Day of Praise

Fri, 09/19/14. "Day of Praise"

"The LORD bless you and keep you: The LORD make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you: The LORD lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace." - Numbers 6:24-27

If I've told you once, I've told you a million times, "stop exaggerating!" In that vein, we've probably heard, read, said, or prayed the blessing in today's verse a gazillion times, which means one thing, namely, see what somebody else has to say about it!

And guess what I found? An article at
www.ancient hebrew.org/40_numbers1.html by Jeff A. Benner of the Ancient Hebrew Research Center. The article gives great insight to the ancient blessing. For those who can't follow the link to see how he gets there,
here's the translation by Mr. Benner:
"Yahweh (he who exists) will kneel before you presenting gifts and will guard you with a hedge of protection, Yahweh (he who exists) will illuminate the wholeness of his being toward you bringing order and he will provide you with love, sustenance and friendship, Yahweh (he who exists) will lift up his wholeness of being and look upon you and he will set in place all you need to be whole and complete."

What I hear in that translation of the blessing is that God Almighty wants to serve us, guard us, guide us, provide for us, encourage us, and give us every single thing that we really and truly need to be happy. Wow! That's a lot! Almost seems exaggerated.

Before she died in her 80's, a charter member of our church, Juanita Hoffmann, was receiving Holy Communion. After hearing a brief explanation about Communion, she asked, "Jesus did all that for me?"

Yes, Juanita, Almighty God, through His Son, Jesus Christ, does all that for you and for all who will believe His promises (as in Communion) and His blessings (as in Numbers 6). And that's no exaggeration!

Praise God!


Pastor Chris
"The gospel is the story of Jesus [what God's only Son has done for us that we can't do for ourselves], spoken as a promise." - Robert Jenson