I have been having problems with the template on this blog and have decided to switch this particular blog to wordpress.com. For those that are interested go here:

http://embracinggod.wordpress.com/

Thanks,
Scott

Scripture Search:
I woke up this morning thinking that it would be appropriate to have a Scripture verse for the Community Wide Thanksgiving Dinner. I could think of a few, but what I noticed as I was searching was that most often when giving thanks to God it was because of deliverance. Throughout the Old Testament it shows our mighty God continually making a way for deliverance and ultimately through the Deliverance of His son on the cross. This is the thing that I am most thankful for today. I no longer have to bear the punishment for the things that I have done wrong. Christ paid the price so that I may be with Him. That is good news and I am plenty to be thankful for.

And I leave you with this Scripture:
7 My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed: I will sing, yea, I will sing praises. 8 Awake up, my glory; Awake, psaltery and harp: I myself will awake right early. 9 I will give thanks unto thee, O Lord, among the peoples: I will sing praises unto thee among the nations. 10 For thy lovingkindness is great unto the heavens, And thy truth unto the skies. 11 Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens; Let thy glory be above all the earth.
Psalms 57:7-11 (ASV)

Now here is a strange question: "Where is your wicker basket?" Why do I ask? Well simply because of a dream. I usually have some Doozies, but this one was one that I really enjoyed and would have liked to go back to sleep for. Simply for the fact that I went to heaven. The dream started out with something happening and all the sudden I was needing to board a plane to heaven.

I must have died. Well I got my boarding pass, which looked something like a compass and had to go to the ticket booth - which looked something like a passport terminal. There was a nice gentleman that was getting his ticket and after he left, he realized that he forgot something and got back in line. Three people were ahead of him. Each taking longer than normal and the man was getting very frustrated and angry. By the time he got to the ticket counter, he found out because of his attitude that he was going to have to take another flight. I guess you have to check your attitude before you get on the flight to heaven.

Then all the sudden the scene changed and I was on the flight. I remember looking back and seeing a rear window,Kind of like a cars rear window and I was going vertically up towards the sky. It was like the earth was moving away from me. It put a knot in my chest - you could say that it scared me to death. Well if I wasn't dead already anyway. On the way, we were going on all sorts of roads and all of them looked like mother of pearl slides that went in all kinds of different directions. Kind of like the MC Escher painting of the stairs. Then finally we got there.

Next thing I know is that I was being told to go to an area to put my stuff. I had a backpack full of stuff that I must have brought along with me. I am not sure what was in the bag all I know is that it was everything that I had. I guess they were telling me that, that I didn't have to carry around my baggage anymore. I had a place to stay. A gentleman told me that I had the area 23S which happened to be right accross from my Pastor - Dr. Young in 22G. The area with the designated spots remided me of the spa and sauna area that Chaundra and I used at the resort in Lost Pines recently. I looked at the little hole in the wall and wondered to myself is there like a whole room in that little hole. After all we were in heaven and anything was possible. As I looked it was a little wicker basket. I was supposed to sit my backpack in it and start enjoying heaven.

This is when I woke up. Darn that waking! I was going to get to find out what heaven was like and I didn't get my chance. So the moral of the story is: "I don't know! After all it was just a Dream!" Just kidding, I think that it was saying that we don't have to carry around our burdens anymore. God made a way. We pack our bags, but He has a place for them. So if these burdens are like sin, we won't need them anymore. So I will leave you with some scripture:

22This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, 23for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. 25God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement,[a] through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— 26he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus. -Romans 3:22-26

So I guess I will ask the question again: "Where is your wicker basket?" Is it your back? Are you carrying around your burdens or sins? Or is it in a hole in the wall where you don't have to carry them around anymore? God made a way! The flight is ready, you just have to get on board. The ticket is Jesus and just like the compass he will show you the way. All you have to do is believe in him and the sacrifice that he gave to get us to God. I hope you have your ticket.

And this concludes this episode of "What Scott Dreams." Turn in next week for another exciting epi... well maybe your never know. God Bless!

Everyone at some point in their life has asked God the question, “Why?” Some have used it to question the very existence of God, while others have drawn closer to God because of it. Habakkuk is a prophetic book that was written on behalf of these people. Most people when they think of prophecy they think of "Foretelling" of the future. While this is an aspect of prophecy it also means to forthtell. In other words it has a message for the day it is spoken and it might have a future meaning as well. Mostly it is more like a proclomation of some sort. God rises his people up to warn and turn them back to Him. While most prophets called the people to God, Habakkuk questioned God for the people. He could not understand why the poor were afflicted and mistreated. He could not understand why a nation more wicked than Israel would be used to judge God’s people. His question of “Why?” shows us that we can be true to God and still question Him in our doubt.

Well who was he:
Gleason L. Archer states, “The name Habaqquq is an unusual one of uncertain meaning; possibly it signified ardent embrace, from hābaq, embrace (Eiselen in ISBE). Some have suggested that it was a name of a garden plant which the Assyrians called hambaqūqu, but which cannot as yet be identified.” [1] However, even with the Assyrian conquest of Israel, it does not seem to make sense for a Judean prophet to be named after an Assyrian plant. Judea was never conquered by the Assyrians and while they may have had some influence, it doesn't seem to fit well. What does make sense is the use of his name with the idea of embracing God, especially in a time this was needed the most.

Little is really known about Habakkuk himself. There is some speculation that he was from the tribe of Simeon, and some have suggested he is a Levite. Clyde T. Francisco stated, “According to another such work, Lives of the Prophets, he was a man of the tribe of Simeon who fled upon Nebuchadnezzar’s advance to take Jerusalem (587) but returned after the fall, dying two years before the return from captivity.”[2] Bel and the Dragon places him in the tribe of Levi. The Jewish encyclopedia online states, “The title to the Septuagint text reads: ‘From the prophecy of Habakkuk, the son of Jesus [Joshua], of the tribe of Levi.’ There was in existence, probably, a work ascribed to Habakkuk; but of its nature nothing is known.”[3] If more than one source had put his heritage with a specific tribe, historians would have more clues about his genealogy. While Bel and the Dragon and Lives of the Prophets are not canonical books, they may shed some light on Habakkuk’s origins. Either way, we cannot know for certain.

Another reason that people have placed Habakkuk with the tribe of Levi is because of the musical aspects of chapter 3. Frank Boyd states, “From 3:1 and 3:19 we gather that he may have been a Levite participating in the music of the Temple.”[4] Robert Pfeiffer, uses the musical aspects of the chapter as an argument against Habakkuk’s authorship of chapter three. Pfeiffer does not believe that chapter three should be attributed to Habakkuk, because he was a prophet and not a musician. By stating this, however, he has limited the abilities of people to be able to do only one thing with any excellence, and that is a fallacy. Who is he to say that someone cannot be a king or a prophet and be musically inclined as well? The argument just doesn’t work.
So what does this mean? It means that we don't really know that much about him and we cannot know for certain without more evidence. Most of what we know is based off of speculation. The one thing that I do know is that he wrote this book. In Chapter 1 verse 1 of Habakkuk, it states: "The Oracle that Habakkuk the prophet recieved." I also know that he had a heart for his nation. Why else would he be questioning God about wickedness and injustice. I do know that he had a heart for God as well, after all he waited for his answer and didn't give up that God would speak to him on the matter. He also showed this in the third chapter as he was giving thanks to God even with knowing the destruction that was coming on Jerusalem.

Yet I will wait patiently for the day of calamity to come on the nation invading us. Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior. -Habakkuk 3: 16b-18

I know that he is every man/woman. Meaning that he is just like you and me. He couldn't understand why things were the way they were, just like many times we have asked this same question: "Why?" We can be comforted in the fact that God loves us even in our Doubt. We can be comforted with the fact that God loves us when we ask Him questions, and He is willing to answer us if we are truly seeking an answer. We can be comforted in the fact that even in our times of trouble, He cares! We can be comforted in the fact that He is a just God and when things don't seem fair, He has a plan. We can be comforted in the fact that if we are being disciplined, that He will see us through it. God does Care!


[1] Gleason L. Archer, A Survey of Old Testament Introduction (Chicago: Moody Press, 1974), 355.
[2] Clyde T. Francisco, Introducing the Old Testament (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1958), 138.
[3] Crawford Howell Toy, "Bel And The Dragon," Jewish Encyclopedia, 2002, http://jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=561&letter=B/ (accessed April 26, 2008).
[4] Frank M. Boyd, Old Testament Studies, ed. , Joel Through Malachi (Springfield, MO: Gospel Publishing House, 1988), 153.