We are asking Jesus for one person from each parish to pray 5 decades of the Holy Rosary and the Divine Mercy Chaplet with us daily. Please pray that these people join us in spreading Divine Mercy. In addition if you feel lead by the Holy Spirit to join us; are blessed by this Apostolate and are able please consider giving a $1 a month to help us do works of mercy as a group. Individually we are limited, together we are unlimited in our potential. God bless, Todd
Jehovah-Jireh
The next eight names God has revealed himself to us with are combinations of Jehovah with a descriptive word to show His divine character and His love toward us. Jehovah being the eternal, self-existent, all powerful, ever revealing God combined His name with these words to reveal the fullness of His holy character to us.
Jehovah-Jireh is probably the most exciting of these names as it can be traced for a period of two thousand years from God making covenant with Abraham to His fulfilling of it in the person of Jesus. Jehovah-Jireh literally means "Jehovah will see to it" or "Jehovah will provide". The significance of this can be seen in the first place it appears in scripture - Genesis 22. Elohim comes to Abraham and says, beginning in verse 2 and continuing through verse 18, "...take now they son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of. And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and clave the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up, and went unto the place of which God had told him. Then on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off.
And Abraham said unto his young men, Abide ye here with the ass; and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again unto you. And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand, and knife; and they went both of them together. And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he said, here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?
And Abraham said, My son, God will provide (Jehovah-Jireh) himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together. And they came to the place which God had told him of; and Abraham built an altar there, and laid wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood. And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son.
And the angel of the Lord called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, here am I. And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou has not withheld thy son, thine only son from me.
And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son. And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah-Jireh: as it is said to this day, In the mount of the Lord it shall be seen.
And the angel of the Lord called unto Abraham out of heaven the second time, And said, By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, for because thou hast done this and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son: That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice."
Because of the blood covenant Abraham had with El-Shaddai, God had a right to ask for anything from Abraham including His only son. The blessing of this is that because Abraham was obedient, God became obligated to give His only Son later! Thank God for Abraham's faithfulness! This one action in history paved the way for Jesus to come and become the Lamb of God for us. This was a turning point in history for all mankind. God found a covenant partner who had faith that God was able to raise Isaac up from the dead and restore Him back to His father.
What a wonderful story and what a wonderful example that shows us how covenant works with God and how faith produces the provision of God in our lives. Hebrew 11:17-19 states, "By faith Abraham, when He was tried, offered up Isaac: and He that had received the promises offered up His only begotten son, of whom it was said, That in Isaac shall thy seed be called: Accounting that God was able to raise Him up, even from the dead; from whence also He received Him in a figure."
Jehovah-Jireh provided the sacrifice to save Isaac and in the person of Jesus, provides the sacrifice for all of us today. From the time of the resurrection of Jesus until today, we have a right to become children of God through His sacrifice and become children of the new covenant! What a deep and unsearchable thing God has done for us and what a great reward He offers to those who accept His provision of the sacrifice of Jesus. This is the climax of all history, the death and resurrection of Jesus and the restoration of mankind in relationship with God. In Jesus, He shows himself to truly be our Jehovah-Jireh.
Again, as covenant partners with Jesus, we have the right to use His name, just as He took our name in partnership and was crucified, died, was buried, went to hell, and rose from the dead for us. Because Jesus is in covenant partnership with God the Father, all that is God's is Jesus' and all that is Jesus' is God the Father's. Thus all the names of God belong to Jesus and He gives them to us. Also, because we belong to Jesus as we are His body on the earth, we now belong to God. The implications of this are incalculable, but Jehovah-Jireh has joined our names to His in blood covenant that can't be broken. WOW! That is good news of the gospel.
By now you should be able to see the greatness and power of this covenant and why God will go to such great lengths to fulfill it for all who ask to become His partners and children. He will move heaven and earth for us and will gladly give us all He has because it is our inheritance in Jesus. He does this not because of what we have done, but because of what Jesus did and because of who we are in Jesus.
Jesus says in Luke 12:22-32, "...Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat; neither for the body, what ye shall put on. The life is more than meat, and the body is more than raiment. Consider the ravens: for they neither sow nor reap; which neither have storehouse nor barn; and God feedeth them: how much more are ye better than the fowls? And which of you with thinking through can add to His stature one cubit?
If ye then be not able to do that thing which is least, why take ye through for the rest? Consider the lilies how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all His glory was not arrayed like one of these. If then God so clothe the grass, which is to day in the field, and to morrow is cast into the oven; how much more will He clothe you, O ye of little faith?
And seek not ye what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, neither be ye of doubtful mind. For all these things do the nations of the world seek after: and your Father knoweth that ye have need of these things. But rather seek ye the kingdom of God; and all these things shall be added unto you. Fear not little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom."
Read verse 32 again, "...it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." What kingdom is that? His kingdom, the kingdom of God. God takes pleasure in giving good things to His kids, just like we as parents take pleasure in giving good things to our kids. We got that from God the Father. He is the source of all good parenting.
God reveals that pleasure of providing far above what we can ask or think of in His name Jehovah-Jireh! Paul writes in Ephesians 3:14-21, "For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man: That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God. Now unto Him that is able to do exceedingly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, Unto Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen."
God the Father wants us to know the fullness of His love and know that He is able to do far more than we can ask or think. It is His desire to be our total provision for all things and to be our source for all that we need in life. It is His desire for us to see Him and know Him as Jehovah-Jireh. In Him, we move, breathe and have our being. It is His desire to share all that He has with us so that we may know how deep His love for us truly is!
The final thing I wish to share with you concerning the incident with Abraham at Mount Moriah is that, later Solomon built His temple at the very spot where God revealed himself as Jehovah-Jireh. This spot became the Temple of Soloman, the center for the daily worship of God in Israel and that is why it is so critical for the nation of Israel today. It was here that the covenant was tested and proven, and it is here that the nation of Israel seeks to re-establish that relationship again.
It was at the temple that the twelve year old Jesus went and amazed the teachers of the law. It was also at the temple that Jesus went to cleanse His father's house. It was at Mount Moriah, in the temple, that Jesus came as the Lamb of God in the last week of His life. In the person of Jesus, God physically came to His covenant people to fulfill the promises He made to them. Again, He comes today to us in the person of Jesus in the real presence of the Holy Eucharist and to all the world to show himself as Jehovah-Jireh. Amen and Amen!
This is an excerpt from the ebook "The Covenant of Grace and Mercy" which can be read in its entirety on this site via the page index. Todd
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