God’s Magnificent Mirror: His Shepherd’s Heart

I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I myself will make them lie down, declares the Lord GOD.
I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, and the fat and the strong I will destroy.
I will feed them in justice. Ez. 34:15-16

Lambs are cute, helpless and not very smart

In one of the Bible’s most beautiful metaphors, the Lord depicts Himself as the Shepherd of His flock, His people. We should take no offense to the comparison; rather, we should find ABSOLUTE SECURITY in such poetic promise.

Today we’re going to talk about how God views Himself as our Shepherd-King. I find it interesting that Bible scholars seem to always present those two offices of authority in that order, Shepherd before King. He is, without issue, utterly both, but from the human standpoint (and dare I say even from God’s viewpoint?) there are differences in how a shepherd feels toward his flock versus how a king regards his subjects. With that in mind, here’s a little exercise. Please write a few lines expressing your response to these two questions:

According to Psalm 23 and John 10, how does Our Shepherd regard His flock?

According to I Samuel 8, Luke 1:32-33, and John 18:33-37, how does Our King regard his subjects?

News & Announcements:

• PRAYER GATHERING THIS WEDNESDAY @ 7:00
• Softball – Wednesday, 8:00 & 9:00
• Just living life with our Basque friends… Still need families. Ask Bob V. for details.
• The Garden Looks Grand! We’re off to a great start, but such a big garden needs lots of TLC. Why not have your family/friends learn how to grow food and fulfill the Genesis commands? Ask Bruce or Lyn how you can help.

God’s Magnificent Mirror: His Honor

Hannah understood something we need to understand:
The LORD views His honor with a “secure jealousy”

I may have just coined a term…

… in proposing that the LORD of all views His honor with “secure jealousy.” What do I mean by that and why does it matter?

When we declare our faith in God we are saying that we trust Him, His attributes, His character. Our faith is strengthened as we grow in grace and knowledge of the One True God who created everything, including us, for His good pleasure. (Recall that delightful moment from Genesis 1:31: “And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good.”) His handiwork declared His glory and His joy. The honor of His perfection was most clearly displayed by the crown of these acts of creation: Adam.

The first and fatal challenge to God’s honor had already occurred. (Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28 give retrospectives of Lucifer’s fall.) Consider the teaching of Genesis 3. The serpent’s temptation begins with a universe-shaking and altering questioning of God’s honor. “Did God actually say…?” Seems consistent with mankind’s experience that when we question what God has revealed we are setting ourselves up for trouble. But God remains unchanged.

In the final analysis, all our hopes and the comfort and conviction of our faith must firmly cling to the eternal fact of God’s immutable perfection and the honor He is due. View this as beautiful. He is UTTERLY SECURE, the only uncreated entity extant. And His HEALTHY JEALOUSY lies in His understanding that no one else can do what He has done and will do. Hebrews 12:2 tells us that Jesus is “the founder and perfecter of our faith.” He founded it upon His promises; secured it on a cross.

Happy Mother’s Day!

All the ladies with us today are invited to take a
plant home as a token of love and a growing reminder that God gives beauty for us to nurture.

News & Announcements:

• PRAYER GATHERING THIS WEDNESDAY @ 7:00
• Softball – Wednesday, 6:00, Champion Fields
• Best part of SUSA? Just hanging out. Still need families. Ask Bob V. for details.
• The Garden Looks Grand! We’re off to a great start, but such a big garden needs lots of TLC. Why not have your family/friends learn how to grow food and fulfill the Genesis commands? Ask Bruce or Lyn how you can help.

God’s Magnificent Mirror: His Courage

If God grabs you buy the lapels and says: “Do this thing or that thing,” call upon His courage and do it!

I have a confession to make:

I think that my passion for military history and the specific stories of soldiers (especially from my circle of family and friends) may well be borne of a question, even a concern, I have regarding my own character: do I have, could I have, the kind of courage they have shown? What would I have done in the same situations in which they acted with courage? Courage isn’t just a virtue; it is the fulcrum on which all virtues rest. Without it, we will fail the tests for other virtues when we are under duress.

So, I read about courage and pray that I understand that true Christian courage comes from the conviction that God is in control, always with us, and never leaves us nor our circumstances “to chance.” He’s not a cosmic gambler, He’s too kind to be cruel and too wise to make mistakes. Therefore, because He has courage (remember Jesus setting His face like a flint for Jerusalem, knowing that ALL SIN AND PAIN AND DEATH OF ALL TIME WAS TO CONSUME HIM AND BE CONSUMED BY HIM) and calls us to experience His abiding and protecting provisions by never letting fear overtake our faith.

I’ll never don an army uniform and rush into battle. I don’t really know how well I’d do. But I do know that we are in a wrestling match with the world, the flesh, and the devil. Into the ring Jesus’ shouts this encouragement: “Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world, the flesh, and the devil. We win!”

He commands courage… because He has it and gives it in full measure. Consider Joshua…

News & Announcements:

• PRAYER GATHERING THIS WEDNESDAY @ 7:00
• April Partner in Prayer @ Advocate/Bromenn: Addiction Recovery Unit (ARC)
• Softball – Wednesday @ Champion Fields
• Get Ready for the Invasion! Summer in the USA 2012 is coming!
• Weather Aside, Most Saturday mornings…
  …present a good opportunity to smell the sweet earth and reconnect with a part of us that is too often neglected. The garden parties start @ 9:30. Teach your kids great life lessons.