THE BLESSING OF THE LORD !

THE BLESSING OF THE LORD ! More Than Just a Religious, Three- Letter Word: In the Beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light (Genesis 1:1-3). Those familiar verses are more than a biblical history lesson. They set the stage for everything we, as believers, will ever need to know. They give us the first glimpse of God's purpose and plan for our lives. Not only do they provide us with all the basic facts about who created the universe and how come but if we studied them in the clear light of scriptural truth, they almost tell us the "Why" behind the creation. By telling us God is the creator of the universe and that He initiated it by releasing light with His WORD those three simple versus reveal far more than we've realized about the purpose behind it all. For the most part, we've missed that revelation. It has slipped past us because in our day the Word of God doesn't have much meaning to us, because of the carnality of the mind. A generic, three letter word used by all religions, it refers to any deity a person might choose. It is you for Allah or Buddha as well as for The Almighty God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. As Christians we know, of course, that the true God is the God of the Bible. The God in (Genesis 1:1) is the One, Eternal, Triune God---The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ (Ephesians 1:3). But even those titles, though correct, fall short of identifying God. They give us little insight into His nature and character. They do not tell us who He is. The Bible does, however. It describes Him in depth and in detail from Genesis to Revelation and, in the end, sums Him up in three breathtaking, yet simple New Testament Words: "God is LOVE" (1 John 4:8). The Old Testament makes the same declaration. It says God is "Full of compassion" (Psalm 78:38, Psalms 111: 4). It says He is "long-suffering, and plenteous in mercy and truth" (Psalms 86:15). "The Lord is gracious," it proclaims, "and full of compassion; slow to anger, and of great mercy. The Lord is good to all: and his tender word mercies are over all his works" (Psalms 145:8-9). One day, while meditating on the phrase "full of compassion," the implications of it exploded in me. It hit me that because God's capacity is infinite and, it takes an infinite amount of compassion to fill Him up. It takes all the compassion that is ! Compassion is not, then, a feeling or a thing. It is Him. The magnitude of God's love is staggering. His love is not the on-again-off-again kind of love that human beings can offer us. It's not the kind of love that sometimes "does you wrong." According to (Psalms 145:9), "The Lord is [always and forever !] Good." The word Lord is capitalized in that verse because it refers to the personal Name of God. It is the Name He revealed to Moses when He told him to lead the Israelites out of Egypt (Exodus 3:13-14). It is the Name He used when He answered Moses cry to see His glory, and said: I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of The Lord before thee; and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy (Exodus 33:19). The true pronunciation of the Name was lost millennia ago because the Jews held it so sacred they refused to say it aloud. In a vain attempt to translate it, Bible translators rendered it Jehovah in English or sample substituted the word Lord. But whether or not we can pronounce it, we can be clear about this: God's Name is good because He is The Good God. He is all the good there is. He is 100% good. There is not one trace of bad in Him. Some years ago when I was just beginning this journey to know the Lord; I asked God to let me see His glory because how Moses asked God to let him see him Him. And He said, fast for three days ! While I was on a total fat, I was reading my Bible and I was reading how Angels had appeared to men, the first day of the fast. The second day, while praying and fasting I began to notice how they greeted when they presented themselves. It became so intense, as I was studying along this line. The third day, it was nighttime; I sense someone standing and looking at me. I rolled over and what I saw, I was immediately frozen in fear. The angel said unto me: fear not, for I am the servant of the most high God; God has heard your prayer and honor your request. Behold the glory of God ! What an experience the angel was dressed in a white robe, with gold around the collar and gold around the sleeve and at the bottom of the garment. The white garment look like pure white light: when he said fear not, my body was loose as I look just as fast as he appeared he was gone.