Living For Christ Ministries

MEANING: Companion, friend, to cherish, to feed or lead, to guide and direct and instruct.

The title SHEPHERD shows us that God is able to condescend to a relationship with mortal, sinful creatures whom He has redeemed. It suggests a one-on-one relationship to feed us and keep us as His inheritance 2 Sam. 7:8; Ps. 78:70-72.

Shepherding has not changed much in Palestine. A Palestinian shepherd lives with his animals night and day, establishing true intimacy with them. He calls each one by name, and they, knowing his voice and responding only to his call, follow him. By sleeping in the makeshift sheepfold, he protects the sheep from thieves and from preying animals who would devour them at night. The sheep sense his watchfulness and fear no evil. He provides pasture and water for them even in the wilderness.

If there can exist such a tender intimacy between a man and his sheep, how much more so between Jehovah and man, whom He Himself created?

What a marvelous thing that God should offer Himself in such a relationship.

This portrays how we are in the shadow of our Father’s loving care, watchful protection, and strong defense. He truly keeps us from all evil. He never slumbers nor sleeps. He is attached and devoted to us and protects our lives from perils and pitfalls.

God is an intensely personal Shepherd. He knows each one of us individually.

Jesus is our Good Shepherd who came to gently lead us. He qualified himself to become the Great Shepherd by first becoming a lamb, thus entering intimately into every experience and need of a sheep.

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MEANING: Rendering justice and making suitable; to justify, declare innocent, or to acquit.

TSEDEK: This literal application of the Word has to do with full weights or measures; from this idea is derived the meanings right toward God; righteousness and justice.

Israel was commanded to walk in the paths of righteousness and to offer the sacrifices of righteousness, putting their trust in the Lord. Nevertheless, Jehovah, who is perfectly righteous, cannot overlook the lack of righteousness in man, for “He will by no means clear the guilty” Num. 14:18.

It was prophesied by Isaiah that “in the Lord shall all the seed of Israel be justified” Isa 45:25. Jesus is that righteousness for both the Jews and the Gentiles; it is bestowed upon us as a free gift through faith.

JEHOVAH-TSIDKENU reveals to us the method and the measure of our acceptance before God, cleansed in the blood of the Lamb and clothed with the white robe of the righteousness of Him who is Jehovah-Jesus.

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MEANING: Peace, wholeness, finished, making good a loss, welfare, well-being, perfect, the deepest desire of the human heart. In the Hebrew language, it also means harmony of relationship or a reconciliation based on the completion of a transaction, the payment of a debt, the giving of satisfaction.

PEACE OFFERING: A sacrifice, the shed blood of which provided atonement on which reconciliation and peace were based Lev. 3; 7:11- 21. Peace is broken by sin. Peace offerings restored fellowship between God and man.

Jesus is the Prince of Peace who was promised to us in the Old Testament. While on earth, Jesus preached and promised peace. He healed, comforted, and commanded the people to go in peace.

Jesus made peace for us through the blood of the cross. Our peace in him is measured by our ability to keep trusting Him and by our sanctification. Peace depends on trust and obedience. If we are carnally-minded, we will lack peace. Therefore, let us allow peace to rule in our hearts, Phil. 4:7,9; Col. 1:20; 3:15. There is no peace apart from Jesus, for individuals or nations.

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Therefore, you shall consecrate yourselves and be holy, for I am theLord your God. And you shall keep My statutes and practice them;  am the Lord who sanctifies you, Lev. 20:7,8.

MEANING: To set apart, sanctify, or hallow, to dedicate, consecrate, and be holy.

The book of Leviticus explains how redeemed people should walk worthy of their calling and participate in the spiritual worship that Jehovahdemands of them. In connection with Israel’s moral and spiritual purity, this title, JEHOVAH-MAKADDISH., is repeated many times in Leviticus.

In the Old Testament, the word “sanctify” was used to set apart places, furnishings, people, and special days. The people of Israel were set apart from God and separated from all other people.

Jesus was, from His very conception, set apart by the power of the Holy Spirit. Nevertheless, he was altogether holy, spotless, and without sin.

Jesus became our High Priest, and in His redeeming love, He was made sin for us Luke 1:35; 2 Cor. 5:21; Heb. 4:15; 7:26.

Jesus became our Sanctification 1 Cor. 1:30; Heb. 10:10,14.

To such holiness or separateness, we have been elected Eph. 1:4. Holiness is a positive and active word. The people of God must be holy in practice as well as separated in position. One is meaningless without the other. The Church’s glorious destiny is to be presented holy and spotless to her Lord.

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And Joshua did as Moses told him and fought against Amalek, and Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill. So it came about when Moses held his hand up. So that Israel prevailed, and when he let his hand down, Amalek prevailed. But Moses’ hands were heavy. Then they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it; Aaron and Hur supported his hands, one on one side and one on the other. Thus his hands were steady until the sunset. So Joshua overwhelmed Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword. Then the Lord said to Moses, “Write this in a book as a memorial, and recite it to Joshua, that I will utterly blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven.” And Moses built an altar and named it, The Lord Is My Banner; and he said, “The Lord has sworn; the Lord will have a war against Amalek from generation to generation” Exod. 17.10-16.

MEANING The Lord our Banner, a sign of deliverance and salvation, the standard of our victory in life’s conflicts.

A banner is translated: pole, ensign, standard; among the Jews, it is a word associated with the miracle.

It was a sign to God’s people to rally to Him. The banner stood for His cause, His battle.

The banner of Jehovah held aloft in Moses’ upraised hands brought victory to His people. This is always assured to the people of God-victory over the powers of evil, the enemy of our souls when His banner is over us.

Isaiah predicts a rod to come forth out of the stem of Jesse. This stem or root is also a sign, a banner to the people. The stem of Jesse is Jesus, born of the seed of David according to the flesh. Jesus is our banner of redemption, our banner of welfare.

With Jehovah-Jesus as our banner, we may go from strength to strength, giving thanks to God, “who always leads us in His triumph in Christ Jesus” 2 Cor 2:14.

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Then Moses led Israel from the Red Sea, and they went out into the wilderness of Shur, and they went three days in the wilderness and found no water. And when they came to Marah, they could not drink the waters of Marah, for they were bitter; therefore, it was named Marah. So the people grumbled at Moses, saying, “What shall we drink?”

Then he cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree, and he threw it into the waters, and the waters became sweet. There He made for them a statute and regulation, and there He tested them. And He said, “If you will give earnest heed to the voice of theLord your God, and do what is right in His sight, and give ear to His commandments, and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have put on the Egyptians; for I, the Lord, am your healer” Exod. 15:22-26.

MEANING: To restore, heal, and cure in a physical and spiritual sense.

The Lord Jesus consummated His ministry by becoming THE TREE that made the bitter pools of human existence waters of life. The teaching of Marah is wonderfully fulfilled in Him. Jesus is both the tree and the waters. He bore our sins in His Body on the tree and is also our Well of Salvation. Only Jesus, the tree of God’s provision, purifies, sweetens, and heals many bitter experiences in life. He heals the diseases of the soul and of the Body.

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MEANING: It shall be seen, it shall be provided; a sense of foreseeing, seer, prophet.

JEHOVAH-JIREH is a kind of seeing that is different from Elohim, all-knowing. This kind of seeing means foreseeing his prevision. Prevision is the noun form of “seeing beforehand.” Thus to God, prevision is followed with provision, FOR HE WILL CERTAINLY PROVIDE FOR THAT NEED WHICH HIS FORE-SEEING SHOWS TO EXIST. With Him, prevision and provision are one and the same thing.

The name JEHOVAH-JIREH arose out of the instance of Jehovah’sprovision of a substitute for Isaac, whom He had commanded Abraham to sacrifice upon the altar. The name stands for Jehovah’s excellent provision for man’s redemption in the sacrifice of His only begotten Son, Jesus. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, who was offered upon the very spot where Abraham had predicted: “in the mount of the Lord it will be provided.”

JEHOVAH-JIREH is to us the One who provides the sacrificial Lamb of God for our redemption.

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ELOHIM:

Triune creator; the sovereign of the universe, and life, and of all nations; who covenants to preserve His creation. General idea of greatness, glory, creative and governing power, omnipotence, sovereignty, creator of the universe. Elohim is mainly concerned with the creation and preservation of the world and His works. He assumes a great love toward all creation and creatures as the work of His hands—plural, representing the Trinity, under the obligation of an oath to perform certain conditions.

EL:

Mighty, strong, prominent, “God” great, dreadful, “Almighty God.”

EL SHADDAI:

The God who is “all-sufficient” and “all-bountiful,” the One who fills and makes fruitful, used in connection with judging, chastening, purging, translated “almighty.”

EL SHADDAI first appears in connection with Abraham in Genesis 17:1: “And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, Jehovah appeared to Abram and said unto him, ‘I am EL SHADDAI (God Almighty!)'” At this time, Abram’s name was changed to Abraham because he understood the revelation of EL SHADDAI is the One with whom all things were possible.

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