No pagan god is like you, O Lord. None can do what you do! All the nations you made will come and bow before you, Lord; they will praise your holy name. For you are great and perform wonderful deeds. You alone are God.
The Old Testament (Hebrew)
Scriptures declare that the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph is one God,
and He is alone in that…there is no other true God.
The Shema is like the Christian
affirmation of faith, what we believe about God. It is the basic prayer every orthodox Jew
prays; it begins this way;.
“Listen, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. Deuteronomy 6:4
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Jesus affirmed that first tenet of faith
to the Pharisees who came to question him:
Jesus replied, “The most important commandment is this: ‘Listen, O Israel! The Lord our God is the one and only Lord. Mark 12:29
And, now for the part that gets
every Christian preacher in deep, and very hot water, for being faithful to the
veracity of the Word of God:
To believe this…that only Yahweh is God, and there is no
other; that He, alone, is God, makes God an EX-clusive God, as
opposed to IN-clusive.
To say it one other, perhaps more
offensive way: to believe that ONLY Yahweh, Jehovah God, is the true
God, and there is no other, is to say since Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, and the Father
Jesus said he came from…if that God isn’t your God, you have a false
God.
Hello! I’m Russell, and I’m a 21st century
cultural outcast, because I believe in an exclusive relationship with God, and
that begins with the claim that Yahweh, is alone the Creator and Sustainer of
all life. He alone is God, and persons who
will not acknowledge Him as Lord of all, will not receive eternal life; they
will be lost forever.
So, what does this kind of thinking,
that there is one
and only one God exclude? Well, it excludes at least these few
realities:
1. It excludes all religions that do not worship the triune God (Father, Son, Spirit) as
sovereign, in charge, and to be obeyed and worshipped.
2. It excludes all faith that is
universal, supposing that God approves of all persons, regardless of faith and
practice.
3. It excludes all faith that includes
God, but does not worship Him with all heart, mind, soul, and strength.
4. It excludes all faith that makes
the cross of Christ less than necessary for the forgiveness of sin, which is
entirely necessary for every human being’s redemption.
Unless I am convinced by
proofs from Scriptures or by plain and clear reasons and arguments, I can and
will not retract, for it is neither safe nor wise to do anything against
conscience. Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me. Amen!
That got Luther defrocked, stripped
of his clergy credentials, and excommunicated (kicked-out of) the church. The church leaders wanted to have him
executed, so he was hunted like a criminal heretic for the rest of his days.
I have a word for his persecutors (in
hindsight)…how’s that working for ya? It’s
only been 500 years, and grace
alone is still standing!
Let’s
Pray Together:
Father, you require your people to be faithful. We understand that from Scripture which shows us every ill that befell Israel was because of their unfaithfulness. And just as warfare requires faithfulness on earth, so the spiritual battles that are conducted in prayer require our steadfast commitment to the truth that You are God, alone. Not only are we not God, nobody else is either!
For You Today
You
chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road today.
Have a blessed day!
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