It’s really easy, based on either our own personalities or the situations we find ourselves in on a day-to-day basis, to think of God in one particular light (ie. focusing on His grace or His just nature without acknowledging both). At our prayer meeting earlier tonight, we talked about how to more fully experience God in our lives. One of the best ways we can achieve that is to look to Scripture to point us toward the many different aspects of God’s character. There are over 300 words or phrases used to refer to Jesus or God in the Bible — I’ve listed some of them below, along with the reference where it can be found. I think it’s a really valuable thing to do to read through the list and then spend some time reflecting on the amazingly powerful range of roles God plays in our lives (not to mention reminding ourselves to allow God to do those things for us instead of taking them upon ourselves).
- Todd
Proverbs 18:10“The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous runs into it and is safe.”
ABBA - Romans 8:15
ADVOCATE - John 2:1 (kjv)
ALMIGHTY - Psalm 68:14
ALPHA - Revelation 22:13
AMEN - Revelation 3:14
ANCIENT OF DAYS - Daniel 7:9
ANOINTED ONE - Psalm 2:2
APOSTLE - Hebrews 3:1
ARM OF THE LORD - Isaiah 53:1
AUTHOR OF LIFE - Acts 3:15
AUTHOR OF OUR FAITH - Hebrews 12:2
BEGINNING - Revelation 21:6
BLESSED & HOLY RULER - 1 Timothy 6:15
BRANCH - Jeremiah 33:15
BREAD OF GOD - John 6:33
BREAD OF LIFE - John 6:35
BRIDEGROOM - Isaiah 62:56
BRIGHT MORNING STAR - Revelation 22:16
CHIEF SHEPHERD - 1 Peter 5:4
CHOSEN ONE - Isaiah 42:1
CHRIST - Matthew 22:42
CHRIST OF GOD - Luke 9:20
CHRIST THE LORD - Luke 2:11
CHRIST, SON OF LIVING GOD - Matthew 16:16
COMFORTER - John 14:26(kjv)
COMMANDER - Isaiah 55:4
CONSOLATION OF ISRAEL - Luke 2:25
CONSUMING FIRE - Deut. 4:24, Heb. 12:29
CORNERSTONE - Isaiah 28:16
COUNSELOR - John 14:26
CREATOR - 1 Peter 4:19
DELIVERER - Romans 11:26
DESIRED OF ALL NATIONS - Haggai 2:7
DOOR - John 10:7(kjv)
END - Revelation 21:6
ETERNAL GOD - Deut. 33:27
EVERLASTING FATHER - Isaiah 9:6
FAITHFUL & TRUE - Revelation 19:11
FAITHFUL WITNESS - Revelation 1:5
FATHER - Matthew 6:9
FIRSTBORN - Rom.8:29,Rev.1:5,Col.1:15
FIRSTFRUITS - 1 Cor.15:20-23
FOUNDATION - 1 Cor. 3:11
FRIEND OF TAX COLLECTORS & SINNERS - Matthew 11:19
Any time there’s any sort of disaster or human grief, let alone one on the scale of the tsunami in southeast Asia a couple of weeks ago, the question of “how can Christians believe in a God who permits suffering” has been on the tips of many people’s tongues and, interestingly, fairly prevalent in the news media. This, along with “how can you say that Jesus is the ONLY way to God”, are two of the questions I find most challenging to answer — the latter because there’s no way we can compromise on the belief that Jesus is “the way, the truth, and the life”; the former because, despite all of the “everything works together for good” hand-waving we can do, we honestly just don’t know. The question of “where was God when the tsunami hit” was put to Christian (Anglican and United Church) leaders as well as Richard Dawkins, a leading athiest, by the Toronto Star - here’s their very interesting response. For a more evangelically-based response, check this link out. I get the sense that at least one or two of the explanations offered up might satisfy those who already believe in God, but might be a really tough sell to non-Christians. Anybody who has any thoughts on how to answer questions concerning suffering and God, please post your thoughts as comments.
Here’s a great way to waste time while still exercising your brain and pretending to get an education. I don’t know how many of you are into word puzzles, but this is one of my favourites I just got sent — each puzzle below represents a familiar word or phrase (nothing to do with Christianity in particular, just conversational phrases). The key to figuring out the answer is the arrangement or design of the letters, words, and numbers — for example, for the puzzle “ecnalg”, you might notice that if you read the letters backwards it spells “glance”, so the answer would be “backward glance”. You can post your answers as comments if you want — I’ll put the answers up in a week or two.
Exhibit A on “why you don’t want to live in a snowbelt area”:
Yep, that’s my parents’ place near Haliburton behind a good pile of snow (that pile in front of the window is about 7 feet high) — on the bright side, when I went up the next day to finish shovelling the roof off, no ladder was required
If you’d like to share a bit about what you did during your Christmas vacation (or at any other time throughout the year) via our blog, it’s easy:
1) Upload your photo(s) to Photobucket.com (password: letmein1)
2) Copy the text in the URL box underneath the uploaded picture to your clipboard
3) Post a new blog message — just type a title in the “Title” box, type any text you want in the main window, and insert your picture by clicking on the “mountain-in-a-frame” icon on the menu bar (paste the URL you copied from Photobucket into the “Image URL” box). You can resize the picture to fit it in the window if you need to by dragging the corners of the picture.
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