Break Out

Lets break out today and love our neighbors as ourselves!  Do something small for a neighbor today like bake cookies, give a note, or mow a lawn to show them the love of Christ!  Get out there and serve.

Break IN

Today we are going to break into God's heart by "listening" for God. Last week we were "looking" for him in an effort to focus our senses to be fully aware of the God that loves us and wants us to experience him fully.   SO today, go outside and listen to the wind blow through trees, listen to kids laugh and giggle, listen to worship music, say the word mom and let it echo in your soul.  Or just sit in your room, outside, or anywhere you can have quiet and let God speak to you.  Push out everything else in your mind.  Focus on him and ask him a question and just wait for the response.  My favorite is to ask how much he loves us.   That usually sends me over the top :)  If God is alive in us and around us how better to listen to him that in us and around us.

The Lord of Hosts

I was reading the prophet Jeremiah a few weeks ago when I ran across a passage that referred to God as “the Lord Almighty.” To be honest, it didn’t resonate. There’s something too religious about the phrase; it sounds churchy, sanctimonious. The Lawd Almiiiighty. It sounds like something your grandmother would say when you came into her kitchen covered in mud. I found myself curious about what the actual phrase means in Hebrew. Might we have lost something in the translation? So I turned to the front of the version I was using for an explanation. Here is what the editors said: 

Because for most readers today the phrases “the Lord of hosts” and “God of hosts” have little meaning, this version renders them “the Lord Almighty” and “God Almighty.” These renderings convey the sense of the Hebrew, namely, “he who is sovereign over all the ‘hosts’ (powers) in heaven and on earth, especially over the ‘hosts’ (armies) of Israel.”

No, they don’t. They don’t even come close. The Hebrew means “the God of angel armies,” “the God of the armies who fight for his people.” The God who is at war. Does “Lord Almighty” convey “the God who is at war”? Not to me, it doesn’t. Not to anyone I’ve asked. It sounds like “the God who is up there but still in charge.” Powerful, in control. The God of angel armies sounds like the one who would roll up his sleeves, take up sword and shield to break down gates of bronze, and cut through bars of iron to rescue me. 

(Waking the Dead , 160)