Spirit Led Living

Adhonay or as it may be more familiar to us, Adonai , is a word for God that is attributive. In other words, it describes one of His attributes. In this particular case it points to the sovereignty of God. Unfortunately, when it comes to translations it is very difficult to capture the original intent of the writer and so in many translations some of the names for God become interchangeable. In this case, Adhonay become possessive as in my Lord as opposed to simply Lord. God is Lord. God is Sovereign. This is an incredibly strong name for God in that it puts all the power on His side. He is completely in charge. There can be no discussion as to His rule and reign. Whatever He says goes. The New Testament parallel is Kurios. It represents both Yahweh and Adhonay and it is used upwards of 600 times. In fact, any time the Old Testament is quoted in the New Testament Kurios is how those two words are translated in the Greek. It is the title of dominion. It is used not only of God the

Yahweh Yahweh is most often translated in the Old Testament as “Lord”. To understand Yahweh we have to understand that the Jews were very careful about saying or writing the Lord’s name lest they sin by saying it in vain. It is also important to know that this iteration of the name of God is one of the oldest ones and comes at a time when ancient Hebrew was very limited in that there were no punctuation marks or in the case of Yahweh it contained no vowels. Yahweh, a combination of the tetragrammaton (YHWH) with the vowels of 'Adhonay, transliterated as Yehowah, but read aloud by the Hebrews 'adhonay. This is where some traditions get their translation of Jehovah. Yahweh has its roots in the event of the burning bush were God reveals Himself as “I AM”. For most of the Old Testament Yahweh is more future tense in the sense of “He will be” in relation to his covenant relationship with His people. There is a sense of promise in His name that begins to be fulfilled in Christ. It pr

I often wonder at people's names. It seems that with each passing generation people try to get more and more creative with names, spellings and pronunciations.   In a world that is becoming more and more secular, people choose names for any number of reasons, but less and less as a result of prayer. In the Bible we find that most names have significance. Often, the names chosen end up being prophetic, and in a few instances, God Himself either chooses the name or changes the name (Abram/Abraham, Saul/Paul). In my own case my mother had lost two children before I came along and it took many years before I was conceived. I was a mid-life baby for both my parents. In my father's case (unbeknown to me) I was his fourth son and came at a time when he really didn't want any more children. As for my mother, I was her only child and I came as a result of much prayer. In fact, my mother promised God that if He blessed her with a child that she would completely dedicate the child to

2 Corinthians 13:11   Finally, brothers, good-by. Aim for perfection, listen to my appeal, be of one mind, live in peace. And the God of love and peace will be with you. Bill Hybels wrote a book called “AXIOMS” in which he enumerated the axioms that he has developed over the years and which have stood the test of time. An axiom is a statement generally accepted as true, or that states a truth in a succinct, easy to grasp statement. If you’ve read 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, you know that each of those habits is stated as an axiom. One of my axioms which came to me during a leadership meeting is this: “Perfection is destination, excellence is a journey and the joy is in the journey”. Perfection, as we read in 1 Corinthians 13:10 is unattainable in this lifetime, but it is something to aim for. When we do that, we generally can achieve excellence. Titus 3:8   This is a trustworthy saying. And I want you to stress these things, so that those who have trusted in God may be careful