June 22, 2017
Our God Is a Consuming Fire
The Lord is king!
Let the nations tremble!
He sits on his throne between the cherubim.
Let the whole earth quake!
Psalm 99:1
Does familiarity breed contempt?
When Jesus returned to his hometown of Nazareth, the people scoffed saying, “He’s just a carpenter, the son of Mary.”
They didn’t accept his teaching and “were
deeply offended and refused to believe in him.” (Mark 6: 1-4) They were too
close to Jesus. How could this young man they had seen grow up in their community
be the Messiah?
The writer of Hebrews strongly
urges his congregation to remember “since
we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us give thanks, by which
we offer to God an acceptable worship with reverence and awe; for indeed our
God is a consuming fire” (Hebrews 12:28-29). In twenty-first century
America, we would do well to contemplate this passage in Hebrews, and then read
Psalm 99, lest we succumb to the contemptible nature of Nazareth and scoff at
the Lordship of Jesus.
“The Lord is king!
Let the nations tremble!
He sits on his throne between the cherubim.
Let the whole earth quake!”
Psalm
99:1
Four times in nine verses the
psalmist refers to the holiness of God. Twice the psalmist urges Israel to “Exalt the Lord our God!” (v.5, 9) The
psalmist extols God’s virtues of justice, fairness, righteousness, and
forgiveness, and then calls Israel to worship, “for the Lord our God is holy!” (v.9)
Yes, in Christ we are now friends
with God (Romans 5:10-11). Yes, in Christ we can call God, Abba Father. Yes, we
are now heirs of God, joint heirs with Jesus. (Romans 8:15-17) Even so, The
Lord is king; the Lord our God is
holy!
In just a few days, we will
gather in our churches to praise the awesome and great name of our God. (Psalm
99:3) Today, let us begin preparing to offer God an acceptable worship with
reverence and awe; for indeed our God is a consuming fire” (Hebrews 12:28-29).
Sē’lah
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(Selah is a word that appears in the
Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my
correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about
these things.)
These
meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his
way of life. The meditations are published
on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/
and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may
subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com.
Copyright ©
2017 by Alex M. Knight
Publications by Alex M. Knight:
·
Seeking the Life in Christ, Meditations on the New
Testament and Psalms has been
published and is now available at Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle.
·
The second
edition of First Think – Then Pray is available on Amazon Kindle.
·
Meditations on The Story of My Life as told by Jesus
Christ has been released as an e-book on Amazon Kindle.
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