ecosystems

Israel had gone ahead and instituted a lifeless idol to worship (sin) in the absence of Moses, as they had seen other nations do. In otherwords they had rejected YHWH as their God and King. This was reason enough for the God of the universe to be angry at Israel for wanting to worship an idol made by the hands of a man(He was angry at the sin) instead of worshiping the true and Living God who additionally wanted to lavish His care and love on a nation He regarded as His jewel on earth. Remember it was God Himself who said "let us make man in our own image and likeness". This indicates that God bad within Him already this emotion. This also means that being God His anger was righteous. The way He wanted man to use the anger emotion, in a righteous way. This explains why He was also angry with the people. Knowing better they still espoused sin. They should have rejected sin. So He was justified, in His angry response as well as His solution to the problem of an unbelieving people. He had done it in Noah's day. Was it justified then? Weren't they just as unbelieving and sinful?

In an article called "The Importance of being Independent" by the Delaware Psychological Services, the writers point to some reasons why us humans tend to be independent of each other and by extension of God, even though Jesus told us to the complete contrary. An extract from this article from their web page at www.delawarepsychologicalservices.com says: "Being independent gives you the ability to care for yourself - either emotionally, physically or financially. As result you are in a better situation to assist others. In turn this increases happiness promotes a sense of belonging, gives you a sense of purpose and increases your life satisfaction." Question; Who it is that gives you "The ability to care for yourself . . ." ? Even though many of us know the answer and even the location in the Bible where it comes from (Deuteronomy 8: 18) we do have an urgent need to systematically disabuse ourselves of this societally learnt way of life to line up with the teaching of Jesus Christ.

When we pray "Thy kingdom come", we are praying this in the sense that God will through us His Church, show the world a semblance of what His Kingdom will truly look like when Christ has come a second time to take over and rule over this world. We are also asking God, to speed up the return of of His son Christ Jesus. Again, when we pray " Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven" we are asking as the church, that God by His guidance through Him the Holy Spirit, will have us pray along the lines of His will. Jesus did say we are to love and worship the Lord your God with all your heart soul and strength, as well as to love your neighbor as yourself. If we pray along these lines as well as living our lives along these lines in other words letting these prayers inform how we live, then His will, will be done on earth

Since as Christians, we are living under the gaze and watchful eye of our Lord and Savior, we should live our lives and always speak in such a way as to give honor and respect and glory to the person, authority, character and activity of our Lord and God. We should not use His name in any matter- of- fact way(e.g in swearing) or using His name in vain or any besmirching way. Hence in praying, in our salutations to the Lord, we MUST always ensure that we be careful to accord all of our respect and honor to him and to give Him all the Glory. For He and only He is worthy.