OUR LORD DOES ALL THINGS WELL

LORD GOD ALMIGHTY

BLESSED BE YOUR NAME

GREAT KING OF ISRAEL

BLESSED BY YOUR NAME ( X 2 ) ( X 3)

FOR YOU DO ALL THINGS WELL

YOU DO ALL THINGS WELL

YOU SHINE BRIGHTER THAN THE SUN

BRIGHTER THAN THE SUN ( X 2 )

OUR LORD IS THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE

For those of us who are desperately looking for how to reach God, Jesus unequivocally declared Himself as the only one who is able to provide what it takes to do so. John 14 verse 5 - 6, says it like this;

Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 

In John 10 verse 7 - 10, this maxim is expounded upon in this way;

Therefore Jesus said again, “Very truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who have come before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep have not listened to them. I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture. 

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

Jesus starts this passage with the phrase "Very truly" which is an assertion of the veracity and dependability of the claim to follow.  This is the truth of Jesus.

Jesus then describes himself as a gate which is a way or an access point. Jesus is the gate which is the way to what we are searching for. This is the way of Jesus.

Jesus also contrasts Himself to a thief who comes to steal, kill and destroy whereas He came to give abundant life.  This is the life of Jesus.

Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but by Him.

Bless the Lord our God by whom we can reach the Father.

Amen.

OUR LORD FASHIONS US INTO HIS IMAGE

In the beginning, God made the heavens and the earth and filled them with good things and the final task He completed was to make human beings in His own likeness and image.  Genesis 1 verse 27 records it this way;

So God created mankind in his own image in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

This astonishing passage reveals that we humans were designed to look like God and to operate like God. We were imbued with the characteristics that make God who He is.

As the story of the human race progressed, we discover that human beings chose a path of independence from God and as a result, our species suffered a catastrophic falling away that caused our race and indeed the whole earth to suffer a trainwreck of eternal proportions. 

We humans, having been designed to be like God and able to function as His representives, rebelled against God and chose instead to represent ourselves and our own interests. All our pathways, as a race, through the fallen creation,  show marked evidence of our own fallen nature.

 All manner of mayhem, brutality, cruelty, carelessness, war, confusion, purposelessness, corruption, hatred, predation and murder are the fruit of our fallen nature as the laws of sin and death played out in our existence. The human race, refusing to fulfil the function we were made for, ran headlong into severe limitations of survival when trying to fulfill purposes other than those that we were designed for. 

This was our eternal lot and we were all bound to it until the appearing of our Lord Jesus who paid the ransom to re-acquire us from the kingdom of darkness.

Jesus paid by His blood for us and when each of us believed in Him, we became children of God. We all remain in our bodies that are tainted by the corruption of the fall but the Lord, in His wisdom, made provision for us to begin to ascend out of the mire sin and to regain the image of God in ourselves which  our frames were originally designed to carry.

The apostle Paul, in Romans 8 verse 29, writes of the regaining of the image of God this way;

For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

The passage says that we are being conformed to the image of the Jesus, the Son of God and because Jesus is the exact representation of God, being made into the image of Jesus is synonymous with being restored to  the image of God.

Another passage in Colossians 3 verse 9 - 10,  says it more directly;

You have put off the old self [literally “man”] with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.

The great gift of Jesus is salvation and from that, even though we are fallen, the Lord our God undertakes to reshape us into the image and likeness of God as we were meant to be from the time we were on the drawingboards of creation. 

It is no wonder that the Lord Jesus said in Mathew 11 verse 28 - 30;

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

If we were to function according to design, our burdens would be light.

A Lamborghini Aventador would probably creak and groan if it were used to haul loads of bricks to construction sites through muddy roads  but when set on a racing circuit, its yoke is easy and its burden is light.

Bless the Lord our God.

Amen.

https://knowingscripture.com/articles/the-image-of-god-fallen-and-restored

OUR LORD GAVE UP HIS SPIRIT FOR US

The final act of Jesus on the cross was to give up His spirit. 

John 19 verse 30 described the last moments of Jesus this way;

Therefore when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, “It is finished!” And He bowed His head and gave up His spirit.

Here, the words 'It is finished!" are spoken before Jesus surrenders His spirit.

In Mathew 27 verse 50,  the events are described this way;

And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yielded up His spirit. 

It is conceivable that the crying out in a loud voice in John 19 verse 20 and the uttering of "It is finished!" in Mathew 27 verse 50 were the same event. One witness may have heard distinct words while another just heard the sound of a voice crying out.

Mark 15 verse 37 renders an abbreviated version of what happened;

And Jesus uttered a loud cry, and breathed His last.

Mark registers the loud cry and the final breath of Jesus but does not mention the giving up of His spirit.

On the other hand, Luke 23 verse 46 records the final moments of Jesus' life  with the verbalizing of His surrender of His Spirit and then registered Jesus' final breath.

And Jesus, crying out with a loud voice, said, “Father, INTO YOUR HANDS I COMMIT MY SPIRIT.” Having said this, He breathed His last.

These four renditions of the final moments of Jesus' life tell of the story from slightly different perspectives and proximities but what is clear from of them is that at this point, Jesus was completely out of strength and completely out of reserves as His organs began shutting down and the body of the Messiah reached the end.

He had only one strand of life left which was His spirit.

His spirit had tenaciously clung to Jesus as His body and soul endured the brutal treatment under the unrelenting pressure of crucifixion. 

Jesus' Spirit waited for our Lord to relinquish Him and with His last breaths, Jesus released His Spirit to His Father and died.

This solemn event was the culmination of all the decisions and actions Jesus had meticulously undertaken to effectively  sacrifice His own life for us. 

At the end, He gave up His Spirit for us so that we who believed in Him could receive His Spirit as our helper and comforter..

Bless our Lord and Redeemer.

Amen.

OUR LORD WHO BINDS OUR WOUNDS

Most people over the course of our lives, incur emotional, mental and physical injuries.

Whereas physical injuries can leave us with physical disabilities and limitations, emotional and mental wounds can afflict us with psychological incapacities and constraints.

The Lord our God demonstrated His power to heal people of their physical ailments in multiple ways. The blind were given their sight and the lame were able to walk. The deaf were able to hear and the mute were able to talk.

These physical interventions were, in and of themselves, great miracles and changed the lives of those who were healed but these signs pointed to the ability of God to heal internal wounds that occur in the emotional structures of our minds.

In Psalm 147 verse 3, the Psalmist attributes to the Lord the capacity to heal emotional damage.

He heals the brokenhearted And binds up their wounds.

This attribution is expounded upon in Isaiah 61 verse 1 - 2 which says;

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted; to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn;

The Lord Jesus quoted this scripture in the synagogue at Nazareth  ( Luke 4 verse 18 ) which describes, among  the primary things He was sent to do,  the task of  binding up the brokenhearted and the comforting of those who mourned which constitute the healing of our  emotional injuries and emotional states. 

The healings bring us to a wholeness and peace that passeth all understanding.

Bless our Lord who restores our souls.

Amen.

OUR LORD  WHO REVEALS MYSTERIES

The Lord God is mysterious. So expansive and so limitless is He that there is no way to know Him and as such, He will remain mysterious into eternity.

There are some  mysteries about Himself that the Lord does reveal to us through His word. 

The fact that God is a triune being is one such mystery that our Lord makes known to us through the pages of scripture.

Another mystery that God revealed to us is the mystery of the appearing His Son Jesus who was foretold but of whom the prophets of old yearned to get a glimpse of but were not shown.

Paul the Apostle wrote this about the mystery of Jesus in Roman's 16 verse 25 - 27;

Now to him who is able to establish you in accordance with my gospel, the message I proclaim about Jesus Christ, in keeping with the revelation of the mystery hidden for long ages past, but now revealed and made known through the prophetic writings by the command of the eternal God, so that all the Gentiles might come to the obedience that comes from faith  to the only wise God be glory forever through Jesus Christ! Amen

The mystery had been hidden for long ages but now was revealed even unto the gentiles who were able to gain salvation through faith.

We marvel at how great a salvation was brought to men hidden from all until it was revealed to us.

Bless our Lord and God.

Amen. 

 OUR LORD WHO CALLS US TO REPENTANCE

JOEL 1 VERSE 9 - 20.

The grain offering and the drink offering are cut off from the house of the Lord. The priests mourn, the ministers of the Lord.

The fields are destroyed, the ground mourns, because the grain is destroyed, the wine dries up, the oil languishes.

Be ashamed, O tillers of the soil; wail, O vinedressers, for the wheat and the barley, because the harvest of the field has perished.

The vine dries up; the fig tree languishes. Pomegranate, palm, and apple, all the trees of the field are dried up, and gladness dries up from the children of man.

Put on sackcloth and lament, O priests; wail, O ministers of the altar. Go in, pass the night in sackcloth, O ministers of my God! Because grain offering and drink offering are withheld from the house of your God.

Consecrate a fast; call a solemn assembly. Gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land to the house of the Lord your God, and cry out to the Lord. Alas for the day! For the day of the Lord is near, and as destruction from the Almighty it comes. Is not the food cut off before our eyes, joy and gladness from the house of our God?

The seed shrivels under the clods; the storehouses are desolate the granaries are torn down because the grain has dried up. How the beasts groan! The herds of cattle are perplexed because there is no pasture for them; even the flocks of sheep suffer.

To you, O Lord, I call. For fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and flame has burned all the trees of the field.

Even the beasts of the field pant for you because the water brooks are dried up, and fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness.

Let us all repent for our sins and ask the Lord to forgive us. 

Amen.