The reaction of the people to the defeat of the Pharaoh and
his army is to worship and glorify the Lord for what He has done in the
redemption of His people. That should
always be our first thought when the Lord acts on our behalf. They knew little of Him at this point in
their life together and so their praise is for Him as a man of war. That is certainly what they have seen, that
He was their defender and protector and His actions were acts of war against
their enemies. They will come to know
Him in many ways and so we have multiple names of the Lord known to us and yet
He is all these in one, not a multitude of gods with unique functions. It is appropriate that we praise Him for all
these revelations of Himself, the various Names of God can form our prayers of
praise as we exalt Him in all these ways.
Too often we have made discipleship a Bible Study without
action. The question we always need to
ask is, “Is this passage calling me to action?”
The incarnation, the Word becoming flesh, tells us that the Word of God
is to be lived not simply studied. The
Bible is a manual for life lived according to the will of the God who created
us. We are not hopelessly lost as to
what our Creator intended for us, He has told us and He has shown us how to
live. Several times in this passage
Jesus says that doing His commandments or keeping His word are on par with
knowing them. He has shown us the Father and revealed Him to us as loving and
forgiving, just what He said He was way back in the Exodus, not some new
attributes of God heretofore unknown.
All the attributes of God, His Names, are distilled into one Name, the
Name above all names, Jesus, the Lord saves.
We are called to be holy as God is holy. Peter says that formerly, before Christ, we
were conformed to our passions and now we are to be conformed to God’s will for
our lives. Our lives are to be re-made
and that will require a work of the Holy Spirit and effort on our part. We are to submit our lives to new
disciplines, training them for righteousness, and we are given the Helper for
the work if we will but rely on Him.
Peter says we are to conduct ourselves with fear because we have been
ransomed from futile ways. Do we see our
lives prior to Jesus as futile or do we see Him as being added on to those
lives? To what are our lives conformed?
Peter says, obedience to truth.
What truth would you say your life reveals and how does it reveal that
truth?
Be known to us in
breaking bread,
But do not then
depart;
Savior, abide with us,
and spread
Thy table in our
heart.
Lord, sup with us in
love divine;
Thy body and Thy
blood,
That living bread,
that heav’nly wine,
Be our immortal food.
No comments:
Post a Comment