Hasn't the honor and respect given to Queen Elizabeth since her death been fascinating to watch? Seeing the common people stand in line for hours to file by the coffin as a demonstration of the love and devotion they have for their queen who loved and devoted herself to them proves that real leadership can be civil, stately and well...royal.
As we have been "doing" Teshuvah (repentance) during this time, the focus of day 12 was repentance for "Failing to Hallow Yehovah's Great Name". The scripture reference was very familiar: "This, then, is how you should pray: 'Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name,"
Smugly, I thought I really did not need to repent for failing to honor the name of God. But then that nagging, persistent still, small voice began tugging on my spirit and it seemed everywhere I looked something reminded me about God's name. For instance, the TV newscasters would announce the entrance of lord so-and-so arriving at the palace to pay his respects and I would think, "is that taking God's name in vain?" Or I would begin to pray using the acronym "ACTS" (adoration, confession, thanksgiving and supplication) and my mind would go blank trying to remember or recall a certain name of God that described Him in a particular way and I felt remorse (rightly so) that I did not have His names memorized. But the real eye-opener came from a Bible I purchased at Ministries of New Life's Convocation. It is simply called "The Scriptures", published by the Institute for Scripture Research in South Africa with one of the aims of restoring "the Name of the Almighty to its rightful place in the text".
This is what they have to say about it: "The restoration of the Name of the Almighty to any translation of the Scriptures should require no justification. After all it was the Almighty Himself who originally placed His name in the Scriptures at least 6 823 times! It was human beings who decided, for reasons that made sense to them, to delete His Name and to replace it with something 'more appropriate' in their view."
There it was...very clearly so, in Exodus 3:15, known as the tetragrammaton, YHWH, and translated as LORD in our English Bibles: "God also said to Moses, 'Say to the Israelites, "The LORD, the God of your fathers...the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob--has sent me to you.' "This is my name forever, the name you shall call me from generation to generation."
So our Bibles use the term "LORD". However, "The Scriptures" has restored the Hebrew name in the beautiful Hebrew characters for Yod, Hey, Waw, Hey, variously pronounced as YaHWeH, YaHoWeH, YaHuWeH or YaHVeH.
Warren M. Marcus writes in his book, "The Priestly Prayer of the Blessing" that "We are commanded in Holy Scriptures to proclaim His true name, the sacred name of the one true G-D of Israel. The name that is concealed in the tetragrammaton." He goes on to quote Malachi 1:11: "For from the rising of the sun to its setting, My name will be great among the nations, and in every place incense will be offered to My name, and a pure offering. For My name will be great among the nations, says the LORD of hosts."
Okay. I have a long way to go on this matter and I am still praying about it. But I have to admit that somehow I feel closer to God when I call Him by His name in His language - Hebrew. But here is the thing about it...Marcus cautions to avoid extremes: "If someone lives in Israel and prays to the heavenly Father in Hebrew or to Jesus in Hebrew--praise the Lord--it is beautiful. When I am speaking in America, I refer to both the Hebrew and English names of the Messiah. I will often call Him both Yeshua and Jesus as I've done in this book. If you are a believer, it's OK to address Him in English as God or Lord. I don't want to place condemnation upon you."
Yes! Knowing God in a personal relationship, praying to Him and hearing from Him is the mosimportant. As Marcus point out, "Even Lucifer (Satan) knows how to properly pronounce the name of the one true G-D, but he doesn't know Him, nor does he love the one true G-D."
Yet knowing and using His name properly is a way of showing my love and devotion to my King - the King of Kings! Don't you agree?
"O YaHVeH, our Master, how excellent is Your Name in all the earth, You who set Your splendour above the heavens!" Psalm 8:1
Back to Queen Elizabeth - I saw her recipe on FaceBook for drop scones that she sent to President Eisenhower in 1960 so I halved the recipe and made them for our Sunday evening supper. They were so delicious this may become a weekly thing!
Ingredients:
-4 teacups flour (yes, I actually used a teacup to measure!)
-4 tablespoons caster sugar
-2 teacups milk
-2 whole eggs
-2 teaspoons bicarbonate soda
-3 teaspoons cream of tartar
-2 tablespoons melted butter
Preparation:
Beat eggs, sugar, and about half the milk together, add flour, and mix well together, adding the remainder of milk as required, also bicarbonate and cream of tartar, fold in the melted butter. Drop onto griddle in dollops
If you want to get fancy, top with jam, golden syrup, mixed berries, butter, clotted cream and enjoy!
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