Did you ever wonder? Did you ever wonder? I do. Did you ever wonder why the sun always rises but the stars never fall?
Why dry land is never satisfied by water? And why fire never says enough? Do you ever wonder? Do you ever wonder?
Do you ever wonder? When you look at it in Hebrew, if you would allow my picture translation of the three pictures that are involved, which are basically the Hebrew letter yud, the Hebrew letter zadik, and the Hebrew letter bet. So again, to just describe what those pictures are, it's like the hand of God coming down and holding this righteous person who is looking up like a tree that's always looking for the light. And they're looking up at the kingdom, that bet, or so the yud is God's hand, the zadik is righteousness, and the bet is essentially the kingdom. When you think about God's house, you know, this is that bet. And so, I'm just amazed to stand there thinking about, well, I'm going to stand there holding essentially God's hand and looking up at the kingdom.
I mean, it's just, you couldn't be in a safer place, right? So as we were talking about yesterday, that if this is the idea of prayer is all about this. Is God reaching down and holding your hand?
And so, a couple other things I wanted to share with you is that when I pray every morning, my daily prayer, which you can find that at my website and a lot of places where I've said it's the greatest advice I can give anybody is to spend some time in prayer every morning. And one of the things, God gave me some healing actually from some of the sexual trauma that was early on in my life that led to all sorts of lust problems that I experienced throughout life. And at one point in time, as Jesus is phenomenally generous and phenomenally loving, as we are walking through some of that healing, he said, here, take my hand. Well, I'm sure.
Well, I'm not sure. I was shocked because when I took his hand, all of a sudden I realized, wow, there is a nail mark in that hand. And as I took a hold of his hand, I was immediately covered in his blood.
And it was this remarkable feeling of like, oh my goodness, and I was remembering the woman caught in adultery, right? When Jesus was standing there with her, he said, woman, where are your accusers? Well, if you're taking Jesus' hand, you see, you automatically get that nail, scarred hand, and you get the blood. And as you're covered in his blood, you are that righteous person, right? This picture of this person standing, as you're covered in this blood, you're standing there, right, looking up into the kingdom.
You aren't going to give up any ground because you have no accusers. You're exactly where God wants you to be. It's where Stephen was standing, right, as he was being stoned. He had a hold of Jesus' hand. He was in complete righteousness.
And he laid down his life in order to bring the kingdom, okay? Now, the letter yud, which is also a word in Hebrew, has everything to do with being a Jew. And so, I found this article in Hadad, this website I love to go to all the time, and it says, what is the meaning of being a Jew?
And it just shocked me as I read this. And think about this whole idea when you hear the word yuda or when you hear the word Israel, all those words start with a yud, which is this hand of God coming down, okay? So as I read this, just think about this letter yud that's in the front of, obviously, Jesus' name. It's in the front of Jacob's name. It's in the front of Israel's name. So the term Jew is derived from the name of Jacob's four-son Judah, yuda in Hebrew, and may have originally applied not only to Judah's descendants who comprised one of the 12 tribes of Israel.
On his deathbed, Jacob assigned Judah the role of leader and king, a prophecy that was fulfilled in 869 BCE when all the 12 tribes submitted to the reign of King David of the tribe of Judah. But there is also a deeper meaning to the name Jew. The first individual to be called a Jew, yuda, in the Scriptures was Mordecai of Purim fame.
That's Esther chapter 2, verse 5. The Talmud, Megillah 12b, asks on this, he is called a Jew, implying that he descended from Judah. He was a Benjamite, yet he was called a Jew because he rejected idolatry. And anyone who rejects idolatry is called a Jew. The commentaries explain that the name Judah shares the same root as the Hebrew word hara, which means acknowledgement or submission, one who acknowledges God's existence and submits to his authority to the extent that he is willing to sacrifice his life for the sanctification of God's name. He is called a Jew. Hence, Abraham is commonly referred to as the first Jew, as the first person to use his own cognitive abilities to discover and recognize the one God, reject idolatrous ways of his ancestors and contemporaries and actively publicize the truth of God and was prepared to give his very life for these goals.
Abraham epitomizes Jewishness just many centuries before the term came into common use. I'm sure you can see with me that this yud in the front of this is giving us something worth dying for, right? That to really stand our ground, holding Jesus' hand under his blood completely righteous and willing to lay down our life, right? Take up my cross and follow me. The whole idea is he who gives up his life will gain it, right? And here we are in this position daily as we go into our daily prayer.
How fun is this? Reach up, grab Jesus' hand, be covered in his righteousness, look for his kingdom, lay down your life and be ready to stand.
