El Kanna The Jealous Lord Who Loves us Passionately :)

This was posted in conjunction with Sunny's post of 6/22, it had also been the topic of our lesson in Wed night church yesterday....These are notes from my Pastor's lesson that night:
El Kanna, the Lord whose Name is Jealous is used in Ex 34:10-14, Duet 4:23-24; and Duet 6:13-15. In our language ‘jealous’ usually has a negative connotation, but this reference to God is not the human emotion of selfish doubting envy, but rather refers to His devoted love for us, desiring our affection in return.

In a healthy love – God’s Love:
a. There is an exchange of love – in a healthy relationship there is an exchange of Love; both parties deserve to and hope to receive love from each other.
b. There is an equality of passion – both parties desire an equal level of passion from each other (for example, if a man says to his wife,’ I love you with all my heart’ and she says…’ yeah, I like you too honey’; that’s obviously going to hurt him) In a healthy relationship both parties desire to love each other with like levels of passion
c. There is an exclusiveness to the love relationship – not shared with anyone else. Just as with a married couple this is true, so also in our relationship with God. He should not have to compete with other things for our love.

In Jere 31:3 he says I have loved you with an everlasting love…. There is no end to His love for us :)
He loves us so wholeheartedly that He pursued us passionately before we even existed – before we gave Him the first glimmer of a thought!

He was lovingly pursuing us at Calvary when He paid for every sin we would commit.

The proper response is for us to love Him the same in return. If we set our affections and devotion on other things, we are taking what belongs to God and it hurts Him and ends up hurting our relationship with God. Other ‘gods’ can be anything else that become pre-eminent in your life, taking the center stage of your affection.

Duet 6:13-18 – when your love relationship with Him is right, there will be a blessing that will flow into your life from the Lord. It is good to examine your heart every now and then and ask yourself, how much do I love God?

Matt 22:37 Jesus tells us to love the Lord with all our heart, all our soul, and all our mind – with everything that you have. There are times we may come to the realization that our love has grown cold or our gaze has slipped but that is when we refocus and center our affection on Him. He has given us everything, and He’s asking if we will give everything back in return.

I posted a while back how I’d been sensing the Lord dealing with me over the last year to just not have the TV on so much…. And to spend more time with Him. Without meaning to, it is easy to let the TV just drain the evening away in no time flat with nothing really good on. I was being aware and disciplined some weeks, not paying attention forgetting on others. Then the Lord had my silly local small town cable company lose its contract with CBS & Fox…. Which is when I realized, huh, those are the two channels I watched the most…. Hmmmm….. I knew in my heart it was not a coincidence ;) Guess what, after a few months, I’m not hooked on tv anymore- hee. Had to learn it the hard way. Now we have the channels back but I’m no longer hooked. I’m with you Sunny, there are online Bible studies and other resources we have available that we can better spend our time on. I’ve been trying to focus on things of that nature too. And I’m with you Jess, it can be easy to let the internet whittle away an evening if you aren’t careful. I have been conscious of that too and again, trying lately to not let that take too much focus. This blogging and getting to know you ladies I think is a good thing…. in that I believe we are used to lift each other up in prayer and to help encourage each other along the way, to share what we are dealing with, and also share what we are learning in our walk with the Lord with each other. When we are sharing and even sometimes kidding, I have found it to be a surprising fellowship of believers, I never expected to find such a group of people online and I appreciate you blogettes!

A.W. Tozer said the great in the kingdom of God have been those who loved God more than others. They had a spiritual receptivity – an openness to heaven, a spiritual awareness which when cultivated, became the biggest thing in their lives.(quote very paraphrased from my notes)

This whole thing makes me think of Charlie Hall’s song on Everything Glorious called ‘Center’.
You’re the Center of the universe
Everything was made in You, Jesus
Breath of every living thing
Everyone was made for You
You hold everything together
You hold everything together

Oh, Christ, be the Center of our lives
Be the place we fix our eyes
Be the Center of our lives

We lift our eyes to heaven
We wrap our lives around Your life
We lift our eyes to heaven, to You

Turn your eyes upon Jesus
Look full in His wonderful face
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim
In the light of His glory and grace

Blessings :)

Concert Festival w/Jeremy Camp & Barlow Girl

Yesterday I went to an outdoor Christian concert festival :) There were several bands in the line up including Jeremy Camp & Barlow Girl. I'd never seen Barlow Girl live before - they were very good and sang several songs including Mirror, Never Alone, I need You to love me, and Let Go:

This was the second time I've seen Jeremy Camp, he and his band were great! They started out very rockin and ended in a great worshipful set... his songs included Take You Back, Lay Down My Pride, Breathe, This Man, Walk by Faith, & Beautiful One:

It was a fun day of live music and worship!

If you get a chance to go to a festival this summer, go for it :)

Baby Luke

Baby Luke (my nephew) at three weeks old
what a little cutie!














My brother's family sharing in Luke's baby dedication service :)

The Names of God

From Wednesday night prayer meetings...Pastor has been doing messages on the Names of God. A summary of the past few weeks follows....

Often scripture refers to calling on the Name of the Lord... God has given us His various names in the Word to reveal some of His attributes to us... they tell us Who He Is and What He Does... focusing on and praising Him for these attributes of God helps to build our faith.

El Roi – The God Who Sees Me – is used in Gen 16:13 Just as He saw and wanted to help Hagar, when you feel you are alone – He is the God Who Sees You and looks after you. He cares about every little detail of your life and knows the number of hairs that are on your head.
Ps 33:15 He thinks about you and everything that you do; He is a personal God.
Ps 33:18 – The eyes of the Lord are on those who hope in His unfailing love.

El Shaddai – God Almighty = God the Rock, God the immovable, God the unchangeable, God the Mountain. ‘God Almighty’ often used in scripture in reference to what in human terms would seem to be an impossible promise. For example Gen 17:1-8 when Abram and Sarai were well past child bearing years and God promised a child to them, it is El Shaddai, God Almighty for whom nothing is impossible. Likewise God had given Joseph promise & visions that he would rule over his family, yet it must have seemed like an ‘impossible promise’ during the years of captivity that Joseph endured... Yet God Almighty made him the promise, sustained Joseph during the years of waiting, and kept His promise to Joseph.
He is the God Who keeps His promises, God Almighty for whom nothing is impossible. If God made you a promise, and it seems long ago and distant now, remember He is the God Almighty, Who keeps His promises; He is El Shaddai, God the Rock, the unchangeable, the Mountain.

El Olam – the Everlasting, Eternal, Enduring God
Gen 21:22-34 – God gives confirmation of His promise to Abraham and Sara thru Abimelech’s words – that God is with them in everything they do and he indicates they will inherit this land. How do you respond to the prompting of the Lord when He gives you an assurance or confirmation of a promise He’s given you? Abraham’s response in v.33-34 was to plant a tree and to call on the name of the Everlasting God. He sets eternity in our hearts and reveals His promises to us. If we are to have a similar response, we would call on the Name of the Lord ...naming the attributes of God as praise to Who He Is and What He does. Abraham does not posses the promise yet, but as he calls on the Name (& attributes) of the Lord, it builds faith in his heart. For example, to praise Him as Creator God, the mighty God for Whom nothing is impossible...the God Who Sees Me... The God Who keeps His promises... The Everlasting God who is unchanging and a Rock...
Is 40:28-31 – Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the Everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. The will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary; they will walk and not be faint.
He is the Everlasting God; praise His Name(s) :)