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.
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.
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 …
Wondrously show your steadfast love, O Saviour of those who seek refuge from their adversaries at your right hand.
1 Thessalonians 5:23
May the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Words of Grace For Today
The movie Blood Diamonds, the story of Solomon Vandy, ends with a simple lesson: let us applaud those who live to tell the truth … in a world where lies reign over so many hearts, where greed drives people to perversions that move them beyond love, hope and life.
There is, as histories told, and truth written in literature and scientific studies bears witness, no end to the people who would destroy others in a vain attempt to get ahead. Ahead of what is not important other than to those who sacrifice their lives to those insignificant markers of gain, which is gain that so easily disappears, which gain eats at the hearts of those seeking it until they have no heart to love, hope or live left. Then live, a shells of humans, that only destroy and accumulate … and do not die soon enough.
For those who live as we do to tell the truth, we pray Wondrously show your steadfast love, O Saviour to those who seek refuge from their adversaries at your right hand. For to live to tell the truth is to seek refuge in God’s hands.
The temptations are so great, to stoop to the level of those who use lies and destruction to accumulate their gain; gain that provides power, pseudo-security, comforts, and hedonistic excesses as it gulps down their hearts, minds, and strength. The temptations are great, for who would not want just a bit more control, security, comfort, and pleasure in life. Resistance is exactly like that to the Borg, it is said to be futile, until one calls on the one source of power that can save one from such temptations: God’s own blessings. Therefore …
Each day, each hour, we pray: May the God of peace himself sanctify us entirely; and may our spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
We also pray that God would save our enemies, so that their perverse and relentless need to destroy us and the truth would cease, and so that they could learn to love, hope, and live again.
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.
I will heal their disloyalty; I will love them freely, for my anger has turned from them.
John 21:3-4
Simon Peter said to them, ‘I am going fishing.’ They said to him, ‘We will go with you.’ They went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing. Just after daybreak, Jesus stood on the beach; but the disciples did not know that it was Jesus.
Words of Grace For Today
When our efforts come up empty, failed, and we are about to go hungry …
When we have turned from God, served other gods, and ourselves as godlets, chased after futile dreams, and knowingly made deals with the Devil to achieve our selfish goals (even those we see as ‘trickling down’ benefits to others!) …
When we have known God’s Grace, lost sight of God walking with us, and turned back to our old self-sustaining, self-serving, self-centred ways …
What is a person to do after all, when God disappears on us, when the promises God makes are slow in being fulfilled, when enemies are knocking at our doors, or have us in custody already, or are in our heads and hearts creating intolerable anxiety? Should we not head out on our own in this beautiful, wonderful creation to make our own way, to provide for ourselves reaping bountiful rewards for our own efforts, enabling ourselves to escape the daily struggles to survive, to enjoy the comforts and luxuries we’ve earned (at others’ expense, even at the expense of other’s lives, even those who loved us!), and to gain status among the people?
When we return to our selfish, self-centred ways, we turn our back on God, God’s promises, and the Grace that saves us from our own sin giving us renewed life at Jesus’ expense. We ask, as if to justify what we know is wrong, what is a person to do? Surely we can be our own godlets, determine our own lives, and make a future for ourselves and our offspring for generations to come.
Then the cost for our selfish, self-centred ways becomes apparent and no denial of the cost is believable by any sane person any more. Nature rebels, angrily kicking up more and more extreme storms, fires, floods, eruptions, and mudslides. Our self-made security dissolves before our eyes, and often our loved ones, our offspring, with it.
How does God react to our rebellious, self-centred, selfish, destructive ways?
God is faithful.
God is faithful to God’s promises.
God is faithful to God’s promises and God heals our every illness.
God is faithful to God’s promises and God stands at the edge of un-creation that could easily consume us, or from which we could gather live-sustaining food for so many bodies, minds, and hearts.
God heals us, and guides us to fish the bounty of God’s blessings for all that we require to live and to live truly abundantly (not over-consuming luxuries while others starve, not resting in comfort when their is Christ’ work for us to do, nor building our hopeless securities that always fail falling around our ears.)
God does not disappear on us, ever. Our vision fails to see God when we turn in on ourselves and forget to see Christ in every person we meet.
God does not disappear on us, ever.
As God promises us, God does not disappear on us, ever.
A shatterer has come up against you. Guard the ramparts; watch the road; gird your loins; collect all your strength.
2 Corinthians 5:18
All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation.
Words of Grace For Today
How do we see the world? How do you see the world?
How one sees the world makes all the difference for life, whether one scrambles to possess, connive to have more, and manipulate others to help you get more, whether that is more power, more wealth, more possessions, more pleasure, more control, more of anything or even of people.
The Devil takes no pause in attacking in the daylight, with an incomparable force, with incomparable soldiers (people as pawns), and with shock and terror to strike fear into every heart.
The Devil also takes no pause in working in the shadows, in the hearts of people driven to have more, in the minds of even those who think they are doing the best they can do (and those who know they are doing the worst things, just because they can and it serves their wishes.)
However the Devil attacks, the only thing that is sure is that the Devil has always, does always, and will always attack at every possible moment.
So …
If you think you need to protect yourself from the Devil, and you work your lifelong trying to defeat the Devil’s ability to control, dominate, and use you to destroy and de-story others, well … well then you will always lose out to the Devil, even when you think that you have won. Your life will become (has long since already become) a shamble of self-deceit and arrogance, and you, long ago, have become a danger to everyone around you.
This is the cry to stations: A shatterer has come up against you. Guard the ramparts; watch the road; gird your loins; collect all your strength.
…
If on the other hand you know that you will always lose to the Devil and the Great Deceiver’s attacks on your body, mind and soul …
and you know that the only defence against the Devil is the one Jesus provides, the promise given at our baptisms, that God will walk with us and always protect us from the Devil … If we trust God alone to defend us from the Devil’s attacks …
and as the cry to battle stations is sounded again and again, we know that we are already working out God’s Grace in our lives, bringing good news to the oppressed, binding up the broken-hearted, proclaiming liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; proclaiming the year of the Lord’s favour, and the day of vengeance of our God; comforting all who mourn.
We can do this even while those around attempt to defend themselves from the Devil’s attacks with all their hearts, minds and strength, because we trust the gifts and promise given to us in our baptisms and that all this is from God, who reconciled us to Godself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation.
Instead of trying to defend ourselves, which is an effort doomed to fail, and effort that is needless, we live abundantly, living out Christ’ reconciliation for all people.
All deeds are right in the sight of the doer, but the Lord weighs the heart.
Romans 16:19
For while your obedience is known to all, so that I rejoice over you, I want you to be wise in what is good, and guileless in what is evil.
Words of Grace For Today
When we commit ourselves to an action, hopefully we know that it is a good and right thing to do. Sometimes we may be totally wrong, and our own blindness makes us think that we are right when we are actually fully wrong.
God knows.
God knows if we are doing something right or something very wrong.
When we do something that we know is terribly wrong and we do it anyway, then … well … then we serve the devil in all the devil’s horrendous and terrible ways.
Since we so often think that our terrible actions are as great as anything, we can hardly decide how to proceed in our lives doing only God’s will. In fact we never know how to evaluate what we plan to do, whether it is good or bad.
We can only confess our sins every day as a start, and then trust that God will both forgive us, and renew life in us so that we can answer God’s call, to be God’s grace in every day for everyone we meet.
We can pray that we will be wise, knowing how to be bearers of joy for ourselves and for other people, filled with gratitude for all that God provides for us, for all that is good that God brings out of us each day.
God will shatter the heads of his enemies, the hairy crown of those who walk in their guilty ways.
1 Thessalonians 4:14
Since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died.
Words of Grace For Today
Scriptures teach what everyone knows: God does great and mighty things, awesome things, wondrous and frightening things, life- and hope- creating things.
Life after the end of life, after death, seems a thing far fetched (to some if not many people.) Christians are not the only faithful people who embrace it as the hope of all hopes, grounded firmly in the centre of our faith, namely that Jesus was crucified for crimes and sins he did not commit and that three days later God rose him back to life. By this God demonstrated clearly that evil and death itself are not more powerful than God. By this God teaches that scapegoating (the killing of an innocent person in order to ‘pay’ or cover for one’s own sins) is not something favours. Rather God prohibits it just as God prohibits killing, sacrifice of people, especially children, and a host of other acts all too common among people, acts which all destroy other people, good people, by robbing them of life abundant.
Even though God prohibits these sinful, life destroying, de-storying actions, humans still commit them profusely. The hope in life after death includes the promise that in our new life, sins will be dealt with justly and with grace, and all will be free from oppression, abuse, and de-storying. The Pslamist puts this image graphically: God will shatter the heads of his enemies, the hairy crown of those who walk in their guilty ways.
There are few people, other than those who know they qualify for such an end, who would not hope that their enemies would cease to be.
God’s grace is more complete: God promises that God’s and our enemies will definitely cease to be … to be our enemies, for God will save them and convert them. They will sit with us among the children of God.
We pray: come soon, Lord Jesus, that our enemies will be defeated and we will live in peace. And they will know your peace, freeing them from their obsessions to de-story other people.
This is our story …. Let it be known far and wide.
