Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in splendour, doing wonders?
1 John 1:2
We declare to you what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life— this life was revealed, and we have seen it and testify to it, and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us— we declare to you what we have seen and heard so that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete. This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all.
Words of Grace For Today
To see what God reveals as the Light of the World, to look into God’s eyes to see all creation reflected with beauty, to touch God’s hand and feel the power of self-sacrificial love overwhelming the universe, to hear God speaking and understand the Word of Life …
to know that there is no other god, except God, Three in One, Parent, Son, Holy Spirit, all and each Creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier …
to be re-created, redeemed, and sanctified … and sent out into the world to share all we have received …
This is to have our joy complete,
and to know
in him there is no darkness at all.
So we sing the words Kathleen Thomerson wrote for us:
I want to walk as a child of the light I want to follow Jesus God sent the stars to give light to the world The star of my life is Jesus
In Him there is no darkness at all The night and the day are both alike The Lamb is the light of the city of God Shine in my heart, Lord Jesus
I want to see the brightness of God I want to look at Jesus Clear sun of righteousness, shine on my path And show me the way to the Father
In Him there is no darkness at all The night and the day are both alike The Lamb is the light of the city of God Shine in my heart, Lord Jesus
I’m looking for the coming of Christ I want to be with Jesus When we have run with patience the race We shall know the joy of Jesus
In Him there is no darkness at all The night and the day are both alike The Lamb is the light of the city of God Shine in my heart, Lord Jesus
…
Who Else could possibly move us to know you, God, so well?
Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in splendour, doing wonders?
Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!
2 Corinthians 1:7
Our hope for you is unshaken; for we know that as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our consolation.
Words of Grace For Today
We all want justice now! Justice that does not first sacrifice truth in order to proceed with lies, bias, corruption, and blatant replacing light with darkness, sweet with bitter, life with death, and justice with cruelty.
God walks with us. Not that in the moment that really helps, we still want justice now! Even so, and even though, we already know that we must wait for the Lord. We must be strong and let our hearts take courage and wait … wait … wait for the Lord.
Sometimes the little things get blown out of proportion because the big things are so unjust. And then … well then there are hours and hours of darkness like the following:
Wait for it.
…
The Bad News: It’s been so cold, -40⁰ or so for nights now. I’ve been burning through wood. I’m running out of wood. It’s a lot of work to haul and split enough and I’m getting behind.
The Good News: I wake the other morning and after working so long to haul and split enough wood the previous day, despite being exhausted and sleep deprived (stoking the fire every 2 hours night after night will do that) the wood lasted easily through the cold night!
…
But Wait for it.
…
Bad News: the wood lasted because there was no fire from 21:00 to 1:00 and the shelter that houses the wood stove got down to zero! It usually needs to stay at 50⁰ to keep the water tank from freezing, especially in this cold! (But I was so tired I fell asleep at 18:30 and woke at 22:00 ish to a phone call.)
Good News: when I saw the fire was out I brushed away the ashes and looked closely at the fire bricks. Yep!
…
Bad News: under the chimney the brick had a hole, if left it would burn through the stove wall itself.
Good News: I’d seen a crack in the brick two days ago and bought stove cement and fire bricks with points (I’m out of money and need to save for food) earlier yesterday.
…
Bad News: the bricks were sort of held in place by a retaining bar held by bolts, which are unreachable without taking the whole furnace apart. That’s possible but it’s a 10 hour job and it’s NOT possible when it’s cold, especially not this cold.
Good News: the brick were all so broken I could pry them out with a screw driver.
…
Bad News: new bricks had to be fit in past the retainer bar.
Good News: the bar was burned away at the chimney and the rest could be bent with a pliers far enough to slide all the bricks in under what was left of the bar.
…
Bad News: the bricks were too tall by 3/16 of an inch.
Good News: they can be cut with a cutting blade on a hand grinder and fortunately I’ve been loaned a grinder with plenty of cutting disks.
…
Bad News: the grinder runs on 110volts and my camp has no utilities: no electricity, no water, no sewer, no nothing but Grace.
Good News: I’ve been loaned 2 small 2200watt generators that only weigh 65 lbs to provide electricity when I need it.
…
Bad News: I need gasoline to run them.
Good News: There’s still some gas left in both generators.
…
Bad News: they are not supposed to be run at anything colder than -5⁰C and it’s below -20⁰, which is 10⁰ colder than I’ve ever gotten one to start.
Good News: one’s inside.
…
Bad News: I’m too tired to haul the generator from inside to outside where it can be run. I can’t risk pushing my bad back and spasming leg muscles too much, especially when I’m so exhausted and fatigued and sleep deprived!
Good News: Small miracle! After 40 pulls on the starter cord my shoulder has not given out on me and I get the other one – the one out in the cold – to fire up and run.
…
Bad News: it takes until past midnight to individually cut each brick to custom fit, clean the ash and crud out from where they need to slide in, and get them fitting in place. And then 2 brick are still flopping loose where there is no retainer bar left to hold them!
Good News: the stove cement maybe, perhaps, might just hold them until summer when I might be able to rebuild the whole stove again for the third time. So I glue the two bricks with furnace cement and start a fire that will light and burn fast. Heat at last.
…
Bad News: there’s hardly any heat for a half hour and I’m so so tired, so tired, so tired … and then I have to stoke the fire yet again.
Good News: I’m finally in bed after 1:00 ish.
…
Bad News: I’m wired and can’t sleep.
Good News: I’ve got no meetings in the morning so I can sleep in. (I never have meetings, ever, really. No one really cares to meet with a person who is homeless. It kind of shames them that they don’t fix the systemic problems that cause homelessness!)
…
Bad News: I wake at 4:45 to almost no heat, 17⁰ in the shelter (and the water tank is at 0⁰!), and a chilly 12⁰ at the bed.
Good News: I get a fire going.
…
Bad News: it takes 50 minutes.
Good News: the bed is still there.
…
Bad News: morning is there too.
Good News: I don’t care. I’m punch drunk tired, laughing out loud at it all, thankful the stove will last, maybe, another year.
…
Three nights later I finally get enough sleep to start breaking out of sleep deprivation.
…
We wait, and with courage wait, and wait, and wait, for the Lord, who works at God’s own pace in God’s own time and in God’s own way.
We have courage to wait because ‘Our hope for God is unshaken; for we know that as God shares in our sufferings, so also God shares in our consolation.’
Think about it. God dies. God suffers with us. God finally got enough sleep to start shaking off sleep deprivation.
Makes one wonder …
Who was in charge of creation while God is sleep deprived,
or unconscious for suffering,
or dead?
…
The other persons of the Trinity? That’s a (weird) argument for a Trinitarian God, eh!
Good News: God will let us go with it. There are far greater humorous things to laugh along with as well! Learn to laugh at them all. It builds courage as we wait!
The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?
John 8:12
Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.’
Words of Grace For Today
There is the Ukraine, following Georgia and Crimea; just one place on earth where military force is used to invade neighbouring countries to control them.
These kinds of invasions rightfully create fear in us all.
Africa’s conflicts never end.
These kinds of invasions rightfully create fear in us all.
The Middle East is one conflict and war and invasion after another.
These kinds of invasions rightfully create fear in us all.
Police apply force unjustly against so many minorities, and also against now men falsely accused by vengeful or deranged women. For some women are blood thirsty as some are to destroy any man possible in order to avenge violence against women, which even though dramatic and terrible, today’s violence against women is still only a fraction of that conducted against men, some of it also by women against men, with the same deadly results. It’s all the same thing: violence aimed at innocent people, and the first victim is truth, and those impacted the worst are the children.
These kinds of invasions rightfully create fear in us all.
More subtle kinds of invasions happen all the time as truth is sacrificed in our own courts, and many, supposedly just, courts around the world.
These kinds of invasions rightfully create fear in us all.
There are so many more real reasons to be fearful of all the evil that is perpetrated indiscriminately and directed exactly against us.
What are we to do?
We have no other choice or option: we get to trust God’s promises: that Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life and
that the Lord is our light and our salvation, and therefore we have no reason to fear anything, nothing at all.
Nothing at all.
So we, no matter the reasons that are so many to fear, … we have no reason to fear … for no matter what evil happens or is done to us or other people,
God is with us, the Light of the World is with us, there is no darkness for us …
nor is there reason to fear anything, anything at all.
He will swallow up death for ever. Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces, and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken.
Luke 1:73-74
This is the oath that God swore to our ancestor Abraham, to grant us that we, being rescued from the hands of our enemies, might serve him without fear.
Words of Grace For Today
If you have ever served God in the midst of being attacked by your enemies, who have your death planned for you, then you know fear …
fear that drips with acrid sweat and foul tastes and smells …
and knowing fear you know there is a temperature to it, a temperature that you’d just as soon not be able to measure ever again.
Yet, always curious in our desperate drive to make order out of the chaos of life, we still try to put that temperature in the records, maybe so that we can ignore it or try to avoid it for the rest of our lives. The first challenge is to find the correct scale on which to measure this temperature. Maybe Fahrenheit, used in the US, the enemy of so many people, even it’s own people, and an enemy that creates so much fear around the world, sometimes without doing anything at all. History does the job for it.
How did Fahrenheit come to be?
Celsius uses the points for freezing (0⁰) and boiling of water (100⁰) … water being so basic and an ubiquitous substance needed for life.
But Fahrenheit uses 32⁰ for water freezing and 212⁰ for water boiling. That’s nuts.
It seems that Fahrenheit, in order to set the first standardized scale for temperatures, uses fickle human feelings, conglomerations of past experiences skewed by complex and unpredictable chemical and electric storage mediums (brains), filtering and skewing present experiences which are easily skewed by raw emotions, false and destructive beliefs, and diseases that disturb the uptake of reality.
So on the Fahrenheit scale it turns out that:
It feels real cold at zero degrees and it feels real hot at 100⁰!
Wikipedia puts it out there that Mr. Fahrenheit’s (who created the F scale) “original paper suggests the lower defining point, 0 °F, was established as the freezing temperature of a solution of brine made from a mixture of water, ice, and ammonium chloride (a salt). The other limit established was his best estimate of the average human body temperature, originally set at 90 °F, then 96 °F.”
Wikipedia goes on to put it right. Today temperature “is now formally defined using the Kelvin scale and hence ultimately by the Boltzmann constant, the Planck constant, and the unperturbed ground state hyperfine transition frequency of the caesium 133 atom.”
I can read the words … and not much more, and I still know the temperature of fear has little to do with F, C, K, Boltzmann, Planck or caesium 133. It has to do with the drive to stay alive, and not succumb to one’s enemies that would have one dead, lately by leaving a brake job unfinished when I had a 4 hour trip ahead of me … and charging me 1/3 of my annual income for the privilege of being forced to learn to drive without brakes in an automatic transmission vehicle. (Another plus for manual transmissions.)
God never leaves us in the lurch … that our enemies (sometimes we are our own worst enemies) try to put us into.
God promises that God will swallow up death.
And
God has long since granted to us that we, being rescued from the hands of our enemies, might serve him without fear.
Temperature for fear on a scale is no longer needed.
As they go through the valley of Baca they make it a place of springs; the early rain also covers it with pools.
1 Corinthians 16:13
Keep alert, stand firm in your faith, be courageous, be strong.
Words of Grace For Today
There are many journeys, or sub-journeys of life, that we embark on or simply end up on rather unplanned.
I’m not sure if any humans just walking through a valley can make that a place of springs! That would be to reach deep in the ground, make pathways for the water through the ground, and direct the water to follow those pathways to the surface where springs would appear.
That’s right up there with terra-forming barren worlds so that they can support human life.
We need water, that is for sure. A valley filled with springs would provide good, naturally filtered water (unless the ground has been fracked, in which case no ground water is safe: even if one day it tests good, the next it may be poisonous.)
This day is another sub-journey, yesterday’s is past, tomorrow’s is yet to come. Today is now. Whether we think or hope to direct our journey is moot. We cannot and do not; at best we fool ourselves.
The guide for this day’s journey, as for every other day’s journey, is to stay alert, to stand firm in our faith, to be courageous, and to be strong, strong with the power of Jesus’ self-sacrificial, unconditional love.
As we face each day, strong in our faith and inspired to love unconditionally, then we will see the Light of Christ in each person’s face whom we encounter; we will see the wonder and beauty of God’s creation in all that surrounds us; we will feast on the nourishing presence of Christ and share that feast with all other people.
Fools say in their hearts, ‘There is no God.’ They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds; they say there is no one who does good.
1 John 5:20
We know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding so that we may know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.
Words of Grace For Today
Fools have long since pretended to be wise saying that God does not exist, and that, in their corruption and abominations that no one does any good.
Fools we are, all of us, though we are fools by a different measure. Those are the true fools who measure us as fools because of our faith in Christ, and our unlimited capacity to suffer and still trust God and rejoice with God among us, in us, God suffering with us. We are gladly, according to the ‘norm’ of perverse thinkers and doers, to be called fools for Christ.
In Christ we have come to know that there is truth that God gifts us with the ability to recognize, discern and separate out from what people call ‘your truth’, relative truth, or situational truth. This truth enables us to clearly discern lies told by true fools.
This truth enables us to clearly know Christ Jesus, and the promises God makes to be with us always, now on earth and into all eternity.
Truth is as valuable as love, and it is so readily corrupted by those who are corrupted themselves, in an effort to hide their corruption. Doch, God is not fooled. God demonstrates truth and true love in the life, ministry, healing, suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Truth is so powerful as love is so powerful, that they give us life, even when our enemies would leave us to die.
Fools think that they can live as if God does not exist.
Fools for Christ know we live only because God exists, and chooses to love us unconditionally.
And that’s the truth that brings life as a free gift to all.
May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light.
Words of Grace For Today
Valentine’s Day.
The day we celebrate love,
Sharing special times with our beloved.
…
And praying for those who use love as a cover for greed, avarice, and predatorily making their way through life, no matter the cost to others.
Love.
Love is a tremendous things.
Love is a terribly powerful thing that can defeat death and grief and hopelessness or
Love is a terribly powerful thing that abused can defeat life itself and all that is good in it.
The thing to note is that though a person who used love as a weapon against others certainly destroys many, many other lives, but first … first that person destroys their own life and everything that makes life worthwhile, which leaves them swinging at whatever they can hit to try to establish that they exist at all … which destroys even more of life in and around them.
Love, though embraced with awe and gentleness gives life to oneself and one’s beloved and so to all who witness this love, not least of all to the children who absorb into their lives that love is possible and life is good, and gratitude rather than greed is the key to life’s success and indeed to it is the key to life itself.
The Light of Christ Shows Us What Is in the Curves.
Psalm 71:8
My mouth is filled with your praise, and with your glory all day long.
Matthew 12:34
You brood of vipers! How can you speak good things, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.
Words of Grace For Today
What fills our hearts erupts inevitably from our mouths.
I know, the stomach empties its contents normally down the digestive track, but in rebellion it disgorges its contents up and out the mouth.
But when it comes to words, weeeell, our words inevitably (even for practised liars) reflect what is in our hearts, whether our hearts are consumed by greed, self-interests, destruction of others, and all sorts of evil OR our hearts bask regularly in God’s Word and as blessed saints become the embodiment of God’s Grace, unconditional love, and promises for all people.
Our words say it all. They speak less what we try to accomplish, and more what slavery we have bartered ourselves into with the Devil, or freedom we are gifted by God.
So we pray, Lord save us from the Devil and all the Devil’s wiles. Help us so that we can honestly and with gratitude say: My mouth is filled with your praise, and with your glory all day long.
For then, all will be well, all will be well, all manner of things will be well … and indeed all manner of things is already well, with us and with God’s creation.
He will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the warhorse from Jerusalem; and the battle-bow shall be cut off, and he shall command peace to the nations; his dominion shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth.
Philippians 2:9-10
Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth.
Words of Grace For Today
The chariot and the warhorse and the battle bow are all instruments of war.
These God cuts off. They will no longer continue.
Along with them one could also list fighter jets, drones, nuclear bombs and bombs of all kinds, RPGs, explosives of all kinds, missiles of all kinds, artillery and tanks, machine guns and rifles and hand guns of all kinds, and knives used as weapons … and ammunitions of all kinds and the list goes on seemingly without end.
The meaning is much broader: all instruments of getting the best of others, or using others as means to get ahead, all need to defend oneself against attack … all kinds of aggression and competition and zero-sum-game-winning … and the list goes on and on and on without end …. Doch God will bring it all to an end.
The model of life as God created us to live it is given to us in Jesus’ story: one serves others, teaching, inspiring, self-sacrificing, serving, healing, and equipping … all with unconditional love.
This is what peace is created out of … and even when the world around us roils in aggression, violence, and warring, even with the noise loud in our ears, we are able to live at peace, in peace, and with our gracious and grateful attitude towards all we create peace for those who wish to embrace it with us.
God provides this to us in God’s Kingdom. God’s rule extends from before all time to after all time, from the reaches beyond the universe in all directions and encompasses all that can be in our hearts and minds.
So we pray, Come Lord Jesus, Give us your peace. Shine your light in our days and through our nights so that we do not descend into the violence that the world so easily embraces. Help us, we pray, to acknowledge the gifts we have receive from you far out shine anything we might try to achieve ourselves or for ourselves in this world. In our days, which appear to be short, brutal, and of our own making, help us to rely solely on you as the Giver of Life.
Therefore he shall give them up until the time when she who is in labour has brought forth; then the rest of his kindred shall return to the people of Israel.
Matthew 9:36
When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.
Words of Grace For Today
The great masses of humanity have always lived subjected to those with power and the ability to lord it over them. There’s never been a shortage of those lining up to take on the place of power and privilege and comfort … and lording it over others to have all that.
Jesus, God’s story of God’s amazing unconditional love for all people -especially the poor and the outcasts – sees the crowds gathered to hear the Good News that he preaches, the healing that he administers and he knows their plight.
God has walked with God’s people in poverty and oppression and persecution and exile without homes. God knows everything. God knows the plight of the great majority of humans who have ever lived. God knows the corruption of those who lord it over them. God has, seemingly, abandoned God’s people at many and various times to the clutches of those oppressing, persecuting, and driving masses into poverty. God has always walked, into those times of apparent abandonment, with God’s people. And God has walked God’s people out of those times as well.
God sends the Law, the Prophets, and the Good Shepherd to guide the people out of those times that are like hell. Today God continues to send God-made saints to walk with people in all circumstances, to help them reconnect with the promises of God and to live (even in poverty and oppression and persecution and exile without homes) abundantly. So it is when we live aware that God walks with us.
There is nothing in life that is more blessed, more secure, and more rich than God’s presence and God’s promises that we, too, shall once again walk among God’s people, no longer shunned and falsely accused, but exonerated and honoured.
And those who lord it over others, driving them to poverty, into oppression, into persecution and out into exile homeless … those who lord it over others and live in comfort will face God’s judgment. Whether they too will receive God’s Grace is not for us to say. It is God’s will, which will be done. For now the ‘lords’ breathe only as a gift from God, giving them time for the amendment of life.
For the rest of us, God has compassion and demonstrates it day after day, in the simplest and most profound ways.
