Monthly Archives: August 2009

Names of God – Jehovah (YHWH)

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When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to him and said, “I am God Almighty; walk before me and be blameless. 2I will confirm my covenant between me and you and will greatly increase your numbers.” (Genesis 17:1-2)

I the LORD do not change. (Malachi 3:6)

Sometimes called God’s “covenant name“, sometimes called the “Tetragrammaton“, this name for God is 4 letters in the Hebrew: Yodh, He, Waw, He — YHWH — which, if you add vowels, becomes Yahweh. This is THE name of God, used over 6,800 times in Scripture, and carries 2 major connotations:

  • God never changes.
  • His promises never fail.

Whenever you see the word LORD in your Bible printed in all capital letters, this is the name Yahweh, or Jehovah. If you see Lord, with just the first letter capitalized, that is the Greek word Adonai, and there is a very close connection between LORD and Lord. I’ll leave it to you to discover the connection through your own study.

Let’s be thankful that we have a God Who does not change (Numbers 23:19, Hebrews 7:21), and Who is faithful to His promises (Joshua 23:14-15).

Living without sin — it IS possible!

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8If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.…10If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives. 1 John 1:8, 10

That seems pretty clear — we all sin. That’s exactly what Paul wrote to the Romans as well — “all have sinned” (Romans 3:23). That word “all” is pretty inclusive.

Ok, so no argument there. I’m a sinner. But I want to be this guy: “…the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him” (Psalm 32:2, quoted in Romans 4:8).

Quick recap: No one can claim to be without sin. If we claim we haven’t sinned, we’re calling God a liar. There is someone who, when he sins, God doesn’t count it against him.

Do I have that straight? Because it’s not really adding up.

It’s not adding up because I’m not considering the whole context. Let’s see that 1 John passage again:

5This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. 6If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. 7But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. 8If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. 9If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 10If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives. 1 John 1:5-10

“All have sinned”, but if we don’t see ourselves as sinners, we have no need to confess anything (v. 9), do we? I believe John is telling us that if you’re “living in the light”, as opposed to “living in darkness” (v. 6), your focus is on Jesus rather than on yourself, and you’re living for Him rather than for yourself. If that is the case, then you are the one “whose sin the Lord will never count against him” (Psalm 32:2). Therefore in a very real sense you can claim, through the victory of Jesus, that you have no sin because Jesus has taken it away! Those who claim because of their own pride and their own goodness that they have no sin — they are deceived indeed, and have no truth in them (v. 8).

Staying connected

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In the 19 months we’ve maintained this blog, we’ve picked up a few subscribers, but I’m betting there are still plenty of people who drop by once in a while to read a post or two, intending to check back later for new content, but just forget. That’s understandable, especially if you work in front of a computer all day, like I do, and have plenty of email and websites running through your mind all day.

Let me make it easy for you.

There are 4 ways to read the blog periodically, 2 of which I recommend and 2 I don’t.

  1. Bookmark. You could just bookmark the URL (uniform resource locator — the web address, in other words). Not recommended because it’s too easy to forget to come back.
  2. Alarm clock. You could set your alarm clock to get up 30 minutes earlier than normal, spend the first 15 minutes wondering why you’re up so early, and the other 15 minutes checking this blog to see if we’d posted anything since yesterday morning. Not recommended for obvious reasons.
  3. Subscribe by email. To subscribe by email, just type your email address into the space in the left sidebar, and click Subscribe. If you do this, I guarantee 3 things:
    1. We will never ever use your email address for any reason other than to automatically send you a once-a-day email with the day’s post(s). No posts that day? No email.
    2. Not only will we not abuse your privacy, but neither will Google. Google comes into the picture here, because email subscriptions to this blog are handled by Feedburner, which is part of Google.
    3. You can unsubscribe easily, any time you want, and without answering a bunch of “why” questions.
  4. Subscribe by RSS. You might have noticed the links near the top of the blog, directly beneath the header, ENTRIES RSS and COMMENTS RSS, and wondered what that meant. “RSS” stands for “really simple syndication”. Does that help? (It didn’t help me, first time I heard it.) RSS can be confusing at first, but it’s — well, really simple. Rather than describe it here, I’ll point you at 2 links that will help: How to Sign Up for RSS Feeds, an article on eHow.com, and RSS in Plain English, a video by Common Craft. If you choose to subscribe by RSS, the “Entries RSS” is the link you need.

So, set your alarm clock if you want, but the email and the RSS options are the routes I recommend. Choose the one that works better for you.

How to Sign Up for RSS Feeds