Wednesday, January 20, 2010, 7:57 a.m. – I woke with this song in mind:
All and More / NewSong
All I ever wanted was love
All I ever longed for was peace
All I ever needed was hope
Everything I reached for was wrong
To the very thrills here and gone
He was waiting there all along
He came to me
All of that I need he provides
Always he will be by my side
I will give to him all my life
Constantly he fills me with love
All I need and more than enough
Never been the same since the day he came to me
He’s all and more
That I hoped that he would be
He’s everything, (Christ is) everything to me
He calms my fears, and he wipes away my tears
He’s all and more to me
When you need a friend
Let me tell you he’s all and more
He’ll give you peace within
I said it, “He’s all and more”
With you ‘till the end
Jesus is all and more
All and more, all and more to me
Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening. I read Hebrews 8:
My Understanding: I read this in the news: New 6.1-quake hits Haiti, people flee into streets - Excite News - New 6.1-quake hits Haiti, people flee into streets.
That last sentence, spoken by Zizi, pretty much sums up what Hebrews 8 is all about. Zizi realized what many Jews and Catholics, as well as other faiths, have yet to realize, and that is that we don’t need any human mediators (dead or alive) to go between us and God anymore. Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection conquered death, hell and sin and made the way possible for us to go directly to God through Jesus Christ, His One and Only Son. He is our only mediator between man and God.
When Zizi was in her darkest hour, she knew that she could talk directly to God. That is awesome! I don’t know if she knows Jesus yet, but what she understood in her darkest hour is monumental for many of her Roman Catholic faith who still believe they have to go through human priests or that they need to pray to dead people in order to get to God. I thought it was great that she did not mention talking to anyone but her boss God. And, I liked it that she called him her “boss”, too!
Hebrews 8 begins by telling us about our high priest, Jesus Christ. He is the only priest we will ever need. His death, burial and resurrection tore that curtain in two that stood between God and man in the temple. Now God no longer dwells in buildings built by man, but he dwells in human hearts. So, if someone tells you when you enter a church building sanctuary that you are now in “God’s house,” don’t believe them, because that building is not God’s house. God’s house is now in human hearts. We no longer need a building to house God. And, we no longer need human priests to mediate between us and God or to make sacrifice for our sins, because Jesus paid it all! This is what Hebrews is all about.
The man-made temple was just a shadow and a copy of what is in heaven. “But the ministry that Jesus has received is as superior to theirs as the covenant of which he is mediator is superior to the old one, and it is founded on better promises.” So, so many people still believe that God dwells in buildings and that they need to go to a specific building in order to worship God. Many of them still believe that they need a human “priest” of some kind to mediate between them and God. And, others believe that they can pray to the dead and that they serve as mediators between them and God. Well, God did use to dwell in the temple, and he did use to use human priests to mediate between God and man, but that all changed when Jesus was crucified, when he was buried and when he rose again – amen! Yet, praying to the dead has never, ever been acceptable.
Ok, in vv. 10-13 it describes how this new covenant works. When Jesus Christ, via His Holy Spirit, enters the hearts of human beings, then we become the temple of God and God now dwells within us. And, the Holy Spirit becomes our teacher and the Word of God, the Bible, is God’s words to us to teach us. This does not do away entirely with human teachers as is evidenced in scripture and instructions in scripture that we are to make disciples of all nations. Yet, what it does mean is that we are able to learn from God without human mediation because we now have the word of God dwelling within us. And, that is awesome! It is so wonderful to go to God’s word each day, to pray for understanding, and to hear God’s voice speaking directly to my heart without any other voices in between us.
There are so many people searching for something – love, acceptance, belonging, value, worth, friendship, fellowship, peace, safety, good health, happiness, etc. And, yet, so many are looking for their needs to be met in the things of this world that are only temporary fixes, at best. They desire human acceptance over God’s acceptance. They value the temporary over the eternal. I believe Zizi came to an understanding of what was most valuable when she had nowhere else to turn. And, she turned to the right person. She turned to her boss, God Almighty! At least, that is my understanding of what she said she did. Her story moved me to tears. If only we could all realize what she came to realize in those moments, without us having to go through what she went through. If only we could understand what she understood in those moments when she had no one else – “I didn’t need any more humans.”
It isn’t that we don’t need one another. That is not what Zizi was saying and that is not what I am saying here, but when humans become our focal point for our lives; when acceptance of humans becomes more important to us than acceptance of God, then we need to take stock in who our real “boss” is. Humans will fail us. They will leave us. They will not be able to bring the aid that we need or they may halt the aid from coming to us for their own selfish purposes, but God will never leave us. Jesus is truly all that we need and He will supply the rest. Jesus is all and more to me!
All and More / NewSong
All I ever wanted was love
All I ever longed for was peace
All I ever needed was hope
Everything I reached for was wrong
To the very thrills here and gone
He was waiting there all along
He came to me
All of that I need he provides
Always he will be by my side
I will give to him all my life
Constantly he fills me with love
All I need and more than enough
Never been the same since the day he came to me
He’s all and more
That I hoped that he would be
He’s everything, (Christ is) everything to me
He calms my fears, and he wipes away my tears
He’s all and more to me
When you need a friend
Let me tell you he’s all and more
He’ll give you peace within
I said it, “He’s all and more”
With you ‘till the end
Jesus is all and more
All and more, all and more to me
Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening. I read Hebrews 8:
My Understanding: I read this in the news: New 6.1-quake hits Haiti, people flee into streets - Excite News - New 6.1-quake hits Haiti, people flee into streets.
That last sentence, spoken by Zizi, pretty much sums up what Hebrews 8 is all about. Zizi realized what many Jews and Catholics, as well as other faiths, have yet to realize, and that is that we don’t need any human mediators (dead or alive) to go between us and God anymore. Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection conquered death, hell and sin and made the way possible for us to go directly to God through Jesus Christ, His One and Only Son. He is our only mediator between man and God.
When Zizi was in her darkest hour, she knew that she could talk directly to God. That is awesome! I don’t know if she knows Jesus yet, but what she understood in her darkest hour is monumental for many of her Roman Catholic faith who still believe they have to go through human priests or that they need to pray to dead people in order to get to God. I thought it was great that she did not mention talking to anyone but her boss God. And, I liked it that she called him her “boss”, too!
Hebrews 8 begins by telling us about our high priest, Jesus Christ. He is the only priest we will ever need. His death, burial and resurrection tore that curtain in two that stood between God and man in the temple. Now God no longer dwells in buildings built by man, but he dwells in human hearts. So, if someone tells you when you enter a church building sanctuary that you are now in “God’s house,” don’t believe them, because that building is not God’s house. God’s house is now in human hearts. We no longer need a building to house God. And, we no longer need human priests to mediate between us and God or to make sacrifice for our sins, because Jesus paid it all! This is what Hebrews is all about.
The man-made temple was just a shadow and a copy of what is in heaven. “But the ministry that Jesus has received is as superior to theirs as the covenant of which he is mediator is superior to the old one, and it is founded on better promises.” So, so many people still believe that God dwells in buildings and that they need to go to a specific building in order to worship God. Many of them still believe that they need a human “priest” of some kind to mediate between them and God. And, others believe that they can pray to the dead and that they serve as mediators between them and God. Well, God did use to dwell in the temple, and he did use to use human priests to mediate between God and man, but that all changed when Jesus was crucified, when he was buried and when he rose again – amen! Yet, praying to the dead has never, ever been acceptable.
Ok, in vv. 10-13 it describes how this new covenant works. When Jesus Christ, via His Holy Spirit, enters the hearts of human beings, then we become the temple of God and God now dwells within us. And, the Holy Spirit becomes our teacher and the Word of God, the Bible, is God’s words to us to teach us. This does not do away entirely with human teachers as is evidenced in scripture and instructions in scripture that we are to make disciples of all nations. Yet, what it does mean is that we are able to learn from God without human mediation because we now have the word of God dwelling within us. And, that is awesome! It is so wonderful to go to God’s word each day, to pray for understanding, and to hear God’s voice speaking directly to my heart without any other voices in between us.
There are so many people searching for something – love, acceptance, belonging, value, worth, friendship, fellowship, peace, safety, good health, happiness, etc. And, yet, so many are looking for their needs to be met in the things of this world that are only temporary fixes, at best. They desire human acceptance over God’s acceptance. They value the temporary over the eternal. I believe Zizi came to an understanding of what was most valuable when she had nowhere else to turn. And, she turned to the right person. She turned to her boss, God Almighty! At least, that is my understanding of what she said she did. Her story moved me to tears. If only we could all realize what she came to realize in those moments, without us having to go through what she went through. If only we could understand what she understood in those moments when she had no one else – “I didn’t need any more humans.”
It isn’t that we don’t need one another. That is not what Zizi was saying and that is not what I am saying here, but when humans become our focal point for our lives; when acceptance of humans becomes more important to us than acceptance of God, then we need to take stock in who our real “boss” is. Humans will fail us. They will leave us. They will not be able to bring the aid that we need or they may halt the aid from coming to us for their own selfish purposes, but God will never leave us. Jesus is truly all that we need and He will supply the rest. Jesus is all and more to me!
