it with judgment and justice from that time forward, even forever.  The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this” (NKJV).

 

It is unusual to include verse five in the passage above.  When we read this section, we generally begin with, “For unto us….”  For a discussion of “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day,” it is appropriate.  This Christmas hymn came out of the anguish and despair of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, one of America’s best well-known poets.

In 1861 Longfellow’s wife’s clothing caught on fire.  He was in a different room, and he ran to her aid, but was unable to distinguish the flames with a rug, so he threw his body on hers to put out the fire.  Unfortunately, she was too badly burned to survive.  She died the next morning.  Henry was greatly depressed and submerged himself in his work.  A few years later, his son, Charley, enlisted in the Union Army during the Civil War.  He contracted typhoid fever and was sent home to recuperate.  After he recovered, he returned to the army.  On December 1, 1863, Henry received a telegram telling him that his son had been severely wounded several days earlier.  He was shot through the left shoulder with the bullet exiting under his right shoulder blade, nicking his spine on the way through his body.  Now, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was a widower with five children, and one of them was critically wounded.  In these despairing circumstances He penned the words to “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.”

Much can be said about the various verses of this carol, but I don’t believe that I am the one to add to the words of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.  I doubt that many of us will hear all the verses of this carol sung, but I encourage you to read every verse, and read it aloud.  When you do, you may feel as Longfellow did, despair, but the joyous resolution of the final stanza will lift your heart and hands in praise and thanks to our great God.  I have got to quote the last verse here because it is the promise brought by the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ.  “Then pealed the bells more loud and deep; God is not dead, nor doth He sleep; the wrong shall fail, the right prevail, with peace on earth, good-will to men.”

Matthew 2:9-11                                                       The First Noel

“After this interview the wise men went their way.  And the star they had seen in the east guided them to Bethlehem.  It went ahead of them and stopped over the place where the child was.  When they saw the star, they were filled with joy!  They entered the house and saw the child with his mother, Mary, and they bowed down and worshipped him.  Then they opened their treasure chests and gave him gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh” (NLT).

 

“The First Noel probably began in the 1400’s as on oral song.  Some believe that it began in England, while others claim a French beginning.  It was not published in English until the 1800’s.  This is another great example of God’s words being put on paper by some fortunate man or woman, and we have been blessed.

The song begins with an announcement to shepherds, but quickly, in the next verse, it turns to the wise men from the east and the star they followed.  Verse by verse, from verse two through verse five, the song closely follows the Scripture quoted above.

What a wonder this is—kings from the east came to see the child who was born to be the king of the Jews.  We are told that they traveled several years, leaving their own kingdoms to visit a baby.  He was, even in their eyes, many years from becoming king, yet they travelled a great distance to see Him, who was born to be King of the Jews.  They had to have known that Israel was ruled and held captive by Rome.  How did they recognize that this strange. new star was the one that would lead them to the King of the Jews?

And the star led them to the very house where Jesus was.  I can find my way across North America to visit someone on the other side of the country, but I have maps, and I know exactly where I am going, and I know personally the person I am going to see.  They had a star, and they didn’t know where it would lead or how long it would take to get there.  I need to have the faith of the wise men—belief that whatever God says,I must follow if I want to have blessings.  The kings weren’t Jews.  Jehovah was not their God.  I wonder—did they continue to worship from afar after they left Bethlehem on their way home?  Were they the first Gentiles to believe in Jesus?

We have an advantage that they probably never had, the New Testament, the writings of the apostles who lived with Jesus for several years.  We can read what the apostles experienced while with our Lord and Savior, and we can read the very words spoken by Jesus.  We know His message, His love, and His sacrifice, and we have the assurance that we can live with Him forever because of His message, His love, and His sacrifice.  They saw Him for a very short time.  I have wondered if these three wise men who visited Jesus at His birth ever got to hear of His life and message.  I thank God that I got to hear it, and now  I know Jesus personally even though I did not attend Him at His birth.  Thank you, Father God.  Thank you, Jesus.

Psalm 91:1                                           Even His Shadow Is Mighty

“He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty” (KJV).

 

Please disregard the name and the words in the picture above.  I use the picture because of the sharpness of the shadow.  Is the light shining from the lower left or from the upper right?  Hard to tell, isn’t it?  The shadow matches the original exactly and is just as sharp.

The verse above tells us that we are safe even in the shadow of the Almighty.  His strength and protection are available wherever God sends them, even in a place where they are made up of nothing we can touch.  That’s true of our God; we can’t physically touch Him, and that makes it difficult for some to believe that He even exists.  Talk to someone who has had a personal touch from Him, someone who has been healed from a deadly disease, someone who has been set free from drugs, someone whose life and marriage have been restored, someone who has been brought safely out of a horrendous automobile or plane crash.  I’m pretty sure that he will gladly tell you of the real existence and spiritual touch of Jesus Christ.  A shadow proves that something real has caused the shadow; it exists, so if we can “abide in the shadow of the Almighty,” then He, the Almighty must exist.  Thank you, dear God, for providing for us, the Shadow of the Almighty.

Isaiah 40:11                                                         Gentle and majestic

“He will tend his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms; He will carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young” (ESV).

 

“Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours.  Yours is the kingdom, O Lord, and you are exalted as head above all” (ESV).

 

I am drawn to this picture and to the two verses above.  Together the verses describe the gentleness and the majesty of our God, the Lord of all, the Creator, the one who proves His strength and His gentleness by his love.  The picture shows the grass-covered meadow with grazing cattle in the foreground, while the background literally shouts of the majesty and grandeur of the mountains and spires.  In one picture we see the extremes of landscape and in the Scriptures quoted above, we see the extremes of the personality of our God.

Our Lord is our gentle shepherd that gathers us in His arms and gently holds us in peace.  He is also the grand God of creation, who created all we can see and all we cannot see by His Word, His spoken Word.  He owns all of it.  He rules all of it.  Yet, with all of His grandeur, He knows you and He knows me.  He not only knows who we are, he knows all about us, our needs, our desires, our wants, our problems, our shortcomings, our sins, and our love for Him.  I am overcome by the knowledge that the King of the universe wants to hold me in His arms and listen to what I have to say.  He is honestly interested in my interests, but most of all, He wants me to know that He wants to spend eternity with me and with you.  Each of us is His favorite, for “God shows no partiality (Romans 2:11 ESV).

Jeremiah 9:23,24                        I Can Brag

“This is what the Lord says:  ‘Let no wise man boast of his wisdom, nor let the mighty man boast of his might, nor a rich man boast of his riches; but let the one who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord who exercises mercy, justice, and righteousness on the earth; for I delight in these things” (NASB).

“Don’t brag about your wisdom or strength or wealth.  If you feel you must brag, then have enough sense to brag about worshipping me, the Lord.  What I like best is showing kindness, justice, and mercy to everyone on earth” (CEV).

 

God calls for us to have humility—humility about what we have or can do.  He wants us to be able to boast about knowing Him.  That I know the creator of the universe, that I know the one who sacrificed His life to gain heaven for me, that I know the one who “…so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (KJV)—those are reasons to boast.  I can boast that He knows my name, that He listens to me whenever I need a listener, that He protects me every day, all day.  Those are reasons to boast!  Hey, you can boast about the same things, right?  You’ve accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, right?  If you have, then you can boast that Jesus loves you enough to have left His heavenly home and came to earth as a human being, and that He died to gain forgiveness for all your sins.  That’s a BIG DEAL.  The creator of the universe cares enough about each of us to know us personally and loves us enough to die for us.  I gladly boast about that.

As for my own accomplishments, they all pale compared to what Jesus has done.  Jesus is stronger than I, smarter than I, and richer than I, but He still takes the time to listen to my prayers.  Thank you, Jesus, for reaching out to me through all of eternity.

 

Isaiah 43:19                          Roads and Streams Where Needed

“I have put roads in deserts, streams in thirsty lands” (CEV).

 

As desert dwellers, we can perhaps appreciate this verse better than others.  My wife and I have driven on a road in the deserts of Nevada that is the flattest road and land that I have ever seen.  It is also one of the most desolate places I have experienced.  There are no plants or almost no plants in sight to either horizon.  The land is so flat and desolate that it doesn’t matter if your car wanders off the pavement, except that you might not get to your desired destination.  It’s a featureless plain that appears to have no driving hazards.  The insidious and always-present danger of this road is the non-ending boredom of driving it.  This stretch of road needs some hills, some turns, and especially, some water.

Thanks be to God that He has provided a more interesting life for us.  Living the life of a Christian is the opposite of the land described in the previous paragraph.  The reading of the Word provides new insight almost every time I read a passage.  The Bible has been written by many different authors from many different places and also at many different times.  But the message throughout is central and unchanging.  The love and care God has for us, the ones He created for fellowship, shows up everywhere.  It is intriguing to discover how God shows His love in the creation in Genesis, in the poetry so beautifully written in the center of the Word, to the salvation He presents to us in the Gospels, to the end of His amazing book, Revelation, where He draws to himself all who will accept His love.

Fellowship with our Lord is interesting and exciting because even though He does describe life on this earth from creation to eternity with Him, He doesn’t show us what might happen tomorrow.  Along with the physical streams created by Him long ago, He has given us spiritual streams to carry us and nurture us all the way through our lives.  Enjoyment is always present for us when we interact with others who have accepted Jesus.  And, to top it off, He has given each of us a job or jobs to do.  My boss created the entire universe, and He knows me, He knows what I do, and He provides guidance and help whenever I request it.  Thank God that I don’t live on a featureless plain with nothing to do but indulge my desires.  God has provided a fantastic planet, amazing spiritual wonders, and He has given me the privilege of living on this planet, experiencing the wonders of His love along with other children of His.   Praise be to God!

Nehemiah 9:6                                                     The Awesome God

“You alone are the Lord.  You made the heavens, even the highest heavens, and all their starry host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all  that is in Therm.  You give life to everything, and the multitudes of heaven worship you” (NIV).

 

God is indeed awesome.  All we need to do to discover that is look outside and see the vast beauty of the universe, the earth and all the magnificent landscapes, animals, plants, and the seas it contains.  Mountains are stunning from the Alps to the Rockies, to the Appalachians to the hills of Missouri—they are all stupendous.  The vast numbers of plants, from spiny cactus to beautifully petalled pansies, the many animals from the amoeba to the great whales—they are all unbelievably intricate.  He created the earth such that the animals, the plants, the landscapes, the oceans and the heavens work together as an amazing functioning unit that sustains life.  From His creation alone, we can see that “Our God Is an Awesome God.”

He went beyond all that, and He created humans, and these He loved.  He loved and loves them so much “…that He gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life” John 3:16 (NIV).  Nehemiah tells us more of God’s awesomeness in Nehemiah 1:5:  “O Lord, God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and obey his commands.”  As we saw in John 3:16, He went beyond that love spoken of in promised in Nehemiah to include not only those who obey his commandments, but also to those who would accept His Son, Jesus.

He is powerful.  He is awesome.  He is the most loving.  HE IS GOD

Psalm 16:8                                                         Unseen Greatness

“I know the Lord is always with me.  I will not be shaken, for he is right beside me.” (NLT)

 

There it is, right in front of you, right beside you.  Do I mean the sunset?  No, I mean the Grand Canyon.  This picture was taken right at the edge of the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, the most awesome canyon on earth, and we can’t see it.  You have to take my word that the entire bottom half of the photograph includes the Grand Canyon with its wondrous features.  The same can be said for the presence of our Lord; He is always with us, as David says above, but He is not visible.  The question is, “Do I really believe He is there even if I can’t see Him?  That’s why it is called faith.  I must have faith that my Lord is with me always.  How do I know that He is there?  First of all, He says He is always there, and His word is His bond.  If it isn’t true, He doesn’t say it.  Second, when I have really needed Him, He has done something that lets me know that He is there.  He brought my wife back from the brink of death in 2011.  In the same situation, He kept her from having a tracheotomy by a means I wouldn’t have believed, and I’m sure some of you won’t believe  even if I tell you.  The day she was to have the tracheotomy, the gas line to the operating room broke; they couldn’t sterilize their equipment, so no operations were performed.  The next day, Norma began to breathe better, and the trach was not needed.  If you ask me if God is there even though we can’t see Him, my answer is a resounding, YES!