The Names of God: El Elyon

El Elyon: The Most High God

Genesis 14:19 KJV

And he blessed him, and said, Blessed be Abram of the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth:

I have had a difficult time this week determining just exactly where the Lord wanted me to go with this post. There were several ways I could have gone. 

I thought about addressing the abomination of the Bruce Jenner sex change. The Most High God does not make mistakes in creation. He knows us within our mother's womb, knows our very frame and the numbers of hair on our heads, He bottles the tears that we shed. He does not create us as females trapped in males bodies. The very idea of that someone suffers from this because they were born that way is ludicrous. It is a mental illness that should be treated as such.

I thought about the last 4 weeks in my family's life. My niece was hospitalized with high blood pressure at nearly 37 weeks pregnant and several stressful days later she welcomed a perfectly healthy, beautiful and tiny baby boy into the world. 2 of my great aunts, they are sisters, were diagnosed with cancer on the same day. Neither prognosis was good. We attended the funeral of 1 today while the other recovered from surgery at home. Last week I completed my first round of fertility treatments and now we begin the agonizing 2 week wait to take a pregnancy test. My Daddy and my Papaw are each having heart procedures done tomorrow. Routine procedures but heart surgery nonetheless. And El Elyon, the Most High God, the possessor of heaven and earth as Genesis 14:19 proclaims Him to be, is in control of it all.  Each and every situation. And yet it can be so hard to put our faith in Him when the most stressful moments of life are upon us. We so quickly forget what the Most High God is truly capable of.

But tonight, as I stood to hear the reading of God's Holy Word in our church service, the Holy Ghost whispered to me. My Pastor read from Hebrews 12:1-3, "Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds." El Elyon, the Most High God was brought to the lowest of low for you and I.  

The weight of this world, the sin and the abomination that bombards us through every media outlet available, the worries of this flesh life and body, need be laid aside. When we find ourselves gossiping about the sins of one celebrity or another, instead of praying about the sin in our lives or praying for their souls, we are weighting ourselves down. When we find ourselves in a panic or on the verge of a nervous breakdown about a family member's health, our own desires, or even the stresses of working and paying the bills, keeping the house clean and the yard mowed, we are weighting ourselves down. We cannot run the race that has been set before us with the weight of the world on our shoulders. 

So what must we do? 

We must look to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, the Son of El Elyon, the Most High God, and we must remember what was done for us. When we are wearied and faint we must remember what was endured for our sake. El Elyon came in the flesh as Christ Jesus. The Highest of Highs became as the lowest of lows when He was born as a babe in a manger. Though perfect and sinless, He was born into a world of sin and wickedness, He endured the cross and the contradiction of our sins upon His innocence. And He did it with joy. He did it so that when we are weary and burdened we can remember, we can feel it deep within our souls, His love and what His sacrifice means for us. It means that no matter how heavy the weight of this world is we do not have to bear it alone. We can cast it aside and look to Him, El Elyon, the Most High God.

The Names of God: Adonai-Lord

Adonai-Lord: Master

Adonai-Lord indicates the sovereignty of God. The Master is the one who assumes control of a situation. The servant, seeks to know and to do the will of his Master.

Genesis 15:2 KJV
And Abram said, Lord GOD, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless, and the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus?

Abram was in a pickle. He was old, rich, and had no heir. He knew if he were to die, all that he had worked for, all that God had blessed him with, would go to some servant in his household, not his own flesh and blood. Never mind that he was being less than grateful or faithful. God had already made a powerful and bountiful covenant with him in Genesis 12:1-3 and renewed that covenant again in Genesis 13:14-18. God had assured Abram twice now that his seed would number as the dust of the earth. But Abram, like the rest of us doubted after time had passed and he was still childless. Abram was flesh, just like you, just like me. His faith faltered a little. He stumbled a bit in his walk. 

Yet the knowledge that God was still God was clear when Abram called upon Him in Genesis 15:2. The Hebrew for Lord GOD in this verse is Adonai-Lord, Master. There may have been a little doubt creeping in and beginning to clutch at his heart but the truth remained, the truth that God is Master, He is in complete control. And because He is our Master, we are to serve Him, trust Him, and have faith in Him.

And like the loving and merciful Master He is, when Abram reminded Him that he was still childless, God, Adonai, promised him his heart's desire. But not only did He promise Abram an heir from his own loins, He promised for the third time that Abram's seed would number as the stars in the heavens. 

Three times now, God had spoken to Abram and told him he would be the father of many nations, and somehow this was still not sufficient for him. Once again he got impatient, restless, and he took matters into his own hands, and Ishmael was conceived. 

Astoundingly though, God once again renewed His covenant with Abram after Ishmael's birth. This was a sure sign of His love and patience with us. Were it any other father and son, I imagine there would've been much yelling and throwing hands in the air. But He remained long-suffering, even through His promise to Sarah of a son as she laughed at the absurdity of a child at her age. 

Finally in Genesis 21, when Abraham was 100 and Sarah 90, Isaac was born and the rest is history as they say.

It took 25 years for Abraham to begin to see the fulfilling of the covenant God had made with him in Genesis 12, but that certainly did not mean that God was not in control every minute of those 25 years. And when you think about it, to only have to be reminded 3 times in a quarter of a century that God is in control, that He is Master and you are servant is pretty astonishing. It seems He has to remind me at least a dozen times in 24 hours. 

But He is. He is Master. And He is in control of each and every situation, whether it be spiritual, financial, physical, or mental, He is Master. He created the heavens and the earth...He can cure cancer with a single thought. He breathed life into dust and made man...He can put life in even the most barren of wombs. Through His Son, He took 5 loaves of bread and 2 fishes and fed 5,000...He can see any bill paid, any mouth fed. 

He took one man's faltering faith and made him the father of many nations. 

Here I am Adonai-Lord, use me up, make me your righteous and faithful servant.

Adonai

One single drop of rain

Your salty tear became blue ocean

One tiny grain of sand turning in your hand

A world in motion

You're out beyond the furthest Morning Star

Close enough to hold me in Your arms

Adonai, I lift up my heart and I cry

My Adonai

You are the Maker of each moment

Father of my hope and freedom

Oh, my Adonai

One timid faithful knock

Resounds upon the Rock of Ages

One trembling heart and soul

Becomes a servant bold and courageous

You call across the mountains and the seas

I answer from the deepest part of me

Adonai, I lift up my heart and I cry

My Adonai

You are the Maker of each moment

Father of my hope and freedom

Oh, my Adonai

From age to age you reign in Majesty

And today You're making miracles in me

Adonai, I lift up my heart and I cry

My Adonai

You are the Maker of each moment

Father of my hope and freedom

Oh, my Adonai

The Beatitudes: Blessed Are The Merciful

Matthew 5:7 KJV
Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.

Exodus 21:22-25 KJV
22 If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman's husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine.
23 And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life,
24 Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,
25 Burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.

Genesis 50:20-21 KJV
20 But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.
21 Now therefore fear ye not: I will nourish you, and your little ones. And he comforted them, and spake kindly unto them.

I have been tossing this post around for nearly a week. I have been putting off writing it because it was a difficult one to research. I think that anyone that knows me, know the heart that I have for babies and for children. To think of one suffering in any magnitude, breaks my heart. I rarely watch the news for this very reason, my nerves simply can't handle it. 

Yet if anyone deserves our mercy it is our children. Both born and unborn.

And so it is with a broken heart that I find myself writing this tonight. That it even needs to be written speaks to the evil that the world has succumbed to. 

I cannot tell you of the pain of rape or incest. I have never suffered such tragedies in my life. I cannot tell you of the pain of being rejected by the only family I have because of what is deemed a mistake in their eyes. I cannot tell you of the pain of being told that I am an inconvenience and I need to be gotten rid of. Or that I am deformed and therefore not worth letting live. Yet, since the legalization of abortion in 1973, millions of babies have suffered this pain, have been murdered simply because they were unwanted. 

I sit here with a lump in my throat, trying to banish the images from my mind that I have seen tonight. But I realize that it's this very mindset that let the horrors of Kermit Gosnell's abortion clinic go on for over 3 decades. Sticking my head in the sand will not unsee what I have seen and it certainly won't stop what is being done in our country. 

There are viable babies being born all over our country tonight that are being refused medical care or being flat out murdered because they are complications of abortion. As if it isn't heinous enough that we legally snuff out the lives of babies because they are "non-persons" until they are born and fill their lungs with oxygen, it is pure evil that allows a baby to die alone in a metal dish, refusing life saving medical treatment, simply because he was supposed to have died during the abortion procedure. It is the stuff of nightmares. Truly it is. I had no idea, or perhaps I just didn't want to believe that man could be so cold and callous, that there are babies who survive abortions, babies who, with medical intervention, could live a healthy life. But men like Kermit Gosnell, who perform illegal abortions on women well into their 3rd trimesters and routinely deliver viable babies, are "ensuring fetal demise" without blinking an eye. I read for myself tonight parts of the Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report in Gosnell's trial and I could do nothing but sit and weep in anger, in horror, in utter sadness. I was completely unprepared for the photos that were included. Seeing the gruesome effects of his "medical practice" and knowing that for over 30 years his employees not only stood by but helped him, never questioning his obvious illegal practices, was in itself sickening. 

We have convinced ourselves that if it doesn't affect us, it's not our problem. Not my monkeys, not my circus. Maybe so, but when the monkeys show up on your doorstep, overturning your right to vote against homosexual marriage, your right to carry a gun, your right to free speech, then I guess the circus tent just got a whole lot bigger.

Women like Kay Hagan, Wendy Davis, Gloria Steinem, who support abortion, even abortion after 20 weeks, are terrifying to me. These are women brainwashing other women into believing that babies are an invasion on their bodies, inconveniences causing them to lose control of their lives. 

And let's get one thing clear, whether or not a baby at 12 weeks can feel pain or whether it can't until 20 weeks, is utterly irrelevant. Abortion is murder. Life begins at conception. 

The Bible tells us in Exodus, that if a man harms a pregnant woman and causes her fruit to depart from her, to deliver prematurely, and the baby lives then the man must pay whatever the judge determines. But if she delivers prematurely and the baby is harmed or dies, life for life is required. Can you imagine if every mother, father, friend, abortionist, nurse, or anyone else that might be involved in a woman's decision and subsequent abortion, had their life required for the baby's life they stole?

We need to stand up and speak out against abortion, in all stages of gestation. We need to speak up and put an end to an evil that man has deemed acceptable and legal. We must show these babies mercy. Because they are at the mercy of our morals, our laws, our convictions.  And regardless of how they were conceived, whether you deem it to be the right time in your life, or whether that baby is healthy or not, what man thinks as evil against us, God means for good.

I can think of another group of people deemed unwanted, unfit, and undesirable. Sinners. You and me. All it took was One Man willing to show us mercy to save us from a neverending, unceasing hellfire and damnation. Christ Jesus. He laid down His life and became our Interceder. He died so that we could have eternal life by simply believing on Him.

Let us intercede, let us show mercy to the innocent, the unborn. 

Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy.

Who Are You Lord? : I Am The Creator

Genesis 1:27 KJV

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

Deuteronomy 32:15-25 KJV

15 But Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked: thou art waxen fat, thou art grown thick, thou art covered with fatness; then he forsook God which made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation.

16 They provoked him to jealousy with strange gods, with abominations provoked they him to anger.

17 They sacrificed unto devils, not to God; to gods whom they knew not, to new gods that came newly up, whom your fathers feared not.

18 Of the Rock that begat thee thou art unmindful, and hast forgotten God that formed thee.

19 And when the Lord saw it, he abhorred them, because of the provoking of his sons, and of his daughters.

20 And he said, I will hide my face from them, I will see what their end shall be: for they are a very froward generation, children in whom is no faith.

21 They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God; they have provoked me to anger with their vanities: and I will move them to jealousy with those which are not a people; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation.

22 For a fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains.

23 I will heap mischiefs upon them; I will spend mine arrows upon them.

24 They shall be burnt with hunger, and devoured with burning heat, and with bitter destruction: I will also send the teeth of beasts upon them, with the poison of serpents of the dust.

25 The sword without, and terror within, shall destroy both the young man and the virgin, the suckling also with the man of gray hairs.

Isaiah 40:28-31 KJV
28 Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding.
29 He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength.
30 Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall:
31 But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.


When I was in the 8th grade we had a substitute teacher one day in our English class. Instead of the lesson that day he took it upon himself to have a debate of sorts.  His topic? Evolution. He was for it. I was against it. I proudly and confidently told him that evolution was hogwash.  I couldn't open a science book from 1611 and have it give me the same version of how the earth began as I could my King James Bible.  I couldn't even take a science book from ten years prior and have it give the same account as a current textbook.  But I could, under no uncertain terms, open my Bible each and every time and know without a shadow of a doubt that God's account of creation was infallible and unchanging.  It wouldn't matter if I opened my Bible 100 years from now, Genesis chapter 1 would say the same thing: In the beginning GOD created the heavens and the earth. He quickly forfeited the discussion and we went back to our English lesson. I think it surprised him that a 14 year old girl could be so adamant about her beliefs, but I was, and have always remained so.  But it hasn't always been easy.

Genesis also tells us that we are created in His image, meaning that we are made to be personal, rational, and moral beings. This however is not always so.  Our lives are full of impersonal, irrational, immoral situations and people.  There have been many times in my life when I've strayed from my beliefs, not in disbelief, but in rebellion.  Rebellion is a slippery slope.  I got myself into some situations that I never should've been in.  It was my Savior who kept me from harm.  I look back and am so thankful that I was saved at an early age because I realize that had I not been, my rebellion would have led to an eternity in hell.  Deuteronomy 32 warns us what happens when we forsake the God that made us, when we lightly esteem the Rock of our Salvation, we provoke His jealousy and we kindle His anger and the results are terrifying and disastrous. If they were a forward generation, children without faith then, then what are we now? It is happening all around us, every single day.  Legal abortion, gay marriage, recreational drug use, underage drinking, premarital sex, pornography, a new religion worshiping a new false god every day. Where have our morals gone? Where has our faith gone?

My life is not perfect. I am not pointing out another's sin as worse than my own.  But what I am saying is that in a generation of people who do not have Christ as their Rock, their solid foundation, we have a generation of people who turn everywhere but to God to cope with the illness, the suffering, the misery and doubt, the trials and tribulations that this life is overrun with.  In my darkest hour, when I lost Lachlan, I never once uttered to God that I hated Him.  I was afraid to.  I didn't hate Him but I didn't turn to Him when I needed Him the most either.   Even with that solid foundation of Salvation in my life I faltered. So without it, I wouldn't merely have stumbled, I'd have all out rolled right down that slippery slope of rebellion straight into the fiery pits of hell.

Why don't we turn to Him when we need Him most?  Is is shame, weakness, humiliation?  He is the Beginning and the End, the Alpha and Omega, The Creator, He knows all and sees all. Satan sees our shame. God sees His Son if we've been washed in the precious blood of Salvation.  Isaiah tells us that He never gets weary of us, there is no end to His understanding and that He will renew our strength and we will run and not be weary, we shall walk and not be faint. He is the Rock of All the Ages and we must stand upon what never changes.

WHAT NEVER CHANGES

I've seen things along the way,

I've seen trouble in my short days.

But Through it all, I had no fear.

See, I had a Friend who was always near.

If the sun were to fall,

If the oceans were to dry.

If the mountains were to crumble,

I wouldn't bat an eye.

For I stand upon the Rock, He’s the Rock of all the Ages.

No matter what may come,

The storm around me rages,

I stand upon what never changes.

Sometimes the way seems bleak,

But we're just human, and we are  so weak.

Take it from me, If the road gets rough

He'll be there to pick you up.

And if the sun were to fall,

If the oceans were to dry.

If the mountains were to crumble,

I wouldn't bat an eye.

For I stand upon the Rock, He’s the Rock of all the Ages.

No matter what may come,

The storm around me rages,

I stand upon what never changes.

And if the sun were to fall,

If the oceans were to dry.

If the mountains were to crumble,

I wouldn't bat an eye.

And if the sun were to fall,

If the oceans were to dry.

If the mountains were to crumble,

I wouldn't bat an eye.

For I stand upon the Rock, He’s the Rock of all the Ages.

No matter what may come,

The storm around me rages,

I stand upon what never changes

I stand upon what never changes

Who Are You Lord? : I Am Strength, I Am Power

Exodus 14:14 KJV
The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace.

2 Samuel 22:33 KJV
God is my strength and power: and he maketh my way perfect.

Psalms 68:35 KJV
O God, thou art terrible out of thy holy places: the God of Israel is he that giveth strength and power unto his people. Blessed be God.

Psalms 73:26 KJV
My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever.

When I Lay My Isaac Down

Abraham prayed for the day 

God would give him a son 

Blessed Isaac was his name 

The greatest gift he’d ever known 

Then came the day, who would have dreamed 

God would say “You gotta give him back to me

And on this mountain you will prove, 

That it’s you and Isaac, or it’s me and you”

So when I lay my Isaac down 

With a broken heart but my Fathers proud 

And on this altar where he lays 

Just to find it wasn’t him, God wanted me

Now most of us I’d dare to say 

We've got an Isaac standing in God’s way 

But it's on this altar you too can prove 

That it’s not your Isaac that God wants 

But He wants you

And when I lay my Isaac down 

With a broken heart but my Fathers proud 

And on this altar where he lays 

Just to find it wasn’t him, God wanted me

And when I lay my Isaac down 

With a broken heart but my Fathers proud 

And on this altar where he lays 

Just to find it wasn’t him, God wanted me

And on this altar where he lays 

Just to find it wasn’t him, God wanted me

All to Jesus I surrender; 

All to Him I freely give; 

I will ever love and trust him, 

In His presence daily live. 

I surrender all, 

I surrender all, 

All to thee, my blessed Savior, 

I surrender all. 

And when I lay my Isaac down 

With a broken heart but my Fathers proud 

And on this altar where he lays 

Just to find it wasn’t him, God wanted me

And on this altar where he lays 

Just to find it wasn’t him, God wanted me

I cannot imagine being Abraham or how he felt when God called on him to offer Isaac as a sacrifice.  The Bible says nothing about Abraham's emotions, only of his obedience.  God called and he answered, "here am I". God gave him instructions and he immediately began to pack for the journey to the mountains of Moriah.  No questions. No arguments. Just obedience. Just faith. Just strength and power from God to do what He'd asked of him.  Exodus tells us that God will fight for us, we must only hold our peace, be still, keep quiet, and let God work.  Abraham did not have the faintest idea of what God was doing when He told him to offer his only son as a burnt offering but he held his peace because he knew God was fighting for him.  And when Isaac questioned him about the missing sacrificial lamb on the way up the mountain, he simply said that God would provide.  God gives His strength and His power to His people, and Abraham surely needed it in that moment.  It took that God-given strength and power not to jerk Isaac up against him and run like mad down the mountain toward home.  That is almost assuredly what Sarah would've done had she been in Abraham's place.  It's what I'd have done, if I'd ever finished arguing with God about going in the first place.  But Abraham didn't.  They traveled on until they reached the top and then they built the alter.  Abraham bound Isaac...and Isaac let him...more obedience, more faith, more strength, more power.  Isaac could've run, he could've fought, he could've done everything in his will to try to escape his father when he realized that he was to be the sacrifice.  But he didn't. He willingly let Abraham bind him and lay him on that alter.  And as he laid there he watched Abraham raise the knife above his head.  My flesh and heart would've failed in that moment, but not Abraham's.  God's strength and power made Abraham's way perfect and just before he brought the knife down, the angel of the Lord called out to him, stopping him.  The Bible doesn't tell of it, but I can just see Abraham's knees sagging with relief, I can see him cutting the binding on Isaac's body and hugging him tight, I can see him crying out to God with thanks for sparing his son and sending the ram.

Three times was Abraham called upon in Genesis 22, by God, by Isaac, by the angel.  And each time he answered, "here am I."  How do we answer when God calls upon us? Do we answer with obedience and faith? Do we answer with strength and power? Or do we answer in fear?  I am guilty of answering in fear more often than not, that is if I'm not trying to hide from Him completely. But God may be calling on me to see if I'll lay my Isaac down, if I'm willing to surrender all to Him.  Because if I'm not, if I've got an Isaac standing in my way, then I can never reach God's full potential for me. I'll never be given the full strength and power meant for me without my faith and obedience.