El-Shaddai “The Sustainer of Life”

“The Sustainer of Life” Genesis 17:1-3

God has the ability to handle every situation that comes our way!  He is “sufficient.” He is “adequate.”  I can’t begin to explain to you how much comfort this brings to me personally.   I serve someone who is completely adequate to meet every need, even the needs that I consider monumental. Satan tries to destroy us.  He brings physical problems, he brings opposition, trials masked in every form… But as God told Abram in Genesis 17 “I am the Almighty God.”  In other words, “Abram it doesn’t matter what the obstacles are… I AM BIGGER!” Wonderful! So…. I can say, “Trish, it doesn’t matter what the obstacles are… I AM BIGGER!”  Insert your name… it doesn’t matter what your obstacles are today… GOD IS BIGGER!  

God blesses people who believe He is as great as He really is. Psalm 105:42-43 ”For He remembered His holy promise,  Abraham His servant, and He brought out His people with joy. His chosen ones with gladness.”  If He is El-Shaddai in our lives… He will sustain us as El-Shaddai.  He has made Himself faithfull  as the “Sustainer of Life.” 

So, say to your opposition today… “Sorry, I serve one who is BIGGER…” God is sufficient, He is adequate.  We can rest easy knowing He’s in control. 

Trish Wilkinson

El-Shaddai

Almighty!  All Powerful!  Fully capable of accomplishing all of His promises!  This is the name of God, El-Shaddai, who spoke to Abram at the age of ninety-nine as a confirmation of His covenant (Gen. 17:1-3).  The title “God Almighty”  appears several other times in Genesis (28:3, 35:11, 43:14, 48:3) and is a reminder to the patriarchs that God has the ability to provide abundantly.

As I ponder my ‘God Almighty’ and your ‘God Almighty’ I continue to be amazed at the fullness of HIM in my life.  He instructs us to walk blameless and HE will take care of the rest.  That can be hard for us to get our heads around sometimes when we, in our flesh, still want to control our lives or certain areas of our lives.  Think of it this way, if we are walking and we stumble forward HE is there as a pillar and we stand back up, if we are walking and our feet fall out from under us, we fall straight back into HIS arms and HE gently lifts us back to our feet, if we are weary and we sway from side to side, HE is there, shoulder to shoulder protecting us from a fall.  Whatever the case may be He can, He will and He is providing for us abundantly. 

Thank you Lord for being my God Almighty and my sustainer of life.

Danielle Counts

My Elohim

It’s beautiful to reflect on God as the “Creator of All”. Personally, the most beautiful thing is to think about what that really means to me.  That means He is my creator, I am His canvas.  I wasn’t an accident, and nothing about me or my life has been by accident, no matter how I might perceive it.  Just thinking about how He created my inmost being, and knit me together in my mother’s womb, and how even today my creator, the creator of the Universe, knows the very number of hairs on my head (and the number of grey hairs on my head too, mind you) knows everything about me, and LOVES ME ANYWAY is so overwhelming to me.  The really encouraging part is that just as all of His creations, He created me, and you as beautiful reflections of Himself.  As women we have a very difficult time embracing ourselves, our imperfections and flaws, particularly those that are part of our body.  It’s convicting to remember that He created us!  We are questioning the very Art of God when we think less of ourselves!  Wow.

I encourage you today to take the time to reflect on the fact that you, YES YOU, are God’s Art.  You are God’s creation.  Allow him to be your mirror instead of the glass on the wall.

Krystee Edwards

Elohim – The Creator of All

 

The Name of God we’re focusing on this week is Elohim – “The Creator of All”.  The name ELOHIM appears for God 2570 times in the OT. In fact this it is the first Name for God which appears in the Scripture in Genesis 1:1. ELOHIM is viewed in Scripture as the creator, absolute ruler, & source of all things. The word Elohim, though pointing us to a singular, specific God, is plural in form – probably an early way of pointing us toward the trinity.

Read Genesis 1:26-29.

 

 

 

 

How often do you reflect upon the fact that God created all of heaven and earth, from the dirt to the grass, to the plants, the birds, the fish, and you? He gave us dominion over every living thing that moves on the earth.  We were carefully created, perfectly in His image. The people, places, flowers, birds, trees, everything around you was carefully created by Him.  Do you have any idea how many different types of flowers there are?  I don’t but I am really in awe when I think of the simple display of God’s beauty that we can see in some of the flowers on earth. 

 

For me, this is a great reminder of how very little I give God credit for.  When I have a “chance” encounter with a kind or generous person, or I come across an especially beautiful sunset, or even in those times that it’s a gloomy day outside, and I have an encounter with a less than kind person, shouldn’t I reflect on the fact that God created these things?  How much more powerful would the sunset be, if only I took the time to think about God and His beauty?  How much more loving might I find that I can be if I see God’s beauty in the people or things in life that don’t seem so ‘perfect’?  It’s hard to even imagine the beauty within Him to have SO creatively and carefully designed our world. He is THE master Architect.  No one, not even the greatest architects in history could even begin to design what God masterfully designed for us.  I could go on and on – for that matter just think about the human body -  all the intricate parts of our being, and even how right now as I think these words, without even the slightest of force on my part, my fingers begin typing them here on this page.  How does that work?  It’s all part of an intricate, beautiful creation, made by the Master of the Universe!  We can study to be Architects, we can study to be Scientists or Doctors, we can even study His word to become a theologian, but not one of us can fully understand His majesty or the majesty found in all that he created!

 

My God!  How amazing you are!  Thank you for creating such beauty that surrounds me.  Thank you for creating me.  Thank you for all those blessings that I take for granted.  Thank you for the birds and the bees, and the flowers and the trees!  Oh, thank you Lord!  Thank you that you are the creator, absolute ruler, & source of all things.

Krystee Edwards

Hide me in a rock

Let’s all try to find a time in our busy, busy lives to sit down (preferably with a cup of coffee and chocolate) and reflect a bit more on the BIGNESS of God.  In the passage of scripture mentioned in the last post, God defined himself with his name.  “I am who I am”.  There is nothing outside of God that makes him that way, He simply IS – the one who is from everlasting to everlasting.  John Piper says we can choose to “worship in awe, or we can rebel in unbelief”.   God is so gracious to us.  He is our creator and knows our limitations, so he gives us other insights into his being throughout his word.  There is another incredible story in Exodus, revealing Yahweh, that I want to touch on for a few minutes.

I encourage you to read Exodus 33:15-23.  We can’t go into all that that story describes but I want to mention a few points.  First of all, that Moses has some big Kahunas, huh?  God had already commanded Moses to lead his people into the promised land and told them he would send an angel to go before them (Exodus 32:34).  Then, just to be clear, he specifically told Moses that he would NOT go up with them to the land flowing with milk and honey (Exodus 33:2-3).  You see, the only reason that the Isrealites had not been destroyed already was because of the pleading of Moses (see story of  the Golden Calf in Exodus 32:1-14).

Now, back to our story – Moses basically tells God that he’s not going unless God goes with them (can’t you just picture that scene – I have a 3 year old, and I certainly can).  He is not confident in a mere angel going before them!  Can you imagine!  Well, as unbelievable as that request was, God’s answer was even more so.  He said Yes, in verse 17.  Awesome.  Now, if I was Moses, I’d be feeling pretty good about myself and the situation. I had just asked God to do something he specifically said he would not do, and got a big fat Yes as an answer.  He must have been stoked, right?  Well…

In verse 18 we see that Moses has another request.  Is it because he wants to make 100% sure that God has what it takes to get them through?  Or just that he was on a roll?  Anyway, he says “Please show me your glory”.  HELLO!  That’s where those Kahunas are impressing me :) . Here’s the good part – God says yes again!  But his response is interesting and where we can take such great comfort.  Read verses 19-23 again, read them slowly and take a minute to let God’s power sink in.  Moses requested to be shown God’s glory and God proclaimed his name – YAHWEH (translated “The LORD” in our bible).  Then he gave us all another insight into who he is, stating that “I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy”.   Notice the similarities in the sentence structure with our 1^st look at Yahweh  - “I am who I am”.  This time he is not just saying that he is what he is without anything outside of him determining his power or personality, but he is also saying that he does what he does without anything outside of him determining his choices.  He is telling Moses that he will show his people grace in spite of their disobedience.  God is sovereign, and although we will not ever be able to completely understand that, we must either “worship in awe, or rebel in unbelief”.

God’s glory is so great that he has to hide Moses in the cleft of a rock so it does not kill him when he is in his presence.  I want to feel just a bit of his glory.  I want to be reminded of his glory when I have any feelings of pride in what I can accomplish.  I want to be comforted in the fact that God chooses to show me mercy and compassion in spite of my failings.  Hide me in a rock, LORD – I want to always worship my Yahweh.

Jennifer Evangelista

Yahweh, “I am”

OK, ladies, we are trying to build an authentic community, right?  So, I will start this off with a confession.  It is now quite late on Sunday night and i am ”speechless” – shocking, I know.  Yahweh is one of my favorite names of God, and is, in fact, the actual name given to his people by God.  Because of this, I have been totally pumped about the opportunity to share some thoughts about it.  Here’s the problem.  It’s “bigness”, God’s “bigness” is overwhelming me.  The more I study this, the more in awe I am.  Our God spoke to Moses and gave himself a name.  More accurately, he gave himself a definition, he revealed himself to Moses & continues to do the same for us.  I’m going to share a little background of the actual Hebrew word YHWH (there were no vowels in the Hebrew language) and then we can take some time throughout the week to unpack a little of what that word means to us.

Let’s look at a couple of verses of scripture.  Read Exodus 3:13-15.  Three little verses.  Moses asks God for a name and gets one – “I am who I am” is how it is translated in our Bible.  In Hebrew the word is YHWH.  Bear with me for a moment, here, while my academic nature takes over.  Many scholars believe that YHWH is a form of the Hebrew verb “haya”, meaning “to be”.  This verb describes the state of existence.   It is a description of who God is.  Some folks much smarter then me say a more accurate English translation would be “he causes to be” or “I shall become whom I am becoming”.  Some have translated the name as “the Eternal One” because they say it is derived from 3 verb forms coming from the same root YWH – they each mean “he was”, “he is” and “he will be”.  The original Hebrew word is יהוה and was used close to 7000 times in the OT, our bibles translated most of those to “Lord God” or “Lord”.  If we really chose to spend a lot of time diving into the etymology of this word, we could drive ourselves crazy.  So what do we do?

One thing we do know for sure is that the name YHWH was not spoken out loud among the early Jews.   It was considered that sacred and holy.  And for them to consider the Name to be too holy to speak aloud, imagine how they felt about the God.  This is where the “bigness” I was talking about comes in.  Regardless of which hebrew scholar you chose to believe, which translation you use, and which pronunciation you believe to be most accurate (that’s another debate), the bottom line is that this name for God - the name for God given by God himself – is pretty powerful.   Yahweh.  I am who I am.  You can put a big fat period behind that one.

We had a wonderful time Friday night at our Hero Party (as I affectionately call it).  Check out the pics!  We heard of how God is our Hero and how we need to allow him to be that for us.  Well, this is certainly a great superpower for a hero to have.  I think of one of my favorite “hero” movies – Sky High (I have kids, ok)  If you’ve seen this movie, you will remember the part where the freshmen all go up and show off their powers - this is to decide whether they will be placed in the Hero Class or in Hero Support (the sidekicks).  Just imagine if our God was in that line.  What is your power?  Super strength, super spit, shape shifting?  I AM.  I will be anything to anyone. I was, I am & I will always be.  I cause all things to be.  I AM.  Our God is no sidekick.  HE IS.

Feel free to start a conversation, share a thought, ask a question.  I’ll post more on this name on Weds.  I pray that we can take a couple of days to reflect on the “bigness” of Yahweh.

Jennifer Evangelista

Hero Worship – the Names of God

Remember the basics from Childhood?  A couple of things in particular come to mind. First of all, on the academic front, the “3 Rs” from school – Reading, Writing and Arithmatic.  Our kids are finishing the school year soon and hopefully (or in some of our cases, prayerfully ) are gaining a knowledge of these basic educational skills.

On the playful side of things, another basic of childhood is Heroes!  OK, so maybe it was our brother who owned the Superman, Batman AND Spiderman action hero toys - but I’d venture to say that each of us, at least once, was rescued by one of these heroes in our imaginations.  And all of us looked longingly at the at the hunky hero portrayed on the Silver Screen at some point (can you say, Indiana Jones). 

Well, we are going to get back to the basics this summer.  But this time the “3 Rs” are Reading (the Word), Writing (well, technically, blogging), and Reconnection (with our God).  And our hero worship will be directed to the one who actually deserves it.  Most of us agree that we serve a pretty fabulous God, but how much do we really know about Him?  Can we be rescued by Him if we are unsure of how he works and moves among his people?  And is it really possible to see his footprints in our lives if we don’t know all that he is to us? 

We will be taking a look at the Names of God and I am so excited.  This is a great opportunity for us to dig a little deeper and look at all that God is to us and all that He desires to be.  Every Monday, there will be a post on a new Name of God right here, on this blog – just a few thoughts about His character and some scripture references.  The authors (myself included) make no claims of expertise, we are just praying to learn more about our God and start a conversation. 

OK, that leads me to the fun part:  EVERYONE is welcome and encouraged to comment at any time.   You do not have to know anything about computers – just how to type!  Simply reply to a post after entering your name and e-mail.  No registration, no password, no nothing.  We live in a high tech world, and I think it is time that we use all this technology to grow together in Christ.  Let God speak to you through this study, then take a step out of your comfort zone and share your thoughts with others.  We are a community that receives each other with love and respect.

So, back to the basics we go – let’s Read about God’s awe-inspiring character by learning about the Names used for Him in the Bible, let’s Write a little something about what He means to us, and let’s Reconnect with Him a little this Summer.  Let’s learn how we all have a Hero!

See you Monday!  Jennifer

Welcome to our Blog!

Well, I don’t know about you ladies, but I’m feeling pretty hip and cool – blogging !  Welcome to the New CrossPointe Women’s Blog.  We pray that God will use this tool to help us all gain a better understanding of who He is and build relationships with each other.  Come back often to see what’s new!