Morning – Page 17

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – Aug 29

Saturday, August 29, 2020

No matter how cold life seems

God is with us, laying down tracks with us

shining on us day and night by sun, moon, and Holy Spirit

Thank God!

2 Chronicles 32:24-25

In those days Hezekiah became sick and was at the point of death. He prayed to the Lord, and he answered him and gave him a sign. But Hezekiah did not respond according to the benefit done to him, for his heart was proud. Therefore wrath came upon him and upon Judah and Jerusalem.

Luke 17:15-16

Then one of the lepers, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. The leper was a Samaritan.

Words of Grace For Today

False pride and arrogance or humility and gratitude, two apparently mutually exclusive manners of responding to all God has done for us.

In 2 Chronicles the writer interprets the destruction of Judah and Jerusalem as God’s response to Hezekiah’s proud and hard heart. In Luke the writer interprets Jesus’ healing the lepers as done in response simply to the lepers asking.

That one returns to thank Jesus, against Jesus’ directions that they fulfill the Jewish Law and show themselves to the priests (to be recorded as cured and therefore free to return to their families and position in Jewish society.) The one who returns gains nothing by visiting the priests. He is an outsider and gains no ‘return’. Leper or not, he is not accepted into Jewish society. He returns then to Jesus, acknowledging that Jesus has more authority than any priests.

Luke’s message is that those who are burdened with their own religious authorities and practices may well fulfill their obligations to them, Jesus still comes and heals those people. People with no locally recognized religious authorities and practices to fulfill (the Samaritan perhaps had some, just not recognized by the Jews), are free to recognize Jesus’ greater authority and to respond with appropriate gratitude.

Who are we?

We wish we were like the Samaritan, free to recognize Jesus’ authority and power with thanks and gratitude.

If we are honest, we are like the other 9 Jewish lepers, bound to duty to other authorities, and easily able to miss the wonders Jesus provides and therefore easily able to miss out on thanking Jesus and living with wondrous gratitude. That gratitude is a more powerful force in life than ‘falling in love’, about which much is written, spoken and known – how it transforms life for the better (or worse.) Gratitude transforms life always for the better, and it does not wear off after a short few months.

If we are honest, we are also often like Hezekiah, proud and hard hearted, completely capable of pleading to God for help when life catches us in disaster or deadly illness or total loss. But when it comes to giving God thanks for all God has given us, our breath and very lives … Well then we are back to fulfilling our ‘obligations’ to other authorities and demands (like careers, money, status, reputation among those driven by greed and avarice, and false images of ourselves as above or without God).

Luther described all of these as happening simultaneously in our lives as responses to the same events. To which he prayed as we well can: God save us!

And save us, Luther knew as we can know, Jesus already has.

We can choose to live lives transformed by thanks and gratitude. Bit by bit each day.

Why not?

Where else are we going to turn for the living water? the bread of life? the Words of eternal life? the hope that does not disappoint? the promises that fill us so that we have more than enough to share with all who need life?

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – Aug 24

Monday, August 24, 2020

Gold on Gold

God’s Gold Abounds Without End

For Us All to Bask in

Psalm 23:5

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.

Mark 14:3-6

While he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at the table, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment of nard, and she broke open the jar and poured the ointment on his head. But some were there who said to one another in anger, ‘Why was the ointment wasted in this way? For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii, and the money given to the poor.’ And they scolded her. But Jesus said, ‘Let her alone; why do you trouble her? She has performed a good service for me.

Words of Grace For Today

Waste.

When one has too much, wasting things is easy, and commonplace. Oil companies flowed with money as oil sold for over $90 a barrel, and office chairs with one broken, easily replaced, caster were thrown out and a new $450 chair replaced the not-broken-but-needing-simple-repair chair.

God blesses us with God’s abundance. God has plenty. We sit with our enemies at God’s table prepared for us where God’s oil marks us as holy and God’s Grace flows over us. Our elegant or plain glass, or any vessel or receptacle we could bring cannot contain God’s generosity. God ‘wastes’ Grace on us, on all of us, even on our enemies! There is so much, so much that one need not worry about what spills over. What we still hold in our vessels Jesus shows us by example is not to be hoarded or held tight. We can empty everything we have and are; and God will always fill us back up full and overflowing with Grace.

An the unnamed woman comes to anoint Jesus with her expensive ointment, though the disciples would have the money instead of the wondrous aroma giving Jesus the honour of being cleansed with such gloriously expensive suave. So they scold the woman and try to shame her for her generosity.

Jesus knows all about God’s unending generosity, and our ability to live without limit to our generosity. Jesus calls his disciples to stop their derision of the woman and to accept that he is so honoured.

How often we claim God’s generous Grace all for ourselves and use it as a club against others! Still God comes and remains faithful and generous and gracious with us.

God hopes we just might catch on. Life is not a zero sum game. It is, when we sacrifice for one another, unlimited in it’s blessings for all.

What a life God calls us to recognize is ours, all of ours!

Gold upon Gold

for all!

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – Sept 4

Friday, September 4, 2020

Beauty

Even from Weeds Blossoms

Is possible to see

in God’s Kingdom

Numbers 6:24

The Lord bless you and keep you.

John 1:16

From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.

Words of Grace For Today

Breathe.

Drink.

Eat.

Work.

Love.

God has blessed us immensely, if we can do this.

God has blessed you immensely, if you can do these.

A person does not have to think they have committed any terrible sin to know they need God’s Grace just to make it through the day.

Everyone, in many ways, turns from God each day.

To breathe the Holy Spirit, to drink the living water, to eat the bread of life, to work in the Kingdom of God, and to be able to love unconditionally, first one needs be forgiven and redeemed, ransomed and rescued, blessed and kept safe from all Evil.

It is truth that many people live, constantly fighting their way free from God’s Grace, to insist, though their sins are many and destructive, that they need no Grace. These people are to be pitied, prayed for, and kept at a great distance as much as one can. When one needs must deal with them, then Grace upon Grace is required, for destruction follows in their wake, yet God’s Grace overflows from ours. To keep their destruction from overwhelming us, we needs must be the conduit of God’s Grace spilling over them.

It’s immensely difficult to face the corrupt destructive intent of an evil possessed person and not want that God would eradicate them from all existence. Yet ours is to be the conduit of God’s Grace. God brings God’s wrath in God’s own time.

Since from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace we pray for one another, the Lord bless you and keep you, safe from all Evil.

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – Aug 19

Wednesday, August 19, 2020

We bow to our Creator

Humble Glory

Exodus 33:13

Now if I have found favour in your sight, show me your ways, so that I may know you and find favour in your sight. Consider too that this nation is your people.

2 Thessalonians 2:14

For this purpose he called you through our proclamation of the good news, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Words of Grace For Today

It is easy to have silly hopes … and it is foolish to live one’s life built on those silly hopes.

One can, for example, hope that (contrary to all experience past and reasonable expectation for the future) that one will have a [fill in your desired, unreachable thing, like a ‘private lake’]. It is all silliness, hoping to possess things. It is foolish then to build one’s life so that one can finally buy a boat, and then store it away for the day that you can make it’s maiden voyage on your ‘private lake.’

To have hope that inspires the best of life into one and drives one to live the best and that draws from one better than one can imagine … to have that kind of hope one cannot foolishly build one’s life based on silly hopes. One needs to understand profoundly what is before one in the present, what is behind us in the past, and what lies ahead for us in the future.

Moses, wise as he was, is not always written about as if he were so wise. He asks of God, who has just told him that God favours Moses, that Moses will be able to live knowing God’s ways (in Hebrew this knowing is also to be intricately wound up in, to be active in the doing of God’s ways). And to what end does Moses make this request? To find God’s favour.

Yet, God’s favour is already pronounced by God! Moses is making a circular request.

This is us, all too often. God saves, loves us, favours us, and tells us so. We respond by asking that if God loves us and favours us we may know how to earn God’s love and favour!

We all too often want not to be in God’s debt, but we want to know ourselves, and be seen by others, to have earned all that God has gifted us! So Moses is written about as if Moses did not accept God’s favour, but wanted to earn it. Indeed, Moses wanted others to see without a doubt that God favoured Moses. It was required for his and his people’s survival.

There is so much more going on than a silly wish, to earn God’s favour. We can learn if we see.

The second passage also contains something to see. Paul writes to the Thessalonians that his proclamation of Jesus the Christ to them is to bring them Jesus Christ’ Glory.

Christ’s Glory is not something that many people would seek: it involves betrayal by one’s friend, a false conviction, a torturous cross, and death. Only then does it come to anything like what we might expect as Glory.

But Glory, God’s kind of Glory it is. It is that God brings us to life abundant through our being betrayed, being falsely convicted and our bearing our own crosses, which indeed kill us. Then we can start to understand the sacrifice for others lives that Jesus accepted, that Jesus calls us to accept.

On this cross, on this glory, we can hope that God will show us how to live the abundant life … not so that we can earn God’s favour. Rather we ask that God will show us how to live the abundant life that does not require things at all. Rather we ask that God will show us how to live the abundant life as our response to trusting that God saves us, loves us (unconditionally), and favours us.

Knowing this love, trusting this love, we are able to answer Christ’ call to sacrifice our selves, even our lives, so that others may have life, and have it abundantly.

That’s Glory. That’s Grace. That is us as Jesus’ humble followers.

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – Aug 17

Monday, August 17, 2020

Royal Purple

God’s Glory and Favour

For All to See

Zechariah 8:23

Thus says the Lord of hosts: In those days ten men from nations of every language shall take hold of a Jew, grasping his garment and saying, ‘Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.’

Acts 2:46-47

Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.

Words of Grace For Today

Living with thanks, and with success that others recognize and want to be a part of, to join in. This is to have the goodness of heart and faith, of a purity and strength that others will …

No … that’s all wrong.

The way of following Jesus does not guarantee at all that others will notice the abundant life that God gives to us. That kind of prosperity is not to be equated with being blessed by God, otherwise there are so many evil ways to get there, and the ends could be seen to justify the means. This is exactly what the Devil wishes us to do. Reduce following Jesus into a code that we keep and which keeps others out.

Jesus embraces all nations, all creeds, all colours, all every kind of human. We humans are the ones who create artificial boundaries and exclusions in order to pretend we are special.

Jesus brings all nations to our doorstep to show us how varied the Kingdom of God is, and how much work there is for us in welcoming all people. So they flock to us for help. It is not because we are special, it is because God is special.

This account from Acts is remarkable, that the followers of Jesus had the goodwill of the people. That was in some ways true and in so many other ways it was not true. Jesus was a threat to so many people and so many people wanted to be done with him … and it will not take long before the followers of Jesus are hunted and slain like vermin in the floor boards.

In preparation for the persecutions to come, God gives them a respite, a time of calm, a time of relative safety … before the persecutions begin. Then all hell breaks loose against them.

Whether we are grieving a loss, reorganizing our lives after a loss, resting from the ‘funerals’ or caught in the middle of the persecutions, Jesus has a task for us. Even or especially in the middle of this Covid-19 pandemic Jesus’ task for us is to welcome the stranger into our midst, just as they are. We get to exercise God’s unconditional love.

What a life!

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – Aug 14

Friday, August 14, 2020

Where to Go?

Why go for love

When it is right in front of you?

God’s unconditional love!

Psalm 73:25

Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire other than you.

John 6:67-69

So Jesus asked the twelve, ‘Do you also wish to go away?’ Simon Peter answered him, ‘Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.’

Words of Grace For Today

To be loved unconditionally.

To know that one is chosen, precious, cared for, watched over, and fully desired; this is to know one is loved by God. God equips us to embody this love for one another. We do this imperfectly, and only by God’s grace working through us.

Do you wish to go away?

There is much in life that is difficult. We learn early on that life is easier if we avoid what is difficult. The most powerful people in life learn how to avoid the messy parts of life, or if it is not possible to spin the events so that some one else is seen to be the cause of and main character in the mess. Passive aggressive personalities develop out of this, always presenting that nothing is wrong, and then behind the scenes, hidden from others’ knowing, they manipulate, scheme and carry out revenge and punishments for those that dare cross them. Variations of passive aggressive personalities, the more severe cases, are named personality disorders (like borderline personality disorder), or psychoses, like sociopaths and psychopaths. In whatever guise these people who adroitly learn to pass the ‘mess’ of life on to others, accumulate power by appearing to be devoid of ‘mess’. They end up destroying many many lives around them. As parents they most often raise children who are even more effectively destructive then they themselves. The ‘cleaner’ these people make themselves appear the more dangerous they become.

If we are blessed we learn early on that the goodness of life is not in running away from what is difficult, but in facing it, being challenged, and overcoming the challenge. Sometimes there is a reward. For the most significant and difficult challenges the reward is ‘silent’ and ‘invisible’, seen only with eyes equipped to see God’s work.

The disciples know it is difficult travelling with Jesus. The disciples know there is danger staying with Jesus, the signs are clear that trouble BIG TROUBLE is ahead. Some people leave, no longer facing the difficulties and dangers. Jesus turns to the twelve and asks if they, too, will leave.

Peter’s response is that they will stay because they believe Jesus is the Holy One of God.

Where else would they go? Well there are lots of places they could go. And lots of other ‘teachers’ that they could follow. None are like Jesus, though.

That is what they have experienced, as Jesus reaches out to the worst sinners, the most vulnerable people (women and men alike, and children), and to the most sick. They have learned that the difficulty and danger of following Jesus is the only way to experience the real, profound, powerful, and live giving goodness of life.

So it is with us today. We need not seek out difficulty. It will come our way. We need only face it with all the grace and love Jesus has demonstrated for us.

Until the great difficulty finds us, for every day we have the ability, we ‘collect two days’ worth of firewood, one for this day, and one for the day we ‘cannot gather firewood’ and it is ‘cold, life threatening cold.’ Then when the ‘cold of difficulty that can kill us’ finds us, we will be equipped with ‘firewood aplenty’. We will have God’s real grace, embodied in the reality of this world like ‘firewood’, that we can draw on to see us through.

When we find ourselves having walked into a hell of our own or someone else’s making, knowing Jesus was here before us, is with us even now again, and that cooler days are ahead, we need to keep moving, right through the heat of hell to the refreshing air of a good thundershower providing cool winds and the water of life.

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – Aug 11

Tuesday, August 11, 2020

Sing Praise

to the One who rides upon the Clouds

Who is the Light in the Clouds

Who is the Light of the World.

Psalm 68:4

Sing to God, sing praises to his name; lift up a song to him who rides upon the clouds— his name is the Lord— be exultant before him.

Philippians 4:4

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.

Words of Grace For Today

Our human survival instincts keep us much more alert for trouble, mindful of the troubles of the past, than basking in the good things of life.

It would have done our for-bearers little good (and we might not be here) to sit around the campfire regaling their escape from the mountain lion (who hunts humans for sport) earlier that day, letting the mountain lion pick them off in their relaxed stupor. Better to notice their success with a slight sigh of relief and continue building their defences, keeping a very alert watch for the silent hunter.

So also today we need to keep sharp, guarding ourselves against dangers of this life, much less from four legged animals, and much more from the Evil One working through two legged animals (ourselves included.)

Yet that war is already won, and the battles we are left to fight may even destroy us, but they cannot determine the outcome of the war: Jesus conquered death and all evil with his sacrifice on the cross and his resurrection to life.

While yet alert for danger, we also need to not turn everything into danger. We do need to celebrate all that God has done for us, meeting our daily needs for survival in this abundant life God provides for us. Celebrating God’s work for us, God’s protection, reminds us we cannot survive on our own, that the Evil One can snatch us away if we try to survive on our own.

Songs since the beginning of time have carried profound meaning, combining the rhythms of life, the melody of the spheres, and the words of God-given visions. Not all songs do this. Many cheapen the possibility reducing life to a crude and corrupt perversion of life as God gives it to us. Perhaps the worst version of those crude songs are ones that mention God’s name and carry little of God’s real blessing.

There are plenty of good and profound songs, the songs that carry God’s love and purpose for us give life. These we can sing to express our joy each day for all God has done for us. Some of these songs are simple chants, mantras really, like Dona nobis pacem. Others are complicated working through the darkness of life to a purpose of health and resilience, like Cohen’s Anthem. Some even bring hope and thanks to our hearts in spite of the composer’s intent, like Tikaram’s Cathedral Song. Many have no words, like Anthony’s Song of Hope.

There is no shortage of songs already composed and many more will be composed. They provide us a full song book from which we can sing God’s praise, rejoicing each day for all that was, all that is and all that will be – only by God’s Grace.

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – Aug 10

Monday, August 10, 2020

Holy Spirit

Holy Fire

Holy Wild Ride

Through Light and Life

Judges 8:23

Gideon said to them, ‘I will not rule over you, and my son will not rule over you; the Lord will rule over you.’

2 Corinthians 10:18

For it is not those who commend themselves that are approved, but those whom the Lord commends.

Words of Grace For Today

Many strive to achieve for themselves great position of authority and power. For example one needs only look at all the bishops our church has had who seriously wanted to become bishops. They were disastrous for the church, each in their own special corrupt way.

The best bishops were those who did not want the work, nor the honour, nor the heartache of presiding over a church in decline.

The church remains in decline.

What does that say to us other than God has plans that are not those of the church which wants to grow … according to our measure of growth.

There is no shortage of people trying way too hard to make their plans into God’s plans for the church. All are dangerous and destructive.

What we need is leaders like Gideon, who though offered control and rule, chose instead that the people would be ruled by God.

To be ruled by God is something, not anything like being ruled by a code of what someone has determined is ‘for sure’ God’s will (though it looks like a terrible subset of faith, reduced so that that it is worthless.)

To be ruled by God is something, not anything like being ruled by a person who supposedly can speak God’s will. We’ve had no end of despots, also in the church.

To be ruled by God is something that will lead us in places we cannot anticipate, into adventures we cannot imagine, and to share life with people we had never known before as God’s people. It’s a wild ride.

Hang on tight

to the Holy Spirit’s fire and breath.

That’s all God gives us most of the time, everything else we see as solid is an illusion we create for our own sense of (false) security.

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – Aug 8

Saturday, August 8, 2020

A Rose

also has thorns,

Only Grace can save us from the Evil One

Psalm 25:15

My eyes are ever towards the Lord, for he will pluck my feet out of the net.

2 Thessalonians 3:1-3

Finally, brothers and sisters, pray for us, so that the word of the Lord may spread rapidly and be glorified everywhere, just as it is among you, and that we may be rescued from wicked and evil people; for not all have faith. But the Lord is faithful; he will strengthen you and guard you from the evil one.

Words of Grace For Today

Yes, how true it always is that not all people have faith. There are evil people.

Some are grand, like despots who use the cover of Covid 19 to take life and freedom and power from their enemies. Others appear in every way to be ordinary people, but they work only to get ahead for themselves and have no sense that this is a shared experience.

Some are just stupidly ignorant and therein destructive. It reminds me of the store clerk who does nothing sufficient to protect people who come in to the store, a drug store and post office. Lots of sick people come in and out. Lots of healthy people come to check their mail. Yet there is no attention to cleansing, protecting customers, or actual providing for physical distancing, other than dots of the floor, which people ignore. Instead she mocks me, calls attention to me that I bring a bottle of diluted bleach to cleanse my way in and out of many places where protection is insufficient.

This last time, having not seen me come in she yelled at me while 25 feet away that I better not ‘bleach’ her door, loudly so many other customers heard it as well, and then she saw I had no bleach bottle (I’d biked to town and not packed it along with everything else), exclaimed how good it was I had no bleach bottle. Actually it was much more dangerous for me that I did not have it. Makes one want to carry a water bottle that squirts 6 feet, to spray her as she always steps much closer than six feet. Of course not with bleach, but with plain water, to shock her to her senses. Probably would not work, for lack of sense.

But we do not need to save ourselves from any evil. God has already done all that.

We can stay focused on sharing the good news that God has already provided us protection from dangerous, evil people. The protection is not that others will not exercise evil against us or that they cannot do much to destroy us. God’s promised protection is that nothing will separate us from the love of God.

Therefore we are free. Free always to be gracious, and to work to help others engage in justice based on truth, righteousness based on God’s grace, and commitment based on sharing everything God has given us.

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – Aug 6

Thursday, August 6, 2020

The corner?

What’s there, around the corner?

Life, with all it’s challenges and opportunities!

Psalm 103:10

He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities.

Acts 15:11

On the contrary, we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.’

Words of Grace For Today

If we are honest with ourselves and each other, we know our participation in original sin.

It is the opposite of what we wish well for ourselves and others, that we would consider the goodness of life, and what we understand God intends for us.

We know that we deserve all judgments of God made against us, and all punishments and consequences we may encounter.

So it is of the greatest consequence that we know God promises to deal with us NOT according to what we deserve, not according to our iniquities. How wonderful it is that we understand, on the contrary, that we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as all people will be saved by grace.

Now that our salvation is secured, what can we do about all those iniquities that keep piling up? Can we stop increasing them? Unfortunately not, but we ought try with grace and gratitude with all our mind, body and strength.

We can offer grace to all other living people. We can breathe and love and hope.

Life is messy, and we can live with confidence and courage in the face of all kinds of evil knowing God has already dealt with it all. So onward, with what this day has to offer; countering all evil and sin as we can, and bringing God’s grace to bear on all that we can.

Hallelujah!