Jehovah Nissi, The Lord our Banner

Exodus 17:11-16 As long as Moses kept his hands raised up, Israel had the better of the fight, but when he let his hands rest, Amalek had the better of the fight. Moses’ hands, however, grew tired; so they took a rock and put it under him and he sat on it. Meanwhile Aaron and Hur supported his hands, one on one side and one on the other, so that his hands remained steady until sunset. And Joshua defeated Amalek and his people with the sword. Then the Lord said to Moses: Write this down in a book as something to be remembered, and recite it to Joshua: I will completely blot out the memory of Amalek from under the heavens. Moses built an altar there, which he named Yahweh-nissi; for he said, “Take up the banner of the Lord! The Lord has a war against Amalek through the ages.”

I have been learning about the Names of God in the Old Testament and using them in my daily prayer time and in adoration of His Holy Name and attributes. I have found it a beautiful way to address God in my personal time of specific need, and call out to the Name that promises to meet that need. When I am needing peace, I address Jehovah Shalom, the God who is my peace. When I am in need of healing, I ask Jehovah Rapha to attend to my pain. When in need of provision, I can call to Jehovah Jireh, the God who provides. When I am feeling lost or in need of guidance or rest, I cry out to my Shepherd, Jehovah Raah.

A couple weeks ago, I was introduced to Jehovah Nissi, The Lord, our Banner. He first appears here in Exodus 17, after a victorious battle against Amalek, the grandson of Esau (who had sold his birthright to his younger brother Jacob/Israel for a bowl of stew). St. Augustine taught that Amalek represents the city of the world, and Israel represents the City of God. The battle between the children of Israel and the Amalekites is an OT type of what we experience in our Christian life today, what we know as spiritual warfare. Today’s battle is the Lord’s keeping of His sworn vow…to have war against Amalek from generation to generation. And truly, today we are fighting in spiritual battles between between the city of the world and the city of God.

I challenge you to read the entire account for yourself, starting with verse 8, and compare it with the NT Scriptures about spiritual warfare…..but for now, I want to focus on the details of the victory that Moses experienced in the battle with Amalek, and the Name of God that appears in this account.  Have you ever tried holding your hands above your head for a long period of time? They quickly grow tired, and you can only find relief by lowering them. This happened for Moses in this account, and when his arms dropped, the enemy advanced. Moses was assisted by Aaron and Hur, in that when his arms grew tired, they held them up for him, and relieved him in his need for rest.

This is a beautiful picture of Christian Community!

In today’s spiritual battle, we find this same phenomena. We all are fighting intense battles with an unseen enemy, we lift our hands in surrender to God and focus on Him, but the battle is long, our arms grow tired, and in our humanity, we grow weary in well-doing, lose our focus, and take a break…when our hands lower, our enemy advances. How we need the support and assistance of one other! Like Aaron and Hur, we can strengthen the arms of our brothers and sisters in battle through prayer and encouragement while we wait for the promise of the complete defeat of Amalek, and continue in the war against him through the ages.

Psalm 60:4 You have given a banner to those who fear you that it may be displayed because of the truth! Selah.

Prayer Journal – Our Father

⁹ Pray then like this:  First, how not to pray…now, the instruction of how rather to pray:

Our Father who art in heaven, — I love that God is not just Jesus’ Father…and he’s not just my Father…but our Father.  I am not an only child here!  I have a huge family unit consisting of brothers and sisters, spanning the globe and the ages.  We are one big family!  “Father” is a personal, intimate term.  It indicates a family relationship, of favor, love, nurturing and protection.  We might not have the best example in our earthly fathers, but everything that we would expect and respect in our own earthly daddy, God is to us, and infinitely more.  In fact, He sets the bar for earthly fathers, even the best daddy in this world will fall short of the excellency of our Heavenly Father.

Hallowed be thy name.

God’s name and very essence is “hallowed” which means holy, or consecrated (set apart…above all) sacred, or revered  (I’d be getting WAY AHEAD of myself here if I took you on the bunny trail of the word sanctification…we’ll get to it in a bit, I promise).  While we are not the ones doing the “hallowing”, by observing and understanding the holy, sacred nature of God’s Name, we participate in an act of worship to Our Father, God.  It is  the first step in adoration, that is, recognizing  and reverencing Him for who He is, apart from what He’s done/is doing. By the way, if you’ve never done a personal study on the names of God, you are missing out on some wonderful heart knowledge.  I love the thought of incorporating God’s names and attributes into my prayers, but often my mind goes blank and I can’t bring them to mind.  Having a list handy during my prayer time would be helpful, so I decided to devote one page of my prayer journal to the attributes of God, and another to the names that are recorded of His.

This was a lofty plan, I found as I began a crash course on the attributes/names of God, using this site.    Wow.  I knew there was not enough room on my page to list them all (further proof that our God cannot and will not be contained).  I finally just chose the ones that are relevant to me where I am on my journey today.  Eventually, I plan to do an in-depth study of the names of God, I’ll write the Hebrew name on one side of an open page, and the English meaning on the other.  For now, because of limited space, I gave myself permission to write only the English meaning of the Hebrew name.  Since God is both perfect and multilingual, I figure He’s okay with me not butchering the Hebrew when calling on Him.

What about you?   Do you find it helpful to focus you attention on His attributes when you address Him by name?  What are the names/attributes of God that you focus on when you pray?

Tip:  Unfortunately, even with the pages doubled, my marker bled through to the opening page of my journal.  To prevent this, on future pages, I illustrated first (with an index card underneath the page(s)  I’m coloring), then glued when finished.

Let Thy Kingdom Come