Our God - The Creator 2

Check out this short video (4.25 mins)  on how complex DNA is, and how it shows the handiwork of God:

Psalm 104:24 (Message)

What a wildly wonderful world, God!

You made it all, with Wisdom at your side,

made earth overflow with your wonderful creations

Our God The Creator - Part 1: HERE

Our God - The Creator

The Number 7 speaks of God's Divine perfection and order.

In Genesis Chapter 1, we can see God's wonderful acts of creation. After each thing He made, He said, "It is good." This happened six times:

Verses 4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25

On the seventh occasion, He  topped it all off in verse 31 by saying, "It is very good."
I am not exactly a great scientific person, but I am always amazed at how scientists think that the world was formed out of nothing. God in His infinite wisdom and unimaginable order has spoken all things into existence with precision and power. Just one example of His mathematical and scientific wonders is found in Genesis 1:1. Here is an extraordinary look at all the 7's found in Genesis 1:1:
• The number of Hebrew words in this verse = 7• The Number of letters in all these 7 Hebrew words - 28 (7x4 = 28)• The first 3 Hebrew words translated, In the beginning God created have 14 Hebrew letters (7x2 =14)• The last four Hebrew words translated, the heavens and the earth have 14 letters (7x2 = 14)• The fourth and fifth Hebrew words have 7 letters• The sixth and seventh Hebrew words have 7 letters• The three key words: God, Heaven and earth,  have 14 letters• The number of letters in the four remaining words is also 14• The shortest word in the verse is in the middle with 7 letters•The Hebrew numeric value of the first, middle and last letters is 133 (7x19 - 133)• The Hebrew numeric value of the first and last letters of all seven words is 1393(7.199 - 1393)

When professors on the mathematics faculty at Harvard University were presented with this biblical phenomenon they attempted to disprove its significance as a proof of divine authorship. However, after valiant efforts these professors were unable to duplicate this incredible mathematical phenomenon. The Harvard scientists used the English language and artificially assigned numeric values to the English alphabet. They had a potential vocabulary of over 400,000 available English words to choose from to construct a sentence about any topic they chose. Compare this to the limitations of word choices in the biblical Hebrew language which has only forty-five hundred available word choices that the writers of the Old Testament could use. Despite their advanced mathematical abilities and access to computers the mathematicians were unable to come close to incorporating 30 mathematical multiples of 7 as found in the Hebrew words of Genesis 1:1.

Ivan Panin discovered literally thousands of such mathematical patterns underlying all of the books of the Old Testament before his death in 1942. He wrote a book, "The Inspiration of the Scriptures Scientifically Demonstrated", which discusses these phenomena extensively. Panin and others have examined other Hebrew literature and have attempted to find such mathematical patterns, but they are not found anywhere outside the Bible.

God is Omnipotent and Omniscient - everything He does is in Divine order. Praise Him!!

Psalm 145:3

Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised;
And His greatness is unsearchable

Our God The Artist: HERE
Our God The Creator - Part 2: HERE 

Our God - The Artist

The Lord is the Consummate Artist: 

He is a sculptor and potter who made his own clay and a painter who created all the colors  (Genesis 1-2; Jeremiah 18:1-6).

He is a musician who formed every sound and gave ears to hear with, a dancer, and singer  (Zephaniah 3:17; Revelation 1:10). Everything He created sings back to Him.

He is a poet – look at the beautiful poetry which He recites to Job (Job 38-41)...and even His creation is an expression worthy of a poem.

He is a writer who has written the greatest best-seller of all time—the Bible (2 Timothy 3:16). 

He is a story-teller and actor: Jesus used parables in the Gospels to convey mysteries, and His prophets used dramatic arts to convey God’s words (Matthew 13:34; Hosea 12:10).

He is an architect of mountains and sky (Psalm 90:2; Isaiah 44:24).

He is a Tailor - a worker of needle and thread. He has woven a garment of light for himself (Psalm 104:2) and has provided a golden wedding garment for his bride (Psalm 45:9, 13-14). He has clothed the lilies with beauty (Matt. 6:25-34)

He is a creator of culinary delights - the earth overflows with His bountiful provisions (Exodus 16:31; Numbers 11:7-8; Psalm 34:8; 119:103; Song of Solomon 2:3).  

He is a perfumer, and even His name is a healing ointment that smells Divine (Psalm 45:8; Song of Solomon 1:3; 3:6; 5:1; 5:13)

In all of these, He is without compare. There is none who can match His artistry, excellence, and genius. 

Our God The Creator: HERE

Banker Saves Ducklings

Ok everyone - go to this link and be prepared to smile:

The Banker and the Ducklings

...another story from Richard

Gandhi

"There are seven things that will destroy us: 

Wealth without work; 

Pleasure without conscience; 

Knowledge without character; 

Religion without sacrifice; 

Politics without principle; 

Science without humanity; 

Business without ethics."

— Mahatma Gandhi

God's Mercy

Lamentations 3:22-23 describes the Father's great yearning for His wayward people:

Through the Lord's mercies we are not consumed,

Because His compassions fail not.

They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness.

God's mercy incorporates His covenant of compassion, expressed in His consuming commitment to bring us into everlasting communion with Himself.

His mercy is His compassion toward us even when we deserve punishment, His commitment to restore us even though we deserve to endure the consequences of our sin, and His covenant of love expressed at the point of our greatest foolishness.

Psalm 103 also speaks of God's abundant mercy. If you get time, meditate on this psalm. I won't post it all here due to it's length. Here are seven characteristics of His mercy from this psalm:

1) The QUALITY of His Mercies: Tender. Verse 4 reads, "Who redeems your life from destruction, Who crowns you with lovingkindness and tender mercies."

This word for “mercies” is racham, (Strongs # 7256) which also means “womb.” God’s mercy towards us comes from the deepest place where He “births” His love and compassion for us. Often, when this Hebrew word is used for mercy it is preceded by the description “tender” mercies.

2) The ORIGIN of His mercies: The Lord. Verse 8, The Lord is merciful

This verse uses the 2^nd Hebrew word for mercy: checed (Sttrong’s #2617 - Used 248 times). This word indicates God’s acts of favor, kindness and tenderness towards us.

God’s mercy is not simply a feeling towards us – His full rescuing power is at the core of His mercy. Here are all the hurting ones in Psalm 103 who benefit from His mercy:

V3 –      those with iniquities

V3 –      those with diseases

V4 –      those who are on a path towards destruction

V5 –      those who are old and weak

V6 –      those who are oppressed

V 10 –   those who are sinners

V 13 –   those who are fatherless (see also: Hosea 14:3)

3) The MEASURE of His mercies: Plenteous/Abounding. Verse 8, The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in mercy.

4) The EXTENT of His Mercies: Great – as high as the heavens are above the earth Verse 11, For as the heavens are high above the earth, So great is His mercy toward those who fear Him

5) The DURATION of His Mercies: everlasting Verse 17, But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him and His righteousness to children's children.

6) The RECIPIENTS of His Mercies: …those who fear Him Verse 11, …His mercy toward those that fear Him.

7) The RESULT of His mercies of His Mercies: We wear mercy as a crown verse 4 …who crowns you with lovingkindness and tender mercies

Without His wonderful tender mercy where would we be? Knowing who I am to the core, and my many weaknesses as He does; His compelling, drawing covenant love continues to shower me with mercy – even when I fail. What extraordinary love.

...hope in the Lord; 
For with the Lord there is mercy,

And with Him is abundant redemption.

Psalm 130:7


The Lord takes pleasure in those...who hope in His mercy.

Psalm 147:11

Bergen

A few photos taken while walking around Bergen today - sorry, I don't have a real camera - just the camera on my iPod Touch. These buildings are in the famous Bryggen District in Vagen Bay. They were built in the medieval period, and though a fire destroyed many of the original buildings, these have been restored:

A couple of Viking fellows:

And here are some young boys marching along with drums keeping the beat. I have no idea why they are marching along the street - it appears that they may be caring some kind of cross, so my best guess is that this has something to do with Easter:

Pavlova

Here is a Pavlova I made for dinner last night - We have been staying with dear friends Ivar and Ann Elizabeth in Kristiansand:

...and here we are visiting an old church - nearly 1000 years old near where we are staying:

...in an hour or so, we are going to Bergen for a Reform Norge (Norway) conference. Reform Norway Conference

Here is Bergen:

The Father Seeks Three Kinds Of People

Just a quick note today -

According to the Word - The Father seeks thee different kinds of people:

Intercessors - Is. 59:16; Ez. 22:30 So I sought for a man among them who would make a wall, and stand in the gap before Me on behalf of the land, that I should not destroy it; but I found no one.

The Lost - Luke 15:1-20 (Also Luke 19:10 for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost)

Worshipers - John 4:23 But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him.

These three groups of people are dear to the heart of God - He actually seeks them out.