Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Worship Wednesdays: The Name of the Lord (Part 2)

This week I want to continue looking at the names of God in the Old Testament and talk about how they should influence the way we approach worship. To recap last week we talked about Elohim  which meant the Almighty God and is associated with God being the Creator. This week I want to look at El Elyon.


18 And Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine; now he was a priest of God Most High. 19 He blessed him and said, "Blessed be Abram of God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth; 20 And blessed be God Most High,  








who has delivered your enemies into your hand." He gave him a tenth of all.

The phrase God Most High is repeated three times in the above passage. In Hebrews this is El Elyon. Take a look at verse 19. He is described as the Possessor of heaven and earth. Some translations have this as Creator, but I think Possessor fits nicely here. This shows us God as sovereign, as ruler over all He has created.

Let that sink in for a moment. He is the ruler of EVERYTHING. He can honestly and truly answer why questions with "I said so." It is this name that carries His authority over life. He makes the rules, whether you like it or not. But what about all the bad things that happen to us in life?

2 Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, 3 knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. 4 And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. James 1:2-4

Sometimes God uses trials to form something better in our lives, this might be a character trait we are lacking or a way of drawing us closer to Him. God may use wars, famines, floods, and other tragedies to judge nations or to bring people to know Jesus as Savior. More often than not we will never know the reasons behind tragedy and suffering, but we can be sure that God is in control and He knows what He is doing.

He is King of kings and Lord of lords, and we would be wise to remember that He is the focus of our worship. It's not about our personalities, our preferences in music, or our traditions. It's about honoring God and obeying His rules. Ultimately we belong to God our creator, and we worship Him because we were created to worship Him.

Read Part 3 here.

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