OUR FATHER WHO IS MIGHTY IN POWER

Isaiah chapter 15 verses 3 - 4 says this;

In the streets they wear sackcloth; on the roofs and in the public squares they all wail, prostrate with weeping.

Deshonis and Elealeh cry out, their voices are heard all the way to Jahaz. Therefore the armed men of Moab cry out, and their hearts are faint.

This passage describes the reactions of people when a mighty army overwhelms them and descends on them to destroy them. The outcry is so loud it can be heard from one city to the other and it causes their military to cry out and their hearts to faint.

Isaiah chapter 13 verses 3 - 4  says this;

I have commanded those I prepared for battle; I have summoned my warriors to carry out my wrath—those who rejoice in my triumph.

Listen, a noise on the mountains, like that of a great multitude! Listen, an uproar among the kingdoms, like nations massing together!

The Lord Almighty is mustering an army for war.

This passage describes what is happening on the other side of the conflagration. In this case, a mighty army of people who rejoice in the Lord's triumph is being mustered. They gather in fearsome formations and a sound of a great multitude rises.

So on one side, a great and fearless army of those who are follow the Lord arises and  on the other, the forces aligned with darkness tremble in fear as the trained and disciplined army descends on them.

Bless the Lord who is mighty in power.

Amen.

OUR FATHER WHO GIVES US ENCOURAGING  MENTORS  

1 Timothy chapter 1 verses 1 - 2 says this;

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the command of God our Savior and of Christ Jesus our hope, 

To Timothy my true son in the faith: Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.

This introduction by the Apostle Paul in his letter to Timothy, is a tender greeting of a teacher to his beloved student.

Paul first asserted his own calling and validated it as one both given as a command by God and by Christ Jesus.

He then went on to describe his relationship with Timothy as a father/son bond in the faith. He had seen Timothy converted into the kingdom of God and  Paul had mentored him in the things of the Spirit.

Paul then blessed Timothy by asking for grace, mercy and peace on Timothy from God the Father and from Christ Jesus.

The letter itself continued on with grave issues of doctrine and Christian conduct but its beginning warmly greeted the young man who was being given heavy responsibilities in the body of Christ in keeping with his own calling in Christ Jesus.

For  what Timothy faced in dealing with the issues in the local churches, he needed  mercy, grace and peace from the Lord and his teacher's  blessing and encouragment would also help him to stand firm.

 Amen.

OUR FATHER WANTS US TO HAVE LOVE FOR OTHER PEOPLE AS HE DOES FOR US

The Apostle Paul, writing to the Corinthians, having already exposited the nature and function of the inestimable gifts of the Spirit, said this in 1 Corinthians chapter 12 verse 13;

And yet I will show you the most excellent way.

Paul went on to say this in chapter 13 verse 1;

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.

This 'most excellent way' that Paul wrote about to the  Corinthians was the way of love.

In fact, Paul expressly said that whatever great spiritual gifts a person was able to manifest such as speaking in the tongues of men or angels, without love, all those spiritual endeavors were worth nothing.

Paul compared the supernatural speaking in the languages of men and angels with the annoying clanging of gongs and cymbals if it was practiced with no love for other people. 

In the subsequent verses, the Apostle Paul said that great knowledge and understanding, without love, reduced a person to nothing and those who sacrificed themselves but had no love, gained nothing for their efforts.

Walking in the Spirit, to be of value, must be accompanied by the cultivation of the love of other people even as Jesus set the example for us so that, as it says 1 John chapter 4 verse 19,  we love because he first loved us. 

Faith is what initiates spiritual actions; hope is what sustains spiritual endurance; but seeing how love is what gives meaning and value to any spiritual practice, Paul's conclusion in 1 Corinthians chapter 13 verse 13 is instructive;

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Amen.

OUR FATHER GIVES US THE POWER TO OVERCOME SIN

1 Corinthians chapter 5 verse 2 says this;

And you are proud! Shouldn’t you rather have gone into mourning and have put out of your fellowship the man who has been doing this? 

The man to whom the Apostle Paul was referring, was one who was claiming to be a believer while at the same time, conducting an affair with his own father's wife.

The people in the church of Corinth had been tolerant of the man  but Paul was aghast and he excoriated the Corinthians for being proud of their tolerance towards the man's behaviour  while they should have gone into a state of mourning and cut ties with him instead.

Paul took pains to note that there was nothing wrong with believers associating with non-believers who sinned because otherwise, they would have to leave the world to avoid such contact but Paul pressed that believers should not associate with believers who brazenly and unrepentantly  commited egregious sins.

Bless our Lord who gives us the power to overcome sin for He Himself overcame the world

By Jesus' death and ressurection, we can, by faith, die in the flesh with Him and then rise with Him in the newness of life.

Amen.

OUR FATHER WHO PROVIDES GREAT MIRACLES 

John chapter 9 verses 13 -14, speaking of a miracle that Jesus performed to heal a man who was  born blind, says this;

They brought to the Pharisees the man who had been blind. Now the day on which Jesus had made the mud and opened the man’s eyes was a Sabbath.

This passage captures the moment when the astonishing miracle of a man born blind being able to see came into contact with the religious establishment of the time.

When people who knew the man saw him able to see, they were stunned. They took him to the religious authorities to try make sense of what had happened. 

The religious leaders were split in their understanding of what the miracle meant  as described in John chapter 9 verse 16;

Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.”

But others asked, “How can a sinner perform such signs?” So they were divided.

This conundrum of who Jesus was vexed the religious leaders because they did not believe in Him but at the same time, there was no easy explanation for the miracles and so some of the religious leaders were more cautious about criticizing Jesus because they did not want to be in direct conflict with God if Jesus was indeed sent by God.

An example of this is when a religious teacher named Nicodemus came to visit Jesus as recorded in John chapter 3 verse 2;

He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.”

Again, the rationale being  brought up is that the miracles being witnessed are so astounding that they can only be accomplished by divine power  and thus any person who is able to perform such miracles must be doing so with the approval of God.

The obverse rationale however, was also brought against Jesus by the religious leaders where the fact that the miracles were done on a Sabbath day when no work of any kind could legally be done. They used this logic to try and besmirch Jesus but earlier in the chapter in verse 4, Jesus hauntingly said;

As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work

The Sabbath law strictly forbids anyone from doing work on that day but certain exceptions were made to account for urgent situations.

Prior to the confrontation with the religious leaders, Jesus had declared the urgency of the situation by saying that the window of opportunity to do God's work in the day was still open thus everything that could be done had to be done urgently because night was coming when no one could work. 

Thus the miracle was legally performed and the accusations against Jesus were baseless.

Amen.

OUR FATHER WHO HAS OVERCOME THE DRAGON

Revelation chapter 13 verses 1 - 3 says this;

The dragon stood on the shore of the sea. And I saw a beast coming out of the sea. It had ten horns and seven heads, with ten crowns on its horns, and on each head a blasphemous name. The beast I saw resembled a leopard, but had feet like those of a bear and a mouth like that of a lion. 

The dragon gave the beast his power and his throne and great authority. One of the heads of the beast seemed to have had a fatal wound, but the fatal wound had been healed. The whole world was filled with wonder and followed the beast.

The vision that the Apostle John recorded in this passage is one of the most startling descriptions in the bible.

First, John describes a dragon standing by the sea then he evoques an image of Satan calling forth a beast out of the water.

The beast had ten horns with each horn having a crown.

Horns are generally taken to be symbols of strength or competence and so the beast had ten of these centers of power or special competence. Each horn had a crown which indicates that the strength of each horn was imbued with authority to function unfettered in the realm the beast was given to rule.

The beast is also described as having seven heads which can be understood to be seven beings who run the operations of the beast as a council. Each one of these beings had a name that was blasphemous against God and the whole structure of the beast was designed to be a challenge and an insult to God.

Satan then imbued this administrational entity with power, political rulership over the earth and great authority. This was the same authority he had promised to give Jesus in Luke chapter 4 verses 6 - 7 if Jesus had bowed and worshipped him. As a reminder, the passage reads this way;

And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, and said to him, “To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.”

As the passage continues, one of the members of the council of seven seemed to have the scarring of a fatal wound but somehow had miraculously survived as the wound was seen to be healed. 

The whole world was awestruck by the recovery of the beast and they turned to follow him and people become enamoured by the beast and readily accept his authority over them.

Bless the Lord who has overcome the dragon by the blood of the Lamb.

Amen.

OUR FATHER WHO LIGHTS THE WHOLE WORLD

Genesis chapter 1 verse 3 says this;

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.

Preceding this statement by God is the prologue of Genesis chapter 1 verses 1 - 2 that says; 

 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. 

On the first day of creation, against this backdrop of a roiling, pitch-black, water world, God said, "Let there be light."

And there was light.

The dark and foreboding realm of earth suddenly became a bright blue planet bathed in the light that gleamed off the roaring waves that stirred the global ocean.

This first light that poured onto the primordial earth was not from the sun nor from any celestial body but was the light that came from Jesus who is the light of the world.

As John chapter 8 verse 12  says; 

When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

The Lord Jesus is the one of whom Isaiah, in chapter 6 verse 3 wrote;

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.”

The light of the refulgent glory of the Lord Jesus that filled the whole earth in the beginning of the world will once again light up the earth as it says in the book of Ezekiel chapter 43 verse 2 ;

And behold, the glory of the God of Israel was coming from the east. And the sound of his coming was like the sound of many waters, and the earth shone with his glory.

Bless the Lord whose glory lights up the whole world.

Amen.