Category: Sunset

Jails for Whom, Anyway?

Thursday, December 30, 2021

In the Light of Christ,

All Crime is Laid Plain for All to See!

Freedom is to Live in the Light of Christ,

As Fishers on the Lake at Sunset.

Psalm 74:16

Yours is the day, yours also the night; you established the luminaries and the sun.

Romans 13:12-13

The night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armour of light; let us live honourably as in the day, not in revelling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarrelling and jealousy.

Words of Grace For Today

Knowing from long experience as humans we know that enough people will violate the goodness of social order, so we create laws and police and courts and judges and jails for such people.

What ends up happening is that the laws are written by people who will as readily as anyone violate the goodness of social order to ensure that they stay in power to write the laws, so that they are not held responsible for the evil they do.

The police are more than ready to violate the goodness of social order, justifying their lawlessness for themselves by saying that they must keep order and they are not given enough tools to do so.

The lawyers who work to convict and who work to protect those charges are ready to violate the goodness of social order, justifying their lawlessness to themselves by saying that they must do what is necessary to play their part in keeping good order and they are not given enough tools to do so without cheating the system.

The judges who are supposed to work to ensure that only guilty people are convicted and sentenced are more than ready to violate the goodness of social order, justifying their lawlessness to themselves by saying that they must do what is necessary to play their part in keeping good order and they are the ones who determine what is just and what is not.

What is lost as all these people, supposedly do their part in keeping good order, is simple: truth is lost and with it all possibility of good social order. The real criminals continue to rape society of it’s goodness, it’s wealth, it’s equality for all; and they put others in jail who work at the bottom of their ladder of corruption; the drug dealers, the killers, the violent rapists, at least all those that are not smart enough not to get caught.

So for whom do we build jails? We hope they are for real criminals, and we trust at least some real criminals end up there. But the real criminals are the ones who process other ‘less successful’ people who violate the goodness of social order. There are no jails that can hold these people and keep us all safe from them.

God will judge all people, and these criminals will eventually pay for their crimes against us all.

For God’s is the day and the night. God created all. The darkness of night is passing, and the day of Christ’s light is near.

So we pray God helps us lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armour of light; help us live honourably as in the day, in the Light of Christ.

Tender God, Tender Hope.

Wednesday, December 29, 2021

The Sun Goes Down

The Ice Captures the Weed

The Snow Covers the Ice

…

Always

By God’s Tender Mercy

We Are Healed and Live Abundantly

Psalm 30:2

O Lord my God, I cried to you for help, and you have healed me.

Luke 1:78-79

By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.

Words of Grace For Today

By the tender mercy of our God …

Everything that is blessing and gift in this life is

By the tender mercy of our God.

…

By the tender mercy of our God we learn to treasure all that each day brings to us:

The sunrise, the sunset.

The COLD outside (-46⁰C), the HEAT of the furnace’s chimney (2000⁰C).

The relentless attack of our enemies’ (lies to destroy, destory, and kill us – by which we learn to trust God alone) and the gracious response of truth, both exposed by Christ’ light (by which we learn to hope only in God’s tender mercy).

New food allergies and intolerances (that increase our food costs and teach us with pain how to eat well) and the plethora of good and nutritious food available from the food bank and the grocery stores (from which we can choose how to deal with new dietary limits.)

The skills of many decades of capturing the good beauty of life in photos, of writing words that inspire hearts and minds to live better, to live well, the dancing steps to music and through the snow and woods and atop the roofs, the knowing of languages from ancient times, of foreign lands and using ‘artificial intelligence’, the piloting precision-decision-making over and under clouds, around obstacles on the ground, and between hills and mountains and leaving & returning to earth, the melding with machines to accomplish work and travel safely in all kinds of conditions, and the seeing God present walking with us each moment (good and terrible).

And most of all the miracle of being healed so that we are able to love those that love in return and those who return for love betrayal, who return for love hatred and evil, and even for those who corrupt justice for so many giving privilege to the wealthy and connected.

By the tender mercy of our God we live filled with hope for our tomorrows, and for theirs.

By the tender mercy of our God.

Mercy! Mercy Me! Mercy All!

Tuesday, December 28, 2021

God’s Mercy Shines As Life-giving Light On Us.

It may be below -40⁰ out,

And still we live only by the grace and mercy of God,

that allows us to keep warm and

breathe and

love and

hope

In the Light of Christ

Joshua 24:16-17

Then the people answered, ‘Far be it from us that we should forsake the Lord to serve other gods; for it is the Lord our God who brought us and our ancestors up from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, and who did those great signs in our sight. He protected us along all the way that we went, and among all the peoples through whom we passed.’

Jude 1:20-21

But you, beloved, build yourselves up on your most holy faith; pray in the Holy Spirit; keep yourselves in the love of God; look forward to the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life.

Words of Grace For Today

After a full generation wandering in the wilderness, and before that generations in harsh slavery in Egypt (that is the thanks Joseph’s people are given for his saving them all from famine!) Joshua puts to the people a choice, to serve God who has delivered them, or to serve others gods, the gods of the people of the lands they have entered and will enter.

The people respond with a choice that pleases God: they choose to follow Joshua and to follow God, their saviour, who has protected them all the way in every time.

Jude, as many before and since, present to his beloved readers, that they should act righteously, that they should build up their holy faith, that they should pray to the Holy Spirit, that they should keep themselves living and speaking and acting in the love of God, and they should look forward to the mercy of Jesus that will lead them to eternal life.

There is always much to do to be about doing God’s will, living out one’s faith, building up one’s faith, to pray in the Holy Spirit for all people and to keep oneself in the love of God … and to choose to serve the God who has been our Saviour through every generation, and will be our Saviour in every generation yet to come.

Ah, to always be able to make the right choices, and to always do God’s will, live out God’s love for all people, to build up our faith. It is never so with us.

Joshua’s people enter the Promised Land and their stories are just like our stories: we continually choose to do the right thing, to follow God … and then we go about the sinful and evil things, we serve other gods, the gods of the land we are in, the gods of consumerism, the gods of capitalism/greed for money, the gods of privilege and comfort at others’ expense, at the cost of other people’s lives.

The only thing that saves us is …

as always,

the mercy of God demonstrated to us in the story of Jesus the Christ.

The only thing that gives us any hope that God will continue to walk with us, to guide us, to love us … is that in spite of our sins, God continually comes to save us, to redeem us, to forgive us, and to give us new life in God’s love.

From this we hope that our enemies may also experience the truth of God’s mercy and relent from trying to kill us to save themselves (which cannot work for them anyway.)

For this we hope.

And with this hope we live, each day, blessed by God’s doing mercy for us, not our choices.

Judgment

Monday, December 27, 2021

Like Sin

We can say all we want that

those are not weeds

But the sin is always there,

Like the weeds are always there.

Jeremiah 2:35

You say, ‘I am innocent; surely his anger has turned from me.’ Now I am bringing you to judgment for saying, ‘I have not sinned.’

1 Peter 1:13

Therefore prepare your minds for action; discipline yourselves; set all your hope on the grace that Jesus Christ will bring you when he is revealed.

Words of Grace For Today

It is one thing to sin terribly. It is another degree of a thing to then claim that one has not sinned. That leaves one unable to redeem oneself.

Even then the only thing that saves us, that can save us, is what God has demonstrated through Jesus. Jesus’ story is clear and simple: God always has loved us, been ready to forgive us, and given us everything we need to know how God is always gracious towards us.

So our hope is set on Jesus Christ’ grace.

We are thus prepared for the action that the Holy Spirit calls us to do, namely living out grace for all other people.

It’s quite a life God has for us, and quite a life we have to offer others.

Celebrate!

Saturday, December 25, 2021

The Light of Christ

Shines Always,

Warm or Cold,

Snow or Rain,

Sunshine or Dark.

So We Celerate.

Deuteronomy 13:1-3

If prophets or those who divine by dreams appear among you and promise you omens or portents, and the omens or the portents declared by them take place, and they say, ‘Let us follow other gods’ (whom you have not known) ‘and let us serve them’, you must not heed the words of those prophets or those who divine by dreams; for the Lord your God is testing you, to know whether you indeed love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul.

1 John 3:23

And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us.

Words of Grace For Today

By the faith that God has given us …

by our faith in the grace that God demonstrates in the birth of Jesus Christ,

by the gifts given us by the Holy Spirit,

We celebrate today the birth of Jesus.

Blessed Christmas brings us all to God’s reality for us:

We are blessed

to be able to celebrate.

…

So we celebrate.

We celebrate, no matter what else, we celebrate.

Forgive

Wednesday, December 22, 2021

Tilted World

Dark Challenges

Deceitful Enemies

…

And Gracious God.

All Will Be Well.

Numbers 14:20

Then the Lord said, ‘I do forgive, just as you have asked.’

Ephesians 1:7

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace.

Words of Grace For Today

When the whole world falls apart around us from the sins of our enemies, and our lives seem to fall apart at their roots

The only hope we have is God’s promise to forgive, even to forgive our enemies.

This promise gives us life when all life seems impossible to enjoy.

As rich as Jesus’ Grace is we will live, redeemed, forgiven and given life. Our enemies find no life in all their empty desires and no hope in all their dreams of might by deceit.

This is God’s way of giving life to those to whom God has chosen as God’s own people. So we learn to forgive even when our enemies’ only continued efforts are to try to destroy us and life around us.

Mighty in Gentle Service

Tuesday, December 21, 2021

Choose to

See the Pen of God Writing in the Heavens

‘Forgive and Heal and Love One Another’

or

see only the smoke that clouds our eyes of the beauty of reality.

Which will we choose to see today?

Psalm 24:8

Who is the King of glory?
The Lord, strong and mighty,
the Lord, mighty in battle.

Matthew 21:9

The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting,
‘Hosanna to the Son of David!
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
Hosanna in the highest heaven!’

Words of Grace For Today

We have this vision from the earliest of times that God is mighty as we are mighty, when we are mighty (or think we are), namely when we are violent and fight in battles to make our way in the world.

So God (in our shared fictional image) is a mighty warrior who show God’s strength in fighting more mightily than we ever can.

Jesus, God’s son born in a most humble way to poor parents (not the privilege and comfort that so many enjoy and would demand their Saviour be born into as well), teaches and heals the people God’s way, God love, God strength in service and forgiveness. The people, having that image of God from of old as a mighty warrior, see Jesus taking over the ruling of the country, staging a revolution like many before have tried and failed to do. Jesus enters Jerusalem and the people are ready to throw off the injustice and oppression of their foreign and home-grown corrupt rulers, political and religious.

They throw down their palm leaves and garments for Jesus’ donkey to walk on as he enters Jerusalem. No one is wealthy enough to have found a horse for this ‘new king’?

No, that is not it. God is not about conquering our mighty corruption of the goodness of creation by being like us. Jesus enters as a humble ‘king’, a peasant at most, a teacher and guide, a healer, riding a small donkey.

It matters not really how we imagine Jesus enters our lives, enters our world. What matters is that God is not mighty as a warrior, for God created and rules the universe. God need not defeat any enemy. It is already accomplished. The work God seeks to accomplish is to let us, free willed creatures that God created us to be, God seeks to have us choose freely to love God and each other and all creation. That is a work that violent might simply cannot begin to accomplish.

Our choosing can only be accomplished by inspiring us to not be mighty in violence, but rather mighty in meekness, service, healing, and forgiving one another.

It’s your God-given choice! What will it be today?

God Creates A Story

Monday, December 20, 2021

God Creates the Heavens and Earth

For Us

To Live

and

to Love In

Isaiah 45:12

I made the earth,
and created humankind upon it;
it was my hands that stretched out the heavens,
and I commanded all their host.

John 1:11

He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him.

Words of Grace For Today

The world is a wonderful place for us to live life, from the beginning to the end.

That’s what God does when God creates:

God creates the earth … and it is good and we can make enough evil to ruin it completely, or we can enjoy life fully.

God creates us … and creates us good, and free to love, so we are also capable to make enough evil to ruin everything completely, or we can enjoy life fully.

God creates the heavens and their host … and God creates everything good and we can make enough evil to ruin the universe completely, so completely, for ourselves and all future generations, or we can enjoy life fully.

Because we can be so evil, when Jesus comes, when the Holy Spirit comes (even though we are God’s own people) in our sin we reject Jesus’ way, we reject the inspiration of the Holy Spirit that makes us holy, that makes us saints. Instead of living well, we live … lost.

And lost we are lonely, and lonely we are desperate, and desperate we do so many unthinkable things to others, and at the same time to ourselves.

Thankfully that is not the end of the story.

Jesus comes as a vulnerable infant born in a barn, which starts a life that continues to a death and a resurrection … by which God creates a story of God’s unconditional love for us all, and God’s response to relentless hard hearts that make enough evil to ruin the universe completely, so completely, for ourselves and all future generations. In response to our Evil God forgives us and gives us renewed life, capable of loving again …

…

so that we can choose to enjoy life fully.

The Journey

Sunday, December 19, 2021

‘Matt’s Mess’

Left for years after Matt is Seen Here No More.

Where Did His Journey Take Him?

Our Journey As God’s People Is Blessed

Even if we seem lost to ourselves, or even to others.

Psalm 105:3

Glory in his holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice.

2 Corinthians 13:11

Finally, brothers and sisters, farewell. Put things in order, listen to my appeal, agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you.

Words of Grace For Today

Last words.

What would be your last words to your best friend?

To your child?

To your spouse?

To your spouse who gaslit you and lied to send you to jail?

To the contentious congregation that never could stop fighting among themselves?

To the saints who gave you faith, nurtured it in you, and inspired you to sacrifice everything to do the good and right things in every situation that you could, even for your mentally ill, abusive, and pedophile spouse?

Paul wrote to that contentious congregation in Corinth his last words, pointing them once again to Christ: Finally, brothers and sisters, farewell. Put things in order, listen to my appeal, agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you.

What else could he write after so many years of writing and hoping that they would realize the treasure they were for each other, gifts to each other from God?

Life of faith in Jesus the Christ is often referred to as a life seeking the Lord. This only somewhat apt description recognizes that we never can grasp hold of and possess the Lord, or even be guaranteed that we have ‘arrived’ at knowing that we are God’s alone. Since we continue to sin all our lives, having embraced our faith, or rejected the gifts of God, we cannot point to a perfected way of living. We always continue on, ‘seeking the Lord.’ This is only partial correct in that it puts the onus of ‘finding the Lord’ on us. In truth our journey is a gift from God. Our effort at ‘seeking’ has little to do with the outcome of our journey. Hubris ruled as we are we like to claim that our own efforts determine our faith journey and all of our lives. It is simply not so.

All we are that is good, is a gift from God, including our faith.

Knowing and trusting this we can indeed rejoice in the journey that God gives to us, no matter how obstacle ridden, or unfruitful, or hopeless it may seem to us along the way.

Rejoice!

This we can do because God acts for us, first. Then we get to respond with all our hearts of faith that God has given to us. This is God’s way in God’s creation for God’s people.

Rejoice!

What is Our Portion?

Friday, December 17, 2021

No Matter the Weeds Or Ice In Our Way, Christ’s Light Guides Us.

No Matter What Our Enemies Do

Or Take From Us,

No Matter the Wilderness They Abandon Us To

God Walks With Us

Lamentations 3:24

‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘therefore I will hope in him.’

1 Peter 1:8-9

Although you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, for you are receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

Words of Grace For Today

So many things challenge us each day, sometime making our day’s progress the usual grind, sometimes throwing up road blocks that could put us in reverse to find a way around them, and sometimes they stop us in our tracks, dead halt.

Whether it’s our enemies trying to undo us, or someone using us as a stepping stone to get ahead, or questions about our own worth brought on by lies about us or our own real limitations or others’ unreal expectations, or it is our health that fails us … no matter what it is that challenges us we all experience them every day.

The only way to live life abundantly is to be able to know that the Lord is our portion and only in God we can hope.

When we fear and love God, when we believe and trust God’s promises to carry us, when we know that glorious joy from knowing God walks with us … then we can know as well that God is at work in us, having given us faith and sent us out to share all God’s gifts with all God’s people.

God is at work in us showing us that our portion is the Lord, and that we can trust and hope in God alone.