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power

says the Lord of Hosts

1/15/2007 · Comments

in meditations

I was looking at the often-quoted Zechariah 4:6 the other day and noticed something new. I always hear, “Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit” or maybe, “…by my Spirit, says the Lord.” But here’s the complete verse:

Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of hosts.

In most Bibles, you’ll see Lord written in small caps, like this: Lord. This variation in type is the standard denotation in Bibles that the word being translated is actually Yahweh. This distinguishes it from lord and Lord (regular type), which mean master. So, in this passage, we have both being used:

Then the angel who talked with me answered and said to me, “Do you not know what these are?” I said, “No, my lord.” Then he said to me, “This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of hosts.”

When Zechariah says, “No, my lord,” he’s saying, “No, master.” And in reply, the angel tells the prophet that this isn’t the word of the master but the word of “the Lord”, Yahweh, and that Yahweh of hosts said it.

You may be thinking, “and so…? What’s here besides a lesson in typography and translation?”

God’s choices about how He represents Himself are worth noting, because they give us insight into the character and nature of God. read the complete post

Tagged as: Bible translation, God, Holy Spirit, Lord-of-hosts, might, names-of-God, nature-of-God, power, power-of-God, Yahweh, Zechariah

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“behold your God!”

11/6/2006 · Comments

in meditations

If you’ve read my last two posts (here and here) on Isaiah 40, you may well have wondered why I totally ignored verses 9, 10, and 11. After telling us that we are all like grass before the Lord, Isaiah says,

Get you up to a high mountain,
O Zion, herald of good news;
lift up your voice with strength,
O Jerusalem, herald of good news;
lift it up, fear not;
say to the cities of Judah,
“Behold your God!”
Behold, the Lord God comes with might,
and his arm rules for him;
behold, his reward is with him,
and his recompense before him.
He will tend his flock like a shepherd;
he will gather the lambs in his arms;
he will carry them in his bosom,
and gently lead those that are with young.

read the complete post

Tagged as: comfort, God, Isaiah, power, shepherd

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a powerful, compassionate God

November 5, 2006

Friday, I wrote about the glorious promise of strength in Isaiah 40. As I noted then, the concluding promise of strength to walk, run, and rise up gets even better when put into the bigger context of the chapter. I backed up just a few verses to consider the contrast of the youth who faints with the strength that comes from God. But the picture Isaiah paints grows richer and fuller when we take the chapter as a whole.

It begins with the famous “Comfort my people” and continues with “speak tenderly to Jerusalem.” That sounds good. But then, as we move further, we find God’s greatness described in wonderful pictures and contrasted with the smallness, the weakness of man. We are told that “all flesh is grass” and that it dies under the breath of the Lord. And just so we don’t miss the point, Isaiah reiterates, “Surely the people are grass.”

A little later, we get a series of images that reinforce the magnitude of God and His power:… read the complete post

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a promise of strength

November 3, 2006

The last few weeks have been pretty stressful for me, with money problems, the usual midterm grading frenzy, and assorted other irritants and situations that add up to a real possibility of losing my hope and my joy. This past weekend, as I realized that some of these situations weren’t going away with the end of October but would continue into November (and beyond!), I got rather discouraged. Then Wednesday night a friend gave me good–but hard–counsel, and I was reminded that I was in for the long haul. To put it another way, I wanted a leisurely walk around the block, but he told me I’m in a marathon.

I don’t like running.

Yesterday, though, I had a wonderful reminder of God’s faithfulness. In her broadcast, Joyce Meyer read from Isaiah 40, and I heard something I had never noticed before:…

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mighty to save

October 2, 2006

Since last Thursday, I’ve been trying to write about Isaiah 63:1, where God declares Himself “mighty to save.” My goal is to blog before 6 a.m. each day, mostly because I have no interruptions that early in morning. I occasionally manage to blog later in the day, but not often. And so it has been for the last several days.

I was up and ready to write, but about 5:15, Zack came in panicked about a project he had due that day. So Thursday was gone, and Friday morning too, as I helped him proofread an assignment (we’re working on procrastination!). Friday night Zack had two friends over to celebrate his fourteenth birthday (I think they went to sleep about 3 a.m.), and Saturday morning Isaac played soccer at 8. Yesterday, we had a mother-daughter tea party in honor of Anna’s sixth birthday (tea parties are harder to pull off than you might think). And these are just the big things that happened! I’ve been running around like the proverbial chicken with its head cut off for the last several days.

Throughout all this frenetic activity, I’ve been hanging on to “mighty to save.” Last Thursday, I read Charles Spurgeon’s devotional on this verse. Spurgeon’s vivid language brings out the richness of these three words mighty to save:

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encouragement for the journey

September 6, 2006
This entry is part 7 of 10 in the series humility

This is #7 in a series on humility.

I’ve got a sinus infection, so I’m going to keep this short.

I thought about writing a post today titled “help me, I’m dying”–not because I’m sick (though my head does feel as if it’s about to explode) but rather because practicing humility is killing my flesh, and it’s hard. It’s easy to get discouraged. Murray offers some much needed encouragement:

Let us be content with nothing less than taking each example of Jesus’ humility as the promise of what God will work in us, as the revelation of what the Spirit of Jesus will put within us. Allow each failure and shortcoming to only the more quickly turn us to the meek and lowly Lamb of God in the assurance that where He is enthroned in the heart, His humility and gentleness will be the streams of living water that flow from within us.

This is a timely reminder to me that I’m not doing this on my own–can’t do it on my own, in fact. Only by the power of the Spirit can true humility be worked in me. Praise God that it is His desire to do that work!

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an amazing picture of God

August 22, 2006

I love Psalm 18; there’s so much to like here. Several things stood out to me this morning as I read. First, David begins unabashedly: “I love you, O Lord.” As far as I can tell, this is the first time in Scripture that someone declares his love for God. The Amplified translates this, “I love You fervently and devotedly.” Then, in verse two, its as if David can hardly contain himself as names pour out…

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