Dear reader,
How we
understand and view God will affect the way we regard Him and the way we
worship Him.
First,
Who is God?
Every religion
has a belief in the existence of a superior being (s). To this being (s), the
followers owe their spiritual allegiance and worship.
So who is God?
The God of the Bible is Spirit. He
is not tangible or visible or in the form of a natural or human creation. John
4:24, “God is Spirit and His worshipers must worship Him in spirit and in
truth.” He doesn’t live in houses made by men (Acts 7:48; Deuteronomy 4:15-19).
Does
God have a Name?
In every
language, there is a word that is generally used to refer to the deity in that
community. The special and personal name by which the God of Israel revealed
Himself to His people is YAHWEH in
Hebrew, a.k.a. JEHOVAH in Greek. Ex.
6:3, “And I appeared to Abraham, unto Isaac and unto Jacob, by the name of God
Almighty, but by My name Jehovah was I not known to them.” The name appears to
mean-the unchanging, eternal, self-existent God-the “I AM” that I AM, “a
Covenant-keeping God”. Ex. 3:4, “I Am
who I Am” Jews held the name YAHWEH to be too sacred to be pronounced by
anybody, except by the high priest on the great Day of Atonement. Because of
that, the Jews instead preferred to refer to God by the term Adonai or the LORD (with cap locks) eg. Ex 15:3, “The LORD is a warrior; the LORD
is His name.” So LORD actually refers to the actual name of God-YAHWEH/JEHOVAH.
In many texts we find both the generic and the distinctive name of God used
together i.e. the LORD God to distinguish Yahweh/Jehovah from other gods, as in
Lev. 20:7; Psalm 84:11; Gen. 2:7, “...The LORD God...”
Note, in the
Bible God is also referred to by many names which are DESCRIPTIVE of His
ATTRIBUTES e.g. El- Shaddai, Rapha, Jireh. However, His personal name is
YAHWEH.
Where
did God Come From?
Some gods are
idols created by human hands while others are natural phenomena such as sun,
moon, stars, mountains, animals, rivers, trees etc. But in Christianity, the
Bible assumes the existence of God. He pre-existed all things and will exist
eternally. Gen. 1:1; John 1:1-2, There is NO attempt in the scriptures to
explain the origin of God. Go simply IS.
Yahweh is my God.
Regards,
Kachel
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