Thoughts For Consideration

Greetings again my Brethren. To the glory of God we start our ninth year of this newsletter and to the ministry God has given Karen and I.  What joy it has been to, “grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. “  (2 Peter 3:18) as we go for Him.  Please keep us in your prayers and financial support in the years to come together as, “one bread” we can make it. 
          Let us continue looking at coming to know God; not a mental or emotional knowledge, but a personal intimate knowledge that supersedes what society says is the norm, our religious thoughts, our lifestyle, and most of all our emotion. If our approach to God is through our emotions; feeling close to God when we sing, dance, wave flags, listen to Christian music, conduct ritual observances like communion, when we do things for God then we have been deceived to the truth of what God has for us and truly have missed out on the real relationship with God. For the past months we have been looking at the Spiritual nature of God and now let us begin a new area, the essential attributes of God.  The first attribute we will look at is God is self-existent.  I really like the Greek Bible; it provides a closer look at the real thought and heart of God in what the manifested expression of the Holy Spirit is saying to us. But also I like looking at the Jewish Torah.  I think I would like to attend a Bible study led by a Jewish Rabbi to discuss the Old Testament. Our KJV of Genesis 1:1 reads, “In the beginning,” but the Torah       
reads, “God in the beginning.”  Is this not truer than, “In the beginning?”  The Torah adds the focus first on God then on what God creates or does.  Is this not more correct? God is always the beginning of everything in creation and in our lives, so true when we look at God’s attributes. Moses had this revelation when He first talked to God.  “And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them? 14And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you. 15And God said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations.” (Exodus3:13-15)  Now Moses wanted to know God’s name, because in the Jewish culture if you knew someone’s name then you know them, you know where they come from, who their daddy is, etc. and if you know all of this then you have power over them, well God knew this too, so He replied, “I AM THAT I AM:” God was establishing His eternal attribute of self to Moses. He is self-sufficient, He does not need us we desperately nee Him. No need to know about my family name “this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations.” God was telling Moses He was before anything was. Before eternal time began, He is everything, and without Him nothing is possible, He Himself is the place from going out; a door or passage out, life, a way of life, and “this is my memorial (Strong’s #2143, remembrance or a solemn memory forever) unto all generations.” And for us to have a correct perspective of God we too must have this understanding of God’s self-existence buried deep down in our heart and in our thoughts and it must grasp our heart to such a degree we wilfully submit to Him whole-heartedly without any purpose of reservation.  Without this remembrance, in our lives, of who God is and how He is the beginning and the end, our all and in all, then we will get off track and stumble and fall out of the way of life He is and the life that he has for us.  Next month we will look at how God is omnipresent as we continue to look at the attributes of God.