Happy UP - Day 3

Nutter is right! This does get easier as you do it!

1. Efficient at work
The busiest time of the month at work starts for me tomorrow. A lot of information I wait on others for was sent early this month end, so I was able to start on a lot of things today. I had a to do list for myself today and I was able to get it all accomplished as well as a few extra things! This is a Happy UP because it makes me walk away from the day feeling like I got a lot accomplished and more importantly it means I should be able to finish up earlier in the next few days. That means more time with my family.

2. Good book and a bubble bath
This is my favorite way to relax and I had time today to take a nice warm bubble bath and to enjoy a good book. This is always a Happy UP!

3. Honest Friends
As I blog tonight, American Idol is on the TV. This is the beginning of the show when they do the auditions and bring in the best and worst. I must say that watching this makes me very thankful and happy that I have family and friends that are honest with me. I know the limits of my singing abilities, however if I was ever to delude myself that I was good, they would set me straight. God loves my voice because I'm his creation, but my voice is not one of the blessings he gave me to share with others!

Are you doing your Happy UPs?

Happy UP - Day 2

It is late and I am tired, so today's will be short and sweet.

1. Time to sleep

I woke up briefly today at 4:00 AM and was so happy to look a the alarm clock and realize I could cozy back up to my hubby and get some more sleep before having to crawl out to start my new day.

2. Church House

I love my church house and tonight was no different. It is great spending time with people who are like family and I can be totally open and honest around. We've all grown so much closer to one another and and to God in the past years.

3. My comfy bed

As soon as I get done with this I'll be brushing my teeth and hair, washing my face, slipping into some cozy PJs and then crawling into my nice comfy bed. This last time I was pregnant I talked my husband into getting one of those mattress toppers made of the memory foam material. It is so comfortable!

Well, I'm off to finish off my Happy UP day, goodnight!

It's Happy UP time again!!!! - DAY 1

The Nutster is up to it again. He has named this week as an official Happy UP week. If you don't know what that is, check out his blog, Nutter's Notes.

I'm a day behind, but it is always better late than never. My Happy UP week begins today!

1. My cold is going away! Everyone around me has been getting sick lately. All my friends at work, my kids, my husband (who never gets sick) and it finally caught up to me on Friday. The good news is that I did not get it anywhere near as bad as they did. I only got a stuffy head cold, no throwing up. Today I woke up still not feeling totally myself, but definitely doing better already.

2. My kids! It is great to come home after a long day at work and have three little individuals come running up to me with hugs and kisses. (Okay, so two run up to me, the other does the 'commando' crawl) The way they act you would think my walking in that front door was the best Happy UP of their day too!

3. My friends! Lately I've been going through something (which I'll share at a later date) and through it God has blessed me in many ways. One way is to open my eyes to how many wonderful friends I have that support me and believe in me. If any of you happen to read this, I want you to know that I value your friendship and you mean the world to me.

Now that you know my Day 1 Happy UPs consider joining in and making this your Happy UP week as well. If you do, leave me a comment so I can share in your Happiness!

Current (or soon to be ) Reads

If you are interested, here are some current reads for me or in some cases books that I'm getting soon and looking forward to reading.

The Minor Protection Act
by Jodi Cowles
(Fiction)

This is a fiction book that so far is really good. In the first couple chapters the parents of a young girl who commits suicide are on a mission to stop what they consider a hate crime. They had determined from their daughter's personal journals she had been struggling with her sexuality. She had "discovered" in junior high that she was gay and in high school had become friends with a Christian boy. The boy was a friend to her and loved her, but was honest about how he felt about her lifestyle. This filled her with confusion and despair which led to her suicide. The boy was charged with a hate crime and is serving a 15 year sentence and the parents have hired a law firm to pass what has become known as the Minor Protection Act. Since they say the boy may have been a productive member of society if it had not been for his parent's 'systematic poisoning of his brain since birth' they say the parent's are ultimately responsible. Therefore, this act would allow children to be reomved from homes in which parents are "hateful, intolerant and bigoted" (too Christian).

I'm not all that far into the book yet, but so far it is very good and thought-provoking.



Restoration: Returning the Torah of God to the Disciples
by D. Thomas Lancaster
(NonFiction)

I have not yet obtained this book, but will have it come this weekend. I am really looking forward to reading it and know at least one person who has read it already and has only good things to say about it. It is basically an introduction to Torah in simple and easy to understand terms. Check out more information on this book at First Fruits of Zion - Restoration As I start to read this one, I'm sure I'll be sharing some of the information I learn.

Another book from this website that I am interested in is King of the Jews: Recurrecting the Jewish Jesus.

Made to Love You

Toby Mac has a new album coming out next month called Portable Sounds. One of the tracks on this CD has already been released and I've heard it numerous times now on different Christian radio stations. The name of the song is Made to Love and while listening to it on the way home from House Church tonight, the lyrics really hit home with me and made me start thinking.

Here is an excerpt:

Made to Love
by Toby Mac
CD: Portable Sounds

What ever happened to a passion I could live for?
What became of the flame that made me feel more?
And when did I forget…

Chours:
That I was made to love You
I was made to find You
I was made just for You
Made to adore You
I was made to love
and be loved by You
You were here before me
You were waiting on me
And You said You'd keep me
never would You leave me
I was made to love
And be loved by You

I especially like the very beginning of the chorus. It made me reflect on my relationship with God recently. Do I really live my life to show that I was made for Him, to love and adore Him?

Do I really realize how much He loves me? That He fashioned me with His own hands? That I am His Beloved? That He is faithful to me no matter how many times I've turned from Him? That He is that way because He loves me, not because of anything I've done for Him? He does not need me, but He desires a relationship with Me?

Another excerpt from the end of the song is:

I'm reachin' out,
reachin' up,
reachin' over
I feel a breeze cover me called Jehovah
And Daddy I'm on my way…

I don't think the answer to the questions I posed above is YES as often as it should be (should be 100% of the time!). Therefore, the part of the song above is my desire for my life right now. I'm reaching up to God to find that passion again. He has started to burn that passion in me again lately and I'm going to reach for it with all I've got. Do you want to join me?

Website to check out!

First I want to thank Traver for telling me about this website. I took some time tonight to check this out and believe it is a great resource.

FFOZ - First Fruits of Zion

If you are interested in finding out more about Christianity's Jewish roots, I recommend this site. Especially, the following pages:

FAQs
Vision and Mission

I have not had the chance to check out all the resources they have on this website yet, but I've look at everything regarding who they are and what their mission is. I've bookmarked this as one of my frequent visit sites.

Check it out and let me know what you think.

Why the Interest in Jewish Roots?

Most of my close friends understand why I'm interested in my faith's Jewish roots, but I also have been getting my fair share of weird looks. Especially since I started carrying the Complete Jewish Bible around with me for reading material.

Jonathan on Flock's Diner has made a post today that sums up the conclusion I have come to (with God's guidance, I truely believe) and the reasoning behind it. Who Is Your Jesus? Check it out!

The bottom line is I believe in order to understand Jesus and grow closer in my relationship with Him, I need to understand who He was and how He lived.

I'm by no means ready to throw out everything I've learned regarding Jesus and the Bible throughout my life, but I am ready to challenge certain things to ensure they are a true picture of Jesus and not my culture's picture of who He was.

What's the fascination all about?

A year ago if you had asked me what a blog was, I would have been clueless. But here I am now, blogging away with tons of other blogs marked in my Favorites.

I started thinking tonight about this new fascination with blogs and what drives it. I've decided it is similar to the Reality TV fascination we have in this country right now. Now I know some of you avid bloggers may find this offensive. You would NEVER admit to a fascination with Reality TV, but I think the root interest is the same.

For us bloggers, this is a way to communicate with the rest of the world. We can voice our opinions, our thoughts or just record our day to day activities. For those who read the blogs, I think the fascination is being able to step momentarily into the world of someone else. A someone else who is a real live person, not someone in a book made up in somebody else's imagination or someone on a TV show or movie with scripted lines.

We get the chance to step into not only their lives, but their minds. We can see what they are thinking, what they are feeling. I think as human beings we have a desire to connect with others and blogging gives us a "safe" way to do so without having to risk a deeper relationship.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm just as addicted as everyone else and don't see myself stopping anytime soon. I love to write and my blog has enabled me to do so on a more regular basis. Knowing someone out there may read what I have to say and be interested motivates me more than a notebook I know only I will ever see. I pray my blog will touch someone along the way and I do not discount the relationships that can be developed via blogs, email, etc. However I just pray this does not replace real live relationships in which we interact face to face.

I do find it interesting how fast this has taken off and how many different types of blogs I can find out there in cyberspace. Just look at my favorites and you'll find a wide variety.

Anyway, I guess tonight I am just rambling on hoping someone is listening. These are my thoughts and thanks to our wonderful technology I can record them for anyone to read who is brave enough to momentarily step into my world.

Charlotte's Web

I had some free tickets for the movie theater, so I decided to spend some one on one time with my daugther and take her to the movies. We decided to go see Charlotte's Web.

I must say they did a great job on this movie. I remember reading this book when I was young and watching the cartoon version multiple times.

The story line for the movie was true to what I remember of the original AND I was impressed with how they animated the animals. In the past many movies I've seen you can tell someone has manipulated the film of the animals with a computer to make it appear they are actually doing the talking. I really did not notice that at all in this movie and was able to enjoy it without thinking "that looked weird" the whole time.

I definitely recommend this movie as something for the family to enjoy or for anyone who cherishes this story from their childhood. They also added many humorous lines that flowed well with the story.

I give it a "Go See It" rating! And my five year old daughter, seconds that.

Between Reason & Recess

McNair Wilson is a person who has inspired me. A few years back he spoke at my little church in Roseville, CA and unfortunately I was not there to hear him. However, someone who knew I was toying with the idea of starting to write again, brought me a CD from that day.



I listened to that CD a couple times and it was the "kick in the pants" I needed. I started writing again and I came alive! I've determined that I was born to write and I live to write. I later heard McNair speak at a writer's conference and after that started visiting his blog, Tea with McNair.



He has started an exercise called Between Reason & Recess which I decided to participate in. The most recent lesson had to do with finding things in your life that you do that could be passed on to someone else who is better than you at them and other ways to eliminate things from your life that can save you time and money. This freeing up of time and money is so you can redirect those resources to what you are good at. We should be spending our time and efforts on those things we love and excel at.



This lesson is Lassie Get Help!



For this lesson we were to identify items we could change. In the first column are three things I currently do (the lesson required that you NOT write these out). The second column is things I can do to save money and time in order to redirect my efforts.



Here is my lesson . . .

More Did you know?

Some more Jewish tidbits I've picked up recently. . .

1. Genesis 10:21 - Shem is the father/ancestor of all the sons of Eber ('Ever). This is why the Hebrews descendants are called Semites. Abraham (Avraham) was a descendant of the clan of Eber ('Ever).

2. Hebrew was originally written using pictograph script.

3. By the time Jesus was born the common language among the Hebrews was Aramaic, however Hebrew was used in the synagogues and during Temple worship. Jesus would have known both Aramaic and Hebrew.

4. Hebrew does not depict numbers in the way we as Westerners are used to seeing. Instead of having specific characters for numbers, Hebrew uses letters of the alphabet to express quantities. This helps to explain why you'll sometimes hear about certain words having a numerical value, (ie. the number of YHVH is 26). In addition, the Hebrew numbers have masculine and feminine genders. Therefore, the character you use to depict a certain quantity depends on whether the noun being described is masculine or feminine.

5. The Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4-9) is the core Hebrew prayer and is the central prayer of the Jewish prayerbook (Siddur). Many Jews will recite this prayer at least two times a day, in the morning and at bedtime.

There is so much more to each of these items that I can not even begin to get into tonight. Just a little bit of a teaser to get you interested in learning more!

HaShem - The Name (הַשֵּׁם‎)

הַשֵּׁם‎

My Aunt sent me information regarding the name HaShem. Outside of prayer and Torah readings, this is what most Jews use when refering to God. It literally means "The Name".

She wrote: (posted with her permission)

Just wanted to give you a bit more information on use of God’s name. I’ve never heard any Jews use the word Jehovah and the ones I know would only consider that to be a Christian term being used. That’s pretty much along the same line as the article you referred to in your blog. I wanted to give you info on something they didn’t seem to mention.

What I’m familiar with is the use of Adonai in prayer, but in casual conversation they would use “Hashem” which means “The Name”. Ha = the and Shem = name. If you do a search on HaShem I’m sure you’ll have no trouble finding all kinds of references to it. It is one of the most common usages in casual conversation I’ve heard among Jews I’ve been around.


She also referenced the following:

"HaShem" - (both and neither masculine nor feminine and absolutely no plural); the word means, literally, "The Name," and it is the way that Jews refer to G-d when not in a Prayer or Torah Reading or Torah citation context. The reason is that the Torah forbids us from pronouncing the four-letter Name of HaShem in other than ritual contexts, and even then using only certain Names (other than the four-letter one, known as the Tetragrammaton) that embody characteristics, such as A-donai, E-l, E-lohim.

(Information from Judaism 101 at Orthodox Union)

* * * * * * * * * *

The link from yesterday's post regarding YHVH also included a short section about HaShem part way down the page, saying this is what most Jews use during everyday reference to God. Hebrew4Christians - YHVH

This is all very new (and interesting) to me. If you've found anything further, please let me know. I've done studies regarding the names of God before, but this was not covered during those studies.

The Name of God

Johnny posted a comment of clarification regarding the "Christian" name of God, Jehovah. Here is what he posted in case you did not read the comment.

The name Jehovah is actually not a name for God, but a protection against saying the name of God. It is literally the name Adonai and YHWH, superimposed to prevent anyone coming across the name YHWH from saying the name. This was done sometime after the exiles, when the Jews were fearful that their scrolls would be lost and someone may come across them and accidentally say God's name. The reason that it was not acceptable to say God's name came about after the exiles when the Jews began to take a literal rendering of the commandment to not take the Lord' name in vein. In the 16th century a scholar came across the name "Jehovah" and assumed it was another name for God. You can read about this at http://www.jerusalemperspective.com/ by clicking on articles and typing "Jehovah" in the search block. You will have to get a membership to read the entire article ($60 per year and worth it), but you'll still get the gist of the article.

Here is a link to the article he refers to that you can read without subscribing to the website.

"Jehovah" - A Christian Misunderstanding

Another really good article I found regarding this "name" of God is found on the Hebrew4Christians website (which I have found very useful since I found it!) It has quite a few other names of God explained as well.

The Sacred Name YHVH - The Unutterable Name

I find it so amazing what I'm finding out by digging into our Jewish Roots as Christians. My faith and relationship with the my Lord is becoming so much richer! I know different people have been worried about where this journey may lead me, but so far it has drawn me closer to Jesus and increased my desire to learn more about Him.

Did you know. . . ?

1. The Tanakh was originally written without any vowels and the Torah scrolls read in the synagogue today also contain only consonants.

2. Without the vowels, Hebrew words could be pronounced in many different ways which can mean different things (just like English, how would you pronounce st?) The reader would know how to pronounce the word and therefore the correct meaning by the context of the surrounding words.

3. When the Hebrew language started to fall into disuse, scribes called Masoretes developed a system in the 6th to 9th century for notating the correct vowels. Masoretes comes from the Hebrew word masoret meaning tradition.

4. The name of God given to Moses at the burning bush consists of four letters Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh (known as a tetragrammaton). Because the third commandment prohibits taking the Lord's name in vain, by Jesus' time on earth, no one ever spoke the name of God. Many times in Jewish writing instead of Jehovah (the English representation) you'll see J-H-V-H or you'll see God as G-d.

5. The word Adonai (meaning My Lord) is often used instead of the name of God when reading aloud the Torah.

6. Where the Hebrew text is translated as Adonai Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh, it is read as Adonai-Elohim, to avoid repeating the name twice.

7. In ultra-orthodox Jewish congregations even the names of Adonai and Elohim are not used except in very specific religious situations. In some cases the names are intentionally misspelled and mispronounced. For example, Elokim instead of Elohim.

8. Traditional Judaism follows a yearly schedule of weekly Torah readings for each Shabbat (Sabbath, which falls on Saturday) followed by selected portions from the Prophets which have a related theme. This weekly reading is called a parashah. The following site has a really good explanation of these as well as a table detailing the weekly readings. Weekly Torah Readings. There are additional readings that are done for the Jewish Holidays.

Martin Luther King Jr.

Today we celebrate the life, accomplishments and the dream of a great man who changed our nation. The more I learn about Martin Luther King Jr. and what he did for our country, the more impressed I am with the changes he made, his character and his insistence that change be made in a non-violent way.

I also find it sad that so few people know or understand what he stood for and why we celebrate his life. I honestly don't know as much about him as I would like, which is why I am spending a portion of this day researching his life and accomplishments. I'm finding that our nation today does not understand quite a few of the holidays our nation celebrates. Many do not understand Veterans Day and what/who it honors, for example. I find this very sad, not only because those who should be honored are not, but also because we can learn so much if we bothered to understand them better.

The other thing I've noticed in our country is the use of violence to get ideas across or what has been labeled "reverse racism". I believe Martin Luther King would be just as disappointed and saddened by this as he was by what he dealt with during his life. He stood for equality, respect and honor for ALL races. We need to take the higher ground and not stoop to the level of those who have hurt us. I know that is sometimes hard to do.

I find it very sad that as humans we have a habit of taking something good to an extreme in which the underlying purpose is twisted to our own selfish purpose. We are all guilty of this to a certain extent and we need to constantly examine what we believe and how we live that belief in our lives.

Please take some time today to better understand this great man who loved the Lord and stood up for his beliefs in such an honorable way. We can all learn something from his example.

Jewish "New Testament" (B'rit Hadashah)

What Christians label (and separate out) as the New Testament is called the B'rit Hadashah. There are four different sections, the Gospels, the Acts of the Emissaries, the Letters and Revelation.

In the introduction to the Complete Jewish Bible, David Stern makes a good point (at least in my opinion). He has chosen to not separate out the Tanakh and the B'rit Hadashah into two distinct separate sections.

"The two parts of the Bible, the Tanakh and the B'rit Hadashah, form one Bible. These two parts deal with parallel material in complementary ways...the New Testament apart from the Old is heretical, and the Old Testament apart from the New is incomplete - two testaments, one Bible."

Due to this he has not divided the Complete Jewish Bible into the Old and New Testament, but rather into seven sections. The Torah, the Prophets and the Writings which I detailed out in my previous post and the four additional sections detailed below.

The Gospels (The Good News of Yeshua the Messiah as reported by . . .)
1. Mattityahu (Matthew)
2. Mark
3. Luke
4. Yochanan (John)

The Acts of the Emissaries of Yeshua the Messiah

Letters/Epistles

1. Sha'ul's (Paul's) Letters to Communities
a. Romans
b. 1 Corinthians
c. 2 Corinthians
d. Galatians
e. Ephesians
f. Philippines
g. Colossians
h. 1 Thessalonians
i. 2 Thessalonians

2. Sha'ual's (Paul's) Pastoral Letters (to Individuals)
a. 1 Timothy
b. 2 Timothy
c. Titus
d. Philemon

3. General Letters
a. Messianic Jews (Hebrews)
b. Ya'akov (James)
c. 1 Kefa (1 Peter)
d. 2 Kefa (2 Peter)
e. 1 Yochanan (1 John)
f. 2 Yochanan (2 John)
g. 3 Yochanan (3 John)
h. Y'hudah (Jude)

The Revelation of Yeshua the Messiah to Yochanan (John)

New Content on website

In case you are interested I've changed/updated the content on my website. If you want to check it out you can visit the sites below. They are listed on the sidebar of my blog as well if you want to visit them any other time in the future. I'll try to be better about keeping them updated.

Ang4him Website
Ang4him Reading Room

Things that make me go. . .HMM?!

While studying the Jewish roots of Christianity a couple of things have struck me recently as interesting:

1. While the entire Bible is God's Word and was originally a "Jewish" book (written by Jews with God's inspiration), nowadays you'll note many Jews (excluding Messianic Jews of course)deny what Christians call the New Testament or New Covenant as well as Jesus as the Messiah. On the other side you have many Christians discounting the importance of the Old Testament. I believe we need both to fully understand God and develop a deeper relationship with Him. One without the other gives us an incomplete picture of our awesome Creator.

2. Currently you find Christians trying to convert Jews to "their" religion of Christianity. Sometimes in doing so they are expecting them to give up their Jewish heritage/traditions/customs/culture. However, the question in the early church (which was originally 100% Jewish) was whether Gentiles (non-Jews) could be followers of Christ and if so, did they need to convert to Judaism in order to do so.

Maybe we should think about finding the true answer somewhere in between? Seems the church over time has gone from one extreme to the other. Just my thoughts.

What I’m learning – (Jewish) Books of the Bible

Below are my notes regarding what I’m learning about the contents of the Bible in Hebrew. I honestly don’t know how to actually pronounce all of these yet, but I want to and will work on that next.

Tanakh – What we Christians call the Old Testament. It is made up of three parts

Torah – The first five books of the Bible constitute the Pentateuch, the Five Books of Moshe (Moses).
1. B’resheet (Genesis)
2. Sh’mot (Exodus)
3. Vayikra (Leviticus)
4. B’midbar (Numbers)
5. D’varim (Deuteronomy)

The Prophets are divided into two parts, the Early Prophets and Later Prophets

Nevi’im Rishonim (Early Prophets)
1. Y’hoshua (Joshua)
2. Shof’tim (Judges)
3. Sh’mu’el Alef and Bet (1 – 2 Samuel)
4. M’lakhim Alef and Bet (1 – 2 Kings)

Nevi’im Acharonim (Later Prophets)
1. Yesha’yahu (Isaiah)
2. Yirmeyahu (Jeremiah)
3. Yechezk’el (Ezekiel)
4. Shneim-‘Asar (The Twelve, known also as the Minor Prophets)

The Twelve include:
1. Hoshea (Hosea)
2. Yo’el (Joel)
3. ‘Amos (Amos)
4. ‘Ovadyah (Obadiah)
5. Yonah (Jonah)
6. Mikhah (Micah)
7. Nachum (Nahum)
8. Havakuk (Habakkuk)
9. Tz’fanyah (Zephaniah)
10. Hagai (Haggai)
11. Z’kharyah (Zechariah)
12. Mal’akhi (Malachi)

K’tuvim (The Writings)
1. Tehillim (Psalms)
2. Mishlei (Proverbs)
3. Iyov (Job)
4. The Five Megillot (Scrolls) - see below
5. Dani'el (Daniel)
6. Ezra-Nechemyah (Ezra-Nehemiah)
7. Divrei-HaYamim Alef and Bet (1-2 Chronicles)

The Five Megillot (Scrolls) include:
1. Shir-HaShirim (Song of Solomon/Song of Songs)
2. Rut (Ruth)
3. Eikhah (Lamentations)
4. Kohelet (Ecclesiastes)
5. Ester (Esther)

There are differences between the Christian Old Testament and the Jewish Tanakh which I will try to go into more depth on at a later time (when I understand them better myself), however as you can see from above, the order of the books is one of those differences. The number of books are also one difference because the Jewish Tanakh combines some books the Christian Old Testament separate out (ie The Twelve).

More to come. . . My next posting will be regarding the Christian New Testament.

Jewish "Engagement"

I rarely just post a link to someone else's blog, however I really find this blog informative and really liked this post.

It is discussing the Jewish tradition of what we would consider the engagement period. I found it very interesting and he makes a nice tie-in to our being ready for Christ's return at the end.

Enjoy!

Flock's Diner - Is the Bride Ready?

My Thoughts

Today I found some things I wrote a year or two ago that were good reminders. I thought they might be good to post and keep as constant reminders to myself, which means I get to share them with you as well!

In keeping with my last posting regarding the Holy Spirit, the following are things I wrote as specific steps I can take to live my life controlled by the Spirit.

1. Make sure to stay in the Word daily and memorize scripture (hide His Word in my heart).

2. Pray daily, spend quiet time daily in communion with my God.

3. Look to Jesus in times of temptation instead of trying to fight sin all on my own because I can not do it!

4. Make sure my motives are pure. I should obey God out of respect and love for Him, not to impress Him or gain His approval.

5. Realize I can do NOTHING without God. When I think I can do things of my own power I am only fooling myself.

* * * * * * * * *

This I wrote regarding being faithful in every job God gives us, regardless of how big or small those jobs may be in the eyes of the world.

There are no large or small jobs with God because His emphasis/concern is on you listening and obeying Him. Since this is His focus (and should be ours too) all jobs with God are equal. Sometimes for us the small jobs are harder because our ego and pride get involved.

Isaiah 11 – Holy Spirit (Spirit of God)

There shall come forth a Rod from the stem of Jesse,
And a Branch shall grow out of his roots.
The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him,
The Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
The Spirit of counsel and might,
The Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord
(Isaiah 11:1-2)

Christians believe these two passages are prophecies regarding the Messiah, Jesus Christ. They talk about how He will be from the line of Jesse and talks of how the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, will rest upon Him.

The amazing thing is that this same Spirit of God that rested on Jesus, is in each of us who have chosen to put our trust and lives in His hands.

If you keep reading, verse 2 tells you about this Spirit of God, it tells you his characteristics that will be given to the Messiah, wisdom, understanding, counsel, might and knowledge and fear of the Lord. These characteristics are available to us as well if we’ve accepted Jesus as our savior because God’s Spirit comes to dwell inside us.

However, these manifestations of God’s Spirit in our lives depends wholly on our response to the Spirit’s prompting. He does not “possess” us and take over. We must choose to listen and act in faith upon the promptings of the Spirit. He comes to live in us, but we choose how much of our lives to give over to Him.

Do you have wisdom, understanding, counsel, might, knowledge and fear of the Lord apparent in your life? I know the fruit of my life often does not reflect these characteristics. I recognize though it is not because the Spirit is not in me, or because He does not want to give me these things. He gives me the choice to choose between controlling things myself or giving my life over the Him, every part of my life. That is my striving for this next year. To better understand and develop my relationship with the Spirit and to give my life over to Him. I truly believe the results will be amazing. Are you ready to walk with me in this adventure? How much control will you give Him?