HIS NAME

“You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.”Exodus 20:7

This is one place where older translations serve us badly. Who knows what "in vain" means? It is not a term we use or understand today. The Voice does a good job of translating this imprecisely, but in a way that gives us the full impact: " You are not to use My name for your own idle purposes, for the Eternal will punish anyone who treats His name as anything less than sacred."
Abusing God's name — blasphemy — is an entirely different matter. If we believe in God and fear Him, we do not speak His name idly. Of course, we no longer use the "name" of God the Father at all: we simply refer to Him as "God" or "the Lord". But idle use of this term is covered by the injunction of the commandment.
What practices does this proscribe? First, certainly, the use of God as part of a curse. We don't want to say "Holy Jesus!" as an indication of shock, or "Goddamn you" as a light curse. Do we really expect that God is going to take our wishes into account when He decides the eternal fate of another person's soul? No. What these expressions do is to cheapen the name of God. We might say "I'll kill you if you take my cookie," and we know it is a joke, because the person does not fear that we will kill him. But do we live in fear of God? Or is eternal life, and the possibility of eternal judgment, a joke?
But there is a use of God's name even more serious, and that is using God's name to assist in fraud: that is, swearing a false oath and invoking God to strengthen the fraud. God has never offered to act as the guarantor of our truthfulness.
Christ taught us that we should not swear an oath at all, much less using God's name, for we do not have dominion over God to make Him our guarantor. (Matthew 5:33-37)
Let us pray.........
Dear Jesus, I can open up my heart to you. I can tell you everything that troubles me. I know you care about all the concerns in my life.
Teach me to live in the knowledge that you who care for me today, will care for me tomorrow and all the days of my life.

Amen.

From Daily Prayer

A GREAT PROMISE

God spoke to Noah and his sons, telling them: “Behold, I establish my covenant with you, and with your children after you, and with every living creature that is with you: the birds, the cattle, and every beast of the earth. I establish this covenant with all that come out of the ark: never will all flesh be cut off again by floodwaters, and there will never again be a flood to destroy the entire earth. Here is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations; it is a rainbow, which I have set in the clouds, as the symbol of my promise.”
“I put my rainbow in the clouds, and it will remind you of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring a cloud over the earth, and a rainbow is visible in the cloud, I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature; and the waters will never more become a flood to destroy all flesh.” Genesis 9:8-16

In the day of universal wrath when the flood swept away a guilty race, the chosen family were quietly secured in the resting-place of the ark, which floated them from the old condemned world into the new earth of the rainbow and the covenant, herein typifying Jesus, the ark of our salvation. Israel rested safely beneath the blood-besprinkled habitations of Egypt when the destroying angel smote the first-born; and in the wilderness the shadow of the pillar of cloud, and the flowing rock, gave the weary pilgrims sweet repose.
At this hour we rest in the promises of our faithful God, knowing that His words are full of truth and power; we rest in the doctrines of His word, which are consolation itself; we rest in the covenant of His grace, which is a haven of delight.

 God gave us a perfect place to live, and we messed it up. But in all the wrath He visited on the evil of the earth, He has always protected His people. Like Noah's family on the ark or the Hebrews in Egypt, God's grace shelters those who have taken His son into their hearts, with a spiritual shelter that no force on earth can invade or harm. By Daily Prayer
Have a great new week!

God will use evil for good

 

As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive.

~ Genesis 50:20

Joseph:

How? How did he flourish in the midst of tragedy? We don't have to speculate. Some twenty years later the roles were reversed, Joseph as the strong one and his brothers the weak ones. They came to him in dread. They feared he would settle the score and throw them into a pit of his own making. But Joseph didn't. And in his explanation we find his inspiration.
In God's hands intended evil becomes eventual good.
Joseph tied himself to the pillar of this promise and held on for dear life. Nothing in his story glosses over the presence of evil. Quite the contrary. Bloodstains, tearstains are everywhere. Joseph's heart was rubbed raw against the rocks of disloyalty and miscarried justice. Yet time and time again God redeemed the pain. The torn robe became a royal one. The pit became a palace. The broken family grew old together. The very acts intended to destroy God's servant turned out to strengthen him.
“You meant evil against me,” Joseph told his brothers, using a Hebrew verb that traces its meaning to “weave” or “plait.”
“You wove evil,” he was saying, “but God rewove it together for good.”
God, the Master Weaver. He stretches the yarn and intertwines the colors, the ragged twine with the velvet strings, the pains with the pleasures. Nothing escapes His reach. Every king, despot, weather pattern, and molecule are at His command. He passes the shuttle back and forth across the generations, and as He does, a design emerges. Satan weaves; God reweaves.

Lord, let me always see how good might be brought out of evil. Amen.

~ from “You'll Get Through This” by Max Lucado

 

Daily Inspiration- November 13, 2015

TO SUBMIT MY DAY TO GOD

 

Almighty God, who has given me life and breath, and another day: I do not know what this day might bring. For men make plans, and their plans come to naught, as you will it. Thus I take this day out of my hands and submit it to your will. Make me this day your servant, that I might find my hand at the tasks you have meant for me to do, and might do them as well as I can. For there is nothing better than a person should rejoice in his work, to your glory and for the love of his neighbors, as you have commanded us through your Son. In His name, I pray, let my day be yours, and let it be filled with goodness and faith.

Amen.

 

*From Daily Prayer- November 12, 2015