Tune and Prepare!

by Andrew Wilson 8 divine names Hebrew terms for God appear across the Old Testament. The prophet Isaiah brings them all together. If you were a child of Christian parents in the 1980s or 1990s, there is a decent chance that at some point you memorized the Hebrew names for God. Like Jehovah Jireh, which means “the Lord will provide” (Gen. 22:14). Or Jehovah Rapha: “The Lord heals” (Ex. 15:26). Or Jehovah Nissi: “The Lord is my banner” (17:15). There are eight such names altogether. (Besides the examples from Genesis and Exodus, they appear in Leviticus 20:8, Judges 6:24, Psalm 23:1, Jeremiah 23:6, and Ezekiel 48:35.) Learning these names—and in my case singing songs about them (with gradually accelerating Jewish melodies)—was just something we all did. Ever since, I have been unable to read the passages where Scripture introduces them without thinking of the names themselves, the songs they inspired, and the stories that gave them meaning. Clearly they made qu...

"And because you are sons [and daughters], God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!”" Galatians 4:6 It is a well-known prayer even for non-Christians. However, not many people know that it is basically a prayer pattern and not a mantra that loses its meaning after a while. Many people today pray it auto­matically. Jesus the King prays it systematically . We need to rephrase some of the following expres­sions to make their meaning clearer.  We must see that Jesus Christ showed this pattern to his disciples to give them a framework for their daily prayer. It is a preference & reference too: for Jesus, the key issue is that God's names be known and His Kingdom be here on Earth in the splendour and power as it is in Heaven. In other words - that the Heaven would touch Earth and God's restoration would be at work. When Heaven touches the Earth our perspective is restored....