Tuesday September 2, 2025 - Lion of the Tribe of Judah

 Chapter 14: Lion of the Tribe of Judah  Day 3

Praying the Name: 

Amos 3:6-8 - If a trumpet is blown in a city, will not the people be afraid? If there is calamity in a city, will not the Lord have done it? Surely the Lord God does nothing, Unless He reveals His secret to His servants the prophets. A lion has roared! Who will not fear? The Lord God has spoken! Who can but prophesy?

John 3:36 - He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.”


Father, 

    I want to praise You for Your great power in our lives, that You watch over us and keep us and that You have great mercy for us that we might be allowed to stand in You. I thank You for using Your power and mercy to love me more. 

    I thank You for not keeping me under Your wrath, but for standing with me and giving me love and devotion. I am praising You for all that You do in Your love and mercy and the power in which You care for me. 

    Forgive me if I take Your mercy for granted, that I appreciate that You love me and give me that mercy and do not do things that I deserve. 

    I ask that You reveal Your love and mercy to those I love, the ones that I pray for and care about and those that mean the world to me. I ask that You give those people a great mercy and turn their hearts to You Father. 

    Thank You Father for loving us so much. 

In Jesus Name, 

    Amen 

    

    When it comes to using nature imagery to describe God it is not surprising that scripture pictures Him sometimes as a great and mighty lion. This image seems fitting in harmony of the notion of His majesty and power, but it also fits an image of God that many people have grown up with picturing Him as a scowling, angry, and impossible to please God. 

    Where on earth did this idea of a grumpy, implacable, even frightening God come from? Is it simply a physiological projection a result of the emotional distance most of us feel from the father figures in our lives or is there more to it? I would argue that this image of God is constructed from multiple sources from our own wounded and guilt-ridden psyches, but also demonic distortions of God's character and even from the Bible itself. It is hardly surprising given our falling condition that many of us instinctively sense the gap between who we are and who we are meant to be, from there it is not difficult to image a disappointed and disgruntle creator scowling down at us from lofty heights and then there is the devil, ever intent on distorting God's image, painting the Lord into his own likeness prone to divine temper tantrums. But what about the Bible does not an honest reading of scripture particularly the Old Testament reveal a God who is often spoken of in terms of His wrath? Is not this the God described as a mighty lion roaring in judgement of the nations and against His own faithless people. 

    Before we reach too hasty of a conclusion, about a supremely irritable supreme being, we should at least try to understand the meaning of the Greek word 'orge', translated as wrath in the New Testament. When scripture talks about God's 'orge' it is not talking about the emotion of anger in the way that we experience it. God's wrath is not primarily an emotion but rather a divine work of judgement that results when people adamantly resist Him. God's wrath is Holy resistance to everything that is unholy. 

    Fortunately, God has given us His Son to be both lion and lamb. As the lamb He has taken the brunt of God's wrath burring it away so that we can experience God's mercy. But as the lion He stands in judgement of all who persist in opposing God. As one commentator has pointed out whoever accepts God's mercy is free from His wrath, but whoever rejects mercy remains under wrath. 

    Today as we contemplate Jesus the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, let us thank Him for going to the divine extreme of the cross in order to enable us to stop resisting the God who made us. Let us remember that we will one day be judged according to how well we have responded to His grace, allowing it to shape our lives. 

    Today let us kneel before His majesty determined to repent of our sins and to intercede for those who yet oppose Him family and friends who are still ignorant of His love, and clueless of His mercy.



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