Meditate on God's great love--and your love for Him.
You must worship no other gods, for the LORD, whose very name is Jealous, is a God who is jealous about his relationship with you. Exodus 34:14
I’ve always
thought of jealousy as a bad trait, but in God, this is good for us. He doesn’t
want us to have any other gods—just Him. In this passage He is making a
covenant with Moses and giving him another copy of the Ten Commandments, since
Moses had smashed the first set. The first commandment is long and includes
this statement about our jealous God.
You must not bow down to them or
worship them, for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God who will not
tolerate your affection for any other gods. I lay the sins of the parents
upon their children; the entire family is affected—even children in the third
and fourth generations of those who reject me. Exodus 20:5 (Underlined for
emphasis.)
It is all about
relationship. God wants to have a relationship with each of us, but He doesn’t
force Himself on us. We have to be involved in knowing God…and communicating
with Him in order for us to be part of this relationship. How are you doing
with that? Do you feel like you know God? He is an immense being—but to know
Him is to love Him…and to love Him is to know Him. Think of all the attributes
about God that you know. There are countless. Believe me. I’ve tried looking
for sources and tried finding His qualities in scripture and counting them. It
is beyond me. Let me know if you think you’ve found all God’s attributes. I’d
be interested in those facts.
 |
| Worship God in Spirit and in Truth. Serve Him faithfully. |
When Abram was ninety-nine years old,
the LORD appeared to him and said, "I am El-Shaddai--'God Almighty.' Serve
me faithfully and live a blameless life. Genesis 17:1
God wanted Abram…who was renamed Abraham…to serve Him faithfully. Can we do any less?
Prayer ~ Lord God, life is not about “me” so help me to focus on serving You…on serving others for You. Just as was taught in the Shema…I love the Lord my God with all my heart, with all my soul and with all my strength. From Deuteronomy 6:5
Verse of
Salvation ~ Show us your unfailing love, O LORD, and grant us your salvation. Psalm
85:7
Friday’s Feasting at the King’s Table
We can’t live on bread alone. Now that Lent is past…are you back to your old food habits again? Is it time to consider a change in your diet so that you don’t gain extra weight binging on those foods that you abstained from during Lent? Make your choices—that is what life is…choices.
Perhaps you’d like to set a new goal for yourself to eat like Jesus ate. His was basically a Mediterranean diet—one that had no “processed” foods that we experience today. Jews of Jesus time in the first century—as devout Jews of today—did not eat pork or other unclean foods. They did eat olives and olive oil, grapes, pomegranates, figs, dates, lentils, other legumes, and grains like wheat, barley, oats and millet. Actually, bread from the grains was a very important part of their diet and they even used what we know as pita bread for plates from which to eat their meal. Then they could eat the plate, too! If they had a cow or goat, there would be milk to drink as well as yogurt and home churned butter. Grape juice was fermented into wine to preserve it. The juice from other fruits, like dates and pomegranates, were also made into wine, but the alcoholic content of those wines was lower than the wine that is available today. They rarely, for special occasions, would eat beef, veal, or lamb. If they lived near the ocean, the Sea of Galilee or a river, they might have fish as part of their diet.
So, we think that we can’t live on bread alone, but that was the
mainstay of the Jewish diet during Jesus’ time. Along the shoreline at the Sea
of Galilee Jesus roasted some fish for His disciples. Try broiling or grilling
some fresh fish this week and honor the Lord with your efforts and thanking Him
for providing you with that tasty fish.
Peter's Fish
Eaten along the Sea of Galilee - Israel
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