God’s and our identity
God is Love.
1 John 4:8
God created mankind in His own image.
Genesis 1:27
Beloved, now are we the children of God, and it does not yet appear what we shall be: but we now that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is.
1 John 3:2
Our deepest nature is the Presence of God in us.
George MacDonald
Lion of Judah
We’ve been doing some reading in a beautiful big “gift book” from the Temple Institute in Jerusalem (www.temple.org.il).
The Light of the Temple is written by Chaim Richman.
It’s lovely to have a look at some of the traditions of Judaism. The art in this book is noteworthy.
We learned a little about some of the Jewish festivals or sacred seasons.
The Festival of Sukkot (soo KOTE’) is a time of rejoicing. Celebrants gather “the four species” – represented by a fruit and the branches of three different trees.
This feast or “season of God” is also known as Tabernacles, celebrating the long Temple tradition in Israel. The word “Booths” is another reference to this festival or season, recalling the time when “all of Israel” would go to Jerusalem for Sukkot and be housed in temporary structures known as booths. “Sukkot” means “Booths.”
The celebrations associated with Sukkot have a universalism that draws many citizens of other nations to Israel even today. Sukkot is known among Jews as “the time that He will choose.”
In ancient days “the learned and pious leaders of Israel would dance and sing before the Presence of God.”
All of Israel would go to the Jerusalem Temple to participate in the festival. They watched and listened to the sages and priests as they danced and sang in celebration.
We read that “In utter simplicity, without regard to their own stature, they danced in honor of … the holiday, and most of all, the Holy One who had chosen to make His Presence known in this House.”
An exceedingly joyous part of Sukkot was the Festival of the Water Libation.
“At dawn, the entire multitude would descend to the Spring of Shiloah, an ancient spring located in the City of David [Bethlehem], at the foothills of Mount Moriah.
“There they drew water into a special golden vessel and brought it back to the Temple with great joy. During the morning service they poured the water on the altar.”
In practices dating back centuries before the birth of Jesus, the water that was used in the most sacred Jewish observances came from a spring in Bethlehem.
God was setting the stage among His beloved Israel for that “living water” that would also come from Bethlehem – the living water that would not only quench our spiritual thirst for righteousness, but that would also “spring up to life eternal” in us, ending not only our thirst – but also death: The Lion of Judah – our Lord Jesus Christ.
Honest doubt is okay with God
God has provided the story of “doubting Thomas,” as he’s come to be known down through the centuries, for every person who would “stumble” over the sacred Story of God’s coming to us through Jesus (in Hebrew, Yeshua) and choosing the way of the Cross.
The story of Thomas is God’s generous provision for those who honestly doubt.
Jesus had made the disciples aware of the deceitfulness of the Pharisees; this may have contributed to Thomas’s refusing to be duped again.
When other disciples reported seeing our Lord after the crucifixion, Thomas told them, “Unless I see the nail prints in His hands, and put my finger into the nail prints, and thrust my hand into His side, I will not believe.”
A week later, we are told, Jesus again came to the disciples, appearing in the room where they were meeting, in spite of the doors’ having been closed.
After greeting them, Jesus lovingly said to Thomas – and to every heart down the ages that would falter at the sacred Story – Reach forth your finger, and behold my hands; and reach forth your hand, and thrust it into my side: and don’t be faithless, but believing.
Thomas responded “My Lord and my God!”
Jesus said to him, Thomas, because you have seen me, you have believed: blessed are they who have not seen, and yet have believed.
John 20:25-29
Words on words: the power of our words
And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. In a repeating pattern, we read in the literature of Genesis that God spoke the universe into being.
So important is this concept that another name for Jesus is “the Word.”
In the first verses of the beloved apostle John’s Gospel, we are told in poetic rendering, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were made by Him; and without Him was not any thing made.”
John 1:1,3
Scripture further tells us that when Moses asked God who he should say had sent him, God told him to say, “I Am has sent me to you.” A clearer translation might be “I Am the ever-living One.”
Exodus 3:14
Jesus also identified Himself in this way, answering unbelieving Jews who were heckling Him, Before Abraham was, I am.
John 8:58
The earliest Scriptural references to mankind tell us that we are created in God’s image – that we were designed to be like Him and to have dominion as He has dominion.
Solomon and other sages of Israel spoke of the importance and power of our words:
“A wholesome tongue is a tree of life: but a perverse tongue reflects a broken spirit.”
Proverbs 21:23
“Keep your heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.”
Proverbs 4:23
In Jesus’ own words, reflecting this teaching, we find . . . out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.
Matthew 12:34
“ . . . with the prosperity of our words shall we be filled. Life and death are in the power of the tongue . . .”
Proverbs 18:20, 21
“Let the weak man say . . . I am strong.”
Joel 3:10
By your words you will be blessed or cursed.
Words of Jesus
Matthew 12:37
We are told in Jeremiah and Isaiah and throughout Scripture that we are beloved of God and created in His image. So, as His words were and are full of creative power, our words have creative power. Scripture repeatedly tells us that God longs to bless us.
Be alert about what you follow the creative words “I am . . .” with. Ensure that your creative power expressed through your words blesses and lifts your life – because you are precious to God.
Repeatedly bless your life with powerful affirmations:
I am strong and well.
I am kind, loving, and true. I am more than able to fulfill God’s destiny for me.
I am abundantly prosperous.
I draw wonderful people and opportunities into my life.
I am joyous and at peace.
Particularly when you are presented with difficulty, remember Jesus’ admonition: Judge not by appearances, but judge righteous judgment.
John 7:24
Affirmations aren’t about kidding ourselves; far from it. The difficult experience – or “appearance” – is the relative truth; the affirmation calls in, with God’s omnipotent help, the absolute truth. For example, the relative truth might be that whatever illness runs in your family and you have just been diagnosed with it. The absolute truth is that you are a child of God and you do not inherit sickness.
(a Christian Science affirmation, shared in testimony by Myrtle Fillmore, cofounder of Unity)
Jesus clearly instructed us to speak to our “mountains” – to state our faith in difficulty: If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.
Matthew 17:20
We can look at the “appearances” of illness, financial problems, or family distress, and state our faith almost as a doctor would write a prescription.
Any time the appearance of illness, lack, or strife comes to our thoughts, we can stand firm and state our faith in God and in the opposite of these false “appearances.” We have it on the highest Authority that healing, abundance, and peace will be the result.
The underlying focus of Jesus’ teaching
“Jesus tells us many things He wants us to do. There is a constant urging for action throughout His teaching. What we may not have noticed in the midst of all this teaching is that Jesus tells us plainly and concisely how we can see God.
“Who does Jesus tell us will see God? The pure in heart.
“We are dealing with a spiritual Being, with a perfect Being. For us to truly meet God, there must be some sort of common contact and common language: to communicate with a spiritual Being, we too must become spiritual; we too must become good.
“The many specific things Jesus urges us to do in the Gospels are designed to make us pure; the one purpose of all His teaching is to bring us into the presence of the Being who loves us, to have us happy and fulfilled of God as Jesus is, to have us perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect.
“This is an astonishing goal, the perfection of God; but it is a challenge we must embrace. Jesus means to make us divine; for only then are we able to see God …
“To meet God, a spiritual Being, we must develop spiritual senses, spiritual eyes fit to see Him, the ability to hear Him within. Until we do this, we have no idea how isolated we are.
“Contact with God can only happen when we begin to do things we believe He would have us do, when we attempt to purify ourselves …
“In the Gospel of Mark we learn that one of the things Jesus tells us to do is to understand Him.
“If we trust Jesus when He tells us the pure shall see God and that He wants us to understand Him, then wanting to see and understand God is not only normal – it is good.
“To paraphrase George MacDonald, there are things only a pure soul can possibly see and understand.”
Barbara Amell
Evidence: Proof for the Existence of God
A priceless prayer at a pivotal time
Immediately before Jesus’ betrayal and crucifixion, according to the Gospel of John, He prayed for the disciples who had joined Him in His ministry. He then prayed for all of us who would learn of Him through their words and efforts:
Father, I pray that all who believe what I have told them may be one; as Thou, Father, art in me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in us…
And the glory that You gave me I have given to them – that they may be one, even as we are one:
I in them, and Thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that You sent me, and that You have loved them as You have loved me.
Father, I want these whom You have given me to be with me where I am – that they may behold my glory, which You have given me: because You loved me before the foundation of the world.
O righteous Father, the world has not known You, but I have known You, and these have believed that You sent me.
And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it; that the love with which You have loved me may be in them, and I in them.
The Christ within you and me
The mystery that has been hidden from ages and generations . . .
Christ in you, the hope of glory.
Colossians 1:26, 27
His likeness to Christ is the truth of a man . . . Every man, according to the divine idea of him, must come to the truth of that idea . . . As Christ is the blossom of humanity, so the blossom of every person is the Christ perfected in him. The vital force of humanity working in him is Christ; He is his root – the generator and perfector of his individuality.
George MacDonald, Unspoken Sermons
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