Tina

God was a Rock for David, for instance, who hid from Saul and God is our Rock when we seek refuge from our battles. He is a hiding place where we are secure and safe. A place for protection from the sun, for hiding from enemies.

God protects us with the armour He has given us to wear (e.g. the breastplate of righteousness, the helmet of salvation, the sword which is the word of God, etc.) When the enemy comes at us, we are protected from his blows and darts because the armour of God is our best defence weapon against him. He is the lifter of our head in that when we are in trouble, He rescues us and is there with us in all of our battles and struggles. He brings rewards of victory and gives us garments of praise for the spirit of heaviness.

In times of danger we must put our hope in God, confessnHim as our Refuge and Fortress where He protects us. We must trust in Him and not fear what may happen and we must believe that we are secure in our times of peril The metaphors used are: Hiding Place/Shade/Refuge/Fortress/His Wings/Dwelling Place/Protection/Salvation

The confession that Jesus is Lord means that I have taken Him into my life to be Lord of all, to be in control and to accept taht He is all and I am nothing without Him. It means that He has taken, and still is, the parts of me that do not bring glory to His Name and that He is changing me to be more like Him. It means that I owe my allegiance, my worship, praise and thanksgiving to Him alone. It is necessary for salvation because i cannot have Him in my life if I do not first of all, confess my sins and that confession means that I have acknowleged that I am a sinner and that I need His \Kingship and rulership to steer me on the right path

Governments should submit to Yahweh as King because He is after all, King. The government should owe it's allegiance to the King and the King will guide them into decision making, law making, concerns about its citizens, etc because this is how Yahweh ruled in the days of Abraham, Moses, etc. When the government submits to Yahweh, the country and the land and the people will be healed. When a nation removes God from everything that pertains to the nation, it means they are rejecting Him in favour of their own immoral lifestyles, their own dependence which implies egotism. What results then is anarchy, and people moving away from Yahweh's principles to their own waywardness and self destruction. It is almost as if they are building their own Tower of Babel, not to reach God, but to out-do Him, because to many, God is not important...He is old fashioned and not really necessary to them.

Yahweh, the great I AM, is the great I AM in my life. His holiness and sovereignty has never changed and how He was to the people of the Old Testament, is how He is to me today. He is the one constant in my life. Jesus is Yahweh's gift to me. So Jesus is very precious to me and the blood that He shed for me to cleanse me from my sin when I accepted Him as my personal Saviour, is the blood that protects me and is the driving force in my life because it is LOVE. As a subject of Jahweh as my King, I am His in that my allegiance is to Him and therefore He has me under His wing all the time. He has given me the privilege to enter His throne room at any time and I don't need a special invitation to talk with Him. I am a joint heir with Jesus so Yahweh accepts me because of this. I try my best to submit to the King every moment of my life because He is sovereign and He deserves the praise and honour and glory that I give to Him. When I submit to Him, He is able to mould me according to His purpose for my life. If I don't submit, He can't do much, if anything with me, and I will not mature as His child. If a person refuses to let Yahweh as King be soverign in their lives, they reject Him because they become their own mini god or they are serving another god instead, be it money, hedonism, etc

Tithing in the old testament meant allegiance to the king and he would protect his people. This is the same today. We pledge our lives and souls to God, who is the King of all kings and He ensures that those who work in His house are assisted financially and that the work load can be taken off the pastor, in other words, he doesn't need to get another job to boost his income from the church. So under the new covenant, we must still give a tenth or more of what we earn. Tithing frees us from robbing God and from greed. Tithing also teaches us that even if we feel we can't afford to give, if we trust in God, He will make our ends meet. Tithing is about taking part of what we need or want and giving it to God so that He will in return, give to us blessings to restore uis in our lives and in our needs.

Justice is being merciful. It is punishment that is given to someone who deserves it because they have done something wrong Vengeance is trying to get back at someone for what they did wrong, even taking the law into your own hands. Mercy is forgiving someone when they have done something wrong. When we repent, God forgives us. If we don't repent, He can't forgive us. The cross is God's mercy to us by avenging our sin through Jesus

Christians should be involved in helping the needy in society by loving their neighbour as they love themselves. Therefore we should want to make sure that we represent them if they have no-one to do this for them by feeding and clothing them, praying for and with them, have a genuine compassion and a genuine desire to help them as unto the Lord. James....true religion is caring for the needy...we fulfil the law of Christ when we do this. We should be happy and eager to help others because grumbling leaves us with a dissatisfied spirit and God will not accept or acknowlege our actions

If we put our own ideas into what is right and moral, we cannot know and understand the Righteous and upright God because we are all sinners and lawless and we will continue to go around in circles because there will not be any ONE right law, there will be zillions and this would affect our culture and break us down. We will never be able to see the perspective of right from God's side because we wouldn't have Him reigning in us, as set apart into His holiness. We can declare God and Jesus Christ by being the salt of the earth, bringing a taste of His holiness to a world that has become rancid in its own moral decline. When we project |God's glory to the darkness, the beacon of His ways in us, leaves a deep impression on those who watch everything we do. The best approach in evangelism is to have the love of Christ within us. If we don't have His love, we have nothing to give to others because love has a deep compassion and concern for the lost and love wants to take the hands of the lost and lead them to Jesus.

Isaiah sees how great his sins are and how pure and holy God is and this makes him realise that he can't stand before God or be in his presence the way he is. He is afraid because he thinks that anyone who sees God will die. God touches his lips with the hot coals. The coal symbolises God's forgiveness and His cleansing of sin. Isaiah now dedicated his life to God and says "here I am, send me."

"tired, weary, faint" are repeated. We need to understand that God is with us in every emotion we go through. When we are on the mountain top of life, we may forget to praise Him. When we are in our personal valleys, we may forget to praise Him as well. Praise draws us closer to His heartbeat and we should remember to turn to Him in all the seasons of our lives

I see 6 different names and titles. The psalmist encourages us to bow down and worship God because He is above everyone and everything in the eart and therefore all glory and honour and praise should be given to Him. He cares for us as a shepherd who tends to his sheep, therefore God wants to make sure we stay with Him at all times

The inherent rights are those of ownership. God created us for Himself, He didn't have to but He wanted to. Because He is holy and we are not, He has every right to mould, fashion and shape us into His image. We should be willing and obedient to our Maker because we will understand the reason for His acts of moulding us. We should appreciate the love and care and tenderness that goes into God's work to shape us for future glory and get us out of the evil ways we walk in. We should value His discipline because that comes into the remoulding of our characters as well. We should be happy that we are so loved and cared for. God continually leads us along the path He has chosen for us and we should be excited to be doing His will even as He continues to remakes us

God is the Creator, therefore we are subject to Him. When we second guess Him we are challenging Him and our pride causes our downfall in all of life's circumstances. We sometimes wish that God had given us a better life, with better opportunities and better circumstances. We may feel short-changed. We are not happy with who we are and criticise the way God made us. Our attitude should be one of complete submission to God, just as the clay in a potter's hands, because He continues to shape us into more beautiful characters if we allow Him to do this. Psalm 139 says that we are fearfully and wonderfully made. We should accept this.

David knew that if he did not fear God, it would be a terrible thing if he fell into the hands of an angry God. David had a deep reverence and respect for God. He knew that God desired clean hearts so he walked in the way of righteousness when He sought God's help, kn owing that God would hear when he called out to Him. God inspires fear and dread in a sense of awe and reverence we give Him because He is a holy God and also because we were created to revere Him.

First and Last tells me that God was never created, He has always existed even from the beginning, whatever that really means, and that everyone and everything came after Him. Last tells me that |God is eternal, no-one and nothing can outlive Him. So in both of these, God is all powerful, He is mighty and lofty and all honour is due to Him

I can't, even though I've tried. It's like when a mother leaves the room and her baby cries because the child has no understanding of time and thinks the mother will be gone forever. As you grow older, you understand time, yet eternity is too big for me to imagine. In eternity I will be transformed into the glory and image of God and I will only know joy, peace, love, etc . I will be elevated, in my service to God and I will never have pain or cry again. The longest any of these feelings I have that last on earth is only a few hours, perhaps? It inspires me to work more at my salvation, to put more of myself into my walk with God, to be more obedient to His commands and to continue to run the race every day because one day I will finish it.

The name Yahweh refers to God's omniscience, omnipotence and omnipresence. The idols are lifeless, Yahweh is eternal Life Himself

As long as we believe that the battle is the Lord's, we can face life without fear and anxieties because we know that God will never desert us. If we are timid, we may not ask for God's help and we will act out our lives with insecurities because we are not fully grounded in His promise. If we are brash, we may begin to think that we can handle life's battles on our own. I don't think that God will fight our battles if we turn our backs on Him, because then we wouldn't ask for His help. we would think we are self sufficient.

Moses' rod was like the rod of God in battle which meant that when his arms were raised they were winning the battle but when his hands were lowered, they were on the losing side. . The Lord is our banner because when we are in battle, His banner is raised so we know that He is still fighting the battle for us and rallying us on.

Jesus didn't call on the heavenly hosts in the garden of Gethsemane because He had to and wanted to go through the crucifixion because His blood would save us. If He had called for help we would be lost forever. When He does call on the heavenly hosts, they are all there following Him into battle

Elisha's servant was afraid because he couldn't see what Elisha was seeing. He didn't know if what Elisha was seeing was good or bad. The difference between them was that Elisha walked with God and prayed to Him in his distress, all the while putting his trust in the Lord of battles. When we spend more time with God, when we get to know His heart even more, when we trust Him in every circumstance and when our spirits merge in love and one-ness, God reveals things to His children. 1 John 4:4 encourages me because I need only to look to God, because I draw my strength and power through He who lives within me. Also, I don't have to fight the battle, I let God do this because the battle is His

The commander said that he was on neither side because he wanted Joshua to know and believe and ask, "I am on God's side," not, "Is God on my side?" This indicates a trust and faith in God and an assurance that God is with us in all our battles. Joshua was encouraged and was fully aware that God was on his side and that God would not forsake him.

God is the King of Glory and Jesus is the Father of Glory. The Glory is the weighty presence of God. We should be more aware of the shekinah glory of God, therefore we should humble ourselves in the presence of the most holy God. The more time we spend in the presence of God, the more He fills us with His glory so that we become more like Him and less of ourselves.