You, Israel, are saved by the Lord with everlasting salvation; you shall not be put to shame or confounded to all eternity.
Matthew 13:43
The righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Let anyone with ears listen!
Words of Grace For Today
Since God has done such great things for us,
Since God has saved us with a salvation without end and promised that we shall never be put to shame or be confounded,
Since we have ears to hear, and we hear God promises that we, the righteous (made so only by Grace), will shine like the sun in God’s Kingdom.
Therefore, no matter the challenges that we face in this real and messy world, we shine with the light of Christ for all to see.
And the truth shines through all efforts to hide, pervert, and deceive in the all too common methods of ‘getting ahead’ which are really paths straight out of healthy life into the abyss of the Devil’s ways.
For once one lies and relies on it, all grounding in reality is up for grabs and it will slip away from one slowly and quickly until one has no bearings for what is real. Then the nightmares begin.
For us, who shine with the Light of Christ, our bearings to reality are sure and forever reliable, for our guide is God and God’s Grace.
When Pharaoh saw that the rain and the hail and the thunder had ceased, he sinned once more and hardened his heart, he and his officials.
Romans 2:4
Do you despise the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience? Do you not realize that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?
Words of Grace For Today
When we are in trouble we run to God for help. We make all sorts of promises to God of what we will do, how we will not sin, if God will only help us.
God does help us, but God is not fooled.
Oh, so often, once God has delivered us, we forget everything we promised, and worse we forget all God has done for us.
Pharaoh is hardly the only one who sins again and again, hardening his heart against God’s tender compassion.
God does not want it that way for us, or for anyone. God is gracious and merciful, full of kindness and forbearance and patience, and steadfast in love for us, all so that we, when we are yet again dreadfully hard-hearted sinners, we may know that we can trust God. We can be so humble as to confess our sins and repent, returning to the Lord our God, with hearts filled with grace, kindness, forbearance, patience, and steadfast love for ourselves and all the other hard-hearted, repeat sinners.
Listen to me, my people, and give heed to me, my nation; for a teaching will go out from me, and my justice for a light to the peoples.
1 John 2:8
Yet I am writing you a new commandment that is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining.
Words of Grace For Today
The daylight grows shorter each day, at this latitude markedly, as we are only 20 days from the winter solstice. When clouds and precipitation block the light during the few hours the sun is above the horizon the drear and darkness grows on us, as if the end of time were approaching though we trust that is not so. In these times the winter darkness teaches us well what we may or may not know so well from our own experience: that injustice of the nation is prevalent, here and now for so many people, and the injustice of the world order (or chaos as it really is) tears so many people from life, and even more from living a life respected as a full human being.
Then we read the promise that God will bring words of truth to bear on our world, that Christ’s Light shines already bright for all people. We read these words of promise and hope with eager hearts, though hardly more so than the billions who suffer the chaos of injustice worked for the privilege, comfort, and power of the few.
When people recognize the Light of Christ, the world chaos can but fail as Christ’s way replaces human greed.
For this day we wait, for freedom from darkness, for freedom from blatant injustice, for freedom from all evil, and for freedom to serve Christ fully, without reserve, with our whole hearts, minds and strength. For this day we wait. On that day we will celebrate the coming of Christ as we have not ever yet.
This is the advent of awareness: that Christ has come, is come, and will come again, to bring into the light all that is done now as if in darkness, all that is done to throw others as captives into darkness, all that is done to supposedly ‘set things right’ when the actions are more unjust than those they pretend to correct.
This our advent. Advent as we prepare to celebrate Christ’s coming, again.
Moses said to the Lord, ‘If your presence will not go, do not carry us up from here.’
John 10:4
When the shepherd has brought out all his own sheep, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice.
Words of Grace For Today
God sends Moses and the people from Mount Sinai up into the land flowing with milk and honey. God sends Moses and the people and will not go with them, for if God does, the people are a stiff-necked people and God’s presence will consume them.
That does not bode well for the people. From here on they will have to proceed without God’s presence, which has accompanied them since they gathered to leave to cross the Red Sea and come all those years through the wilderness. This is a tremendous change, a change not for the better.
Moses understands, having spent time on the mount with God, collecting the commandments on rock tablets, has wisdom about what the people will loose if God does not continue to accompany them.
God promises to walk with us always, no matter what. So why does God want to send the people on their way … and not go with them? Are the people really so far gone, so stiff-necked that even God cannot fix it, or go with them?
The rest of the story, which is indeed worth knowing, is that Moses convinces God to go with the people, and God does. God is good for God’s promises.
The shepherd, Jesus, continues to fulfill God’s promise to us. More than that Jesus gathers his people from among all the people, and, because we know Jesus’ voice we follow Jesus.
Where we go, Jesus goes with us. More than that we know how to follow Jesus where Jesus leads us. There is nothing more blessed for us.
Let your face shine upon your servant; save me in your steadfast love.
Luke 12:25
Can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?
Words of Grace For Today
On the coin of money is inscribed ‘In God We Trust.’
This is one of the more blatant and dreadful ironies of our lives: the world seeks coin to enable the collection of resources (through payment with the coin) and to ensure the bidding of the holder is done by others (through payment with the coin).
Those of us who cannot or do not have enough coin, worry about our futures: can we keep at bay the despair of hunger, the life-ending extremes of the environment, the decay of life without good medical care, or the loss of sanity as we are isolated (as an easy target for our enemies and separated from the social fabric of life.)
This worry motivates us to work, and to work hard, to ensure some kind of safety in our future, some kind of food supply in our days to come, some kind of health care so that what ails us can be discovered, diagnosed and treated, some healthy connection with other humans who do not wish us harm. Our worry itself does nothing. It adds not even a minute to the span of our lives. What we do to work through our worry may or may not succeed in providing life and life abundant for us.
Life in all its great goodness that God created us to enjoy does not require any of this that we can work for, though. Life abundant requires only one thing and that is God’s steadfast love.
God’s steadfast love moves us from worrying.
God’s steadfast love moves us from worrying about ourselves.
God’s steadfast love moves us from worrying about ourselves to working to be God’s love for others.
God’s steadfast love moves us from worrying about ourselves and on to knowing that we are marked with the cross of Christ, which does not just mark us like coins with the greatest irony of all times. The mark on us changes us from the root of our being to the last days we live in God’s good creation: we become God-made saints.
When our enemies or our shortcomings or the lack of things we require to stay alive threaten our future we can pray: Let your face shine upon your servants; save us in your steadfast love.
Like the sun rising for a new day, sparkling, dazzling in a field of snow, God renews Christ’s light in us, and we shine, and we sparkle, and we transform the world from misery to happiness, from despair to joy, from hunger to nourished … from lost to found.
no matter the tangles of life the intrude on our days
Therefore We are Able to Be God’s Blessings for Others
Deuteronomy 28:1-6
If you will only obey the Lord your God, by diligently observing all his commandments that I am commanding you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth; all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, if you obey the Lord your God:
Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the field.
Blessed shall be the fruit of your womb, the fruit of your ground, and the fruit of your livestock, both the increase of your cattle and the issue of your flock.
Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading-bowl.
Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out.
Matthew 12:50
For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.
Words of Grace For Today
Both passages say clearly enough that it is all up to us: if we do the right things, if we obey all God’s commandments, if we do God’s will, then
then we will be blessed in all ways,
then we will be Jesus’ brother, sister or mother.
That certainly is how the world works and how religious authorities have parsed God’s blessings in their attempts to control their followers.
God is not so parsed, not correctly anyway.
God’s blessings are not so parsed, not correctly anyway.
Jesus’ brothers and sisters and mother are not so determined, not correctly anyway.
But this is the way of the world, and it is our self-centred, familiar, assuring and futile way of working God’s will in our world.
Trouble is, it’s not us that works God’s will and this is God’s world.
God’s way, clearly demonstrated in the story of Jesus’ life, ministry, death and resurrection, is that God blesses us, and we either can surrender to that, or work our way out of the blessings by going our own way. Even then God pursues us, relentlessly, promising to forgive us, give us re-newed lives, and send us out again to be God’s blessings for others.
God’s blessings are not tied to how powerful, wealthy, or famous we are. God’s blessings are contained in the God given ability to be able to love, and love completely and unconditionally. For is love, starting with fear and love for God, and then love for ourselves, our neighbours and our enemies … in love we find life, life’s meaning and purpose and a joy that cannot be marred by circumstances, no matter how bad they may be.
The joy that God gives us is familiar to most people. It is like living life being in love. Some know it as a teenager’s 1st love, or as a young adult knowing this is the one person to marry, or as holding your new born infant, or as guiding children as they grow up, or as playing with grandchildren, or as growing old together and sharing memories as you deal with new challenges.
Most all of us experience that being in love, and loving others, gives us a profound joy.
Being in love with God, fearing and loving God, gives us an even more profound joy. All our times of being in love come to an end. Some endings leave us lost, as if the pathways and walls of life itself have crumbled out from under us.
Being in love and fearing God is markedly different because that love never comes to an end since it is determined not by our capacity to love, but by God’s promises to love us always. God loves us always, no matter the twists and turns we take in life. Trusting that God loves us gives a pervasive joy, a foundational joy.
Today we pray, may we live fearing and loving God as God loves us. May we be God’s love for all other people, so that we do not forget how precious God’s love is.
Let your steadfast love become my comfort according to your promise to your servant.
Luke 2:25
Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; this man was righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit rested on him.
Words of Grace For Today
Waiting.
Waiting for an event that is so much more than just another everyday occurrence.
Waiting for an event that is so much more than the greatest thing in one’s life.
Waiting for …
Waiting for God to break into the life of humans, and make a statement so clear about God’s love that it will shake all the foundations that humans build on, for everything that humans build.
Waiting for God to reveal how God relates to us, in our broken, sinful, destructive lives, which we seem incapable of setting right.
We wait.
We wait again this Advent.
We wait again this Advent for the celebration of our Saviour’s birth.
We wait.
Yet there is no way that we can wait idly for this celebration, just ticking off the days, eating the chocolates out of the advent calendar, and hoping that this celebration will bring life to us again, renewed life, and God’s favour … after all that we do as humans to one another.
We wait for our enemies to be converted to reasonable, truth abiding, honourable humans once again, if they ever were such people.
We wait … and the Holy Spirit works in us, helping us to see …
Helping us to see beyond the portents of this time, as storms increase in magnitude month by month, as temperatures rise so that glaciers recede at record rates, and so that ice caps melt and ocean levels rise covering islands and seashore cities, as wildfires burn away forests protecting mountainsides and rivers, as earthquakes increase, as droughts grip whole agricultural areas leaving farmers with no crops to sell and people without food to eat, and as rainstorms pour water in record amounts on dry and vulnerable areas flooding homes, roads, and whole cities, and whole mountainsides give way to mudslides that block off roadways halting transport of goods in its tracks, leaving retailers shelves thin, and Christmas wishes changed from a special gift to a wish that our lives and the lives of our loved ones will be preserved.
Helping us to hear beyond the news of these disasters and the ever- mutating and more dangerous variants of Covid spreading to our areas.
Helping us to trust …
Helping us to trust God’s promise that God’s steadfast love will be our comfort …
a comfort like no other.
Thus comforted we are able to reach out to save many people, people we know, people we do not know and people who are our enemies …
saving people from disaster with needed, real-time help,
saving people from the wiles of the Great Deceiver with needed, real-time love and hope.
Helping others to trust God’s promise that God’s steadfast love will be their comfort …
We do not need great clarity to tell they are ducks.
Nor do we need great clarity to know
what is Evil,
Nor to remember God Promises forgiveness.
Psalm 94:9
Does not the One who planted the ear hear? Does not the One who formed the eye see?
Matthew 6:8
Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
Words of Grace For Today
It is all too easy to point to other people who behave in disingenuous ways, perverted ways, dishonest ways, criminal ways, and even full out evil ways.
Yes, in our pursuit to find our own way in life, we always find others who are examples for us to follow, and many more others who are examples of who we do not want to be like, examples of what we do not want to ever do.
As we pursuit our way in life, (in order to make more gains for ourselves) the temptation becomes greater and greater to do things that are less and less noble, genuine, honest, legal, and even somewhat good. Whether we admit it or not, we all fall into the trap of thinking that ‘just this one, little bad thing’ will be enough to help us make it. And then there is another, and another, until if we were able to be honest any more, we’d realize that we have become exactly what we promised ourselves we would never become.
That is the human failing, that we sin, no matter who we are, or how good we think we really are. It is the case for the alcoholic on the street, the drug dealer peddling slow death to so many, the police officer creating evidence against innocent people, the pastor who lies along with the police, the wealthiest community leaders and funders of the local churches who indulge their sexual desires with so many people by arranging for them some kind of financial benefit even so much as a place to live and a job or a few thousand each month during a monthly ‘afternoon tea’, the business woman who is as corrupt and perverted as the Russian occupiers and STASI of her youth, the judges who turn a blind eye to the corruption and perverted lies that corrupt lawyers and police offer the court and then convict innocent people (who will not toe the line of complying with power people’s wishes to keep in the dark their perverted ways), and the bishops who listen to gain information and then use that information to support whoever can deliver them enough power to remain bishop with influence in as many congregations and with as many people of money and power as possible.
The question is not whether anyone, ourselves included, have done things that God looks darkly on, sins that hurt others and separate us from God’s will for us.
The question is what we do next?
Do we admit our sin, confessing all that we’ve done, and seeking forgiveness from those we’ve hurt? 12 Step groups include this in their path they repeat over and over again in order to be honest with themselves about their addictions and how the addictions keep them from living by killing them slowly.
Or do we continue in our perverse ways of power, wealth, privilege, luxury, and greed – all at other people’s expense, even at the expense of their lives?
Do we admit, with abject humility, that God sees and hears everything that we do, say, and even think? Do we grab on to God’s promise of Grace, of forgiveness if we confess our sins?
Or do we continue to pound the life out of others with all means available to us, to extract the last bit of advantage we can from them before they die? Or do we continue in our blindness and deafness to deny that we have sinned at all, surrendering our souls to the Devil, and our lives to evil at each step?
The declarations of those who follow evil at every step about other people, false declarations made in order to deflect accountability and responsibility and exposure and honesty from catching up with their evil ways and their hearts caught by and dedicated to evil … These false declarations may appear to ruin others, innocent others, but they do not. These false declarations say nothing about their victims and instead light up for all to see, the perverted, dishonest, destructive acts of the declarers. Their false declarations about other illuminate for all to see exactly what they desperately try to conceal: their own sin and evil hearts and minds and deeds.
Those, like myself, about whom these false declarations are made, can live in peace, knowing that God sees all, God hears all, and God judges all people by the reality of their hearts, minds and deeds. Our enemies do not destroy us. They destroy themselves, for a lie once spoken, and lie relied upon, remains always to be a lie, and the lies turn back on their creators to consume them.
Thanks be to God, who provides all we need, even before we ask, so that we can live in peace, blessed peace provided for all us God-made saints.
On that day it shall be said to Jerusalem: Do not fear, O Zion; do not let your hands grow weak. The Lord, your God, is in your midst, a warrior who gives victory; he will rejoice over you with gladness, he will renew you in his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.
Ephesians 2:19
You are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God.
Words of Grace For Today
What do we need today,
a warrior who gives us victory over our enemies?
Or
to be renewed in God’s love?
There is, among all the things that occupy us in this life, only one thing that counts: our relationship with God.
Those that lie to the courts which have acted unjustly on their lies will have their lies turn back on them. There will be no escape for those that live by the lie, and try to kill by the lie.
Those that fear and love God, know God and God’s presence every day.
We are no longer strangers and aliens in God’s Kingdom. We are citizens with all the other God-made saints of all times, together children of God, members of God’s house.
Here we live.
Here our enemies’ lies have no meaning …
Here our enemies’ use of the unjust courts have no meaning, except
…
except their lies and perverse use of the unjust courts define them as God’s enemies.
That is no place to be on this planet, for there is no escape from God and God’s justice.
For us, there is home, always home in God’s blessed care.
Therefore we do not fear, no matter what lies our enemies threaten us with.
For we are God’s own people, God’s own blessed people, God’s own holy people.
You have seen their detestable things, the filthy idols of wood and stone, of silver and gold, that were among them.
1 Thessalonians 3:12
May the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as we abound in love for you.
Words of Grace For Today
There are so many idols. These used to be made of wood and stone, sliver and gold. They are also made of things that build perverse hopes, perverse power, perverse wealth, perverse status, perverse lies, and … all kinds of perverse things.
There are so many kinds of love, so many ways that it holds us, supports us, gives us life … makes things as God created them to be in so many ways.
In each moment we get to choose to worship our idols, our perverse idols that rob us and others of life.
OR
In each moment we get to choose to receive and give love that is able to create life for us and for others.
This choice is not something we can choose by ourselves. We need the Holy Spirit to guide us and inspire us, and help us to choose what is good and right.
