Month: December 2021

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!

God Created Also This!

Saturday, December 18, 2021

…

G g g g g good Morning!

…

(It ain’t Vietnam!)

Genesis 5:2

Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and named them ‘Humankind’ when they were created.

Jude 1:2

May mercy, peace, and love be yours in abundance.

Words of Grace For Today

It’s c c c cold outside.

God created this?!

God created us to share one another’s company so that we could warm each other against the cold?

Would that even help in this cold of below -30⁰ C?

…

Maybe a little, but certainly not enough, unless …

…

unless one of us is able to plan and prepare and build a shelter that can be warmed by heating fuel to the burning point … safely.

So the wood stove gobbles up wood and produces heat, mostly safely (if one is particularly alert to the immediate dangers of burning the whole thing down or gassing the occupants with carbon monoxide or … well there is a whole host of dangers to be avoided while heating a stove to 400⁰C and a chimney to 2000⁰ C

and there are benefits, like sitting in a sauna after jumping through the ice into the lake.

Not that I have a sauna or a hole in the ice, nor the foolishness in these temperatures to jump in such a hole! But walking outside is bracing and then biting and then dangerous, so it’s nice to know the ‘wood eating monster’ has done it’s thing well and 40⁰C awaits me to warm up by. Of course the floor temperatures are anywhere from 20⁰ to 60⁰ cooler than at head level. At Advent we remember that God comes to level … well, this variation could use some levelling!

Still, we breathe and live, and marvel at systems that work in such cold were metal looses half its strength and oil congeals and skin freezes in minutes or seconds.

So we give thanks that God’s mercy, peace, and love are ours in abundance!

And we pray that they may be yours as well!

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.

Encounter God … And Live

Thursday, December 16, 2021

Hear God’s Word

As Clearly As We See

The Ice Between the Snow

Joshua 2:11

As soon as we heard it, our hearts failed, and there was no courage left in any of us because of you. The Lord your God is indeed God in heaven above and on earth below.

Matthew 28:19-20

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.

Words of Grace For Today

To encounter God is an awesome thing,

more terrifying than anything we have imagined or ever could imagine,

which brings our hearts to stop, and all things in us to cease to be, other than what God has given us.

…

When we realize that everything we need for life, abundant life, God has already given to us, then we can but be grateful for all that life has for us

…

and we will be ready to hand on everything that God has given us to others so that they may also live and live abundantly.

So we go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey the commandment Jesus gives us, to love our neighbours as ourselves, and even our enemies, and first that we love God with all our hearts, minds, and strengths.

Even when we see the face of God and hear God’s Word for us, as awesome and fearful as that is for us, we then trust always that God will walk with us to the end of all time.

All courage is given to us by the God that walks with us, each day, no matter how cold, no matter how hot, no matter the challenges our enemies place in our paths.

Let us celebrate each moment all the great wonders of each day.

Therefore God …

Wednesday, December 15, 2021

Steps Up

Jesus Carries Up the Steps Up To Life

Grateful, Abundant Life

Jeremiah 30:12-16-17

For thus says the Lord: Your hurt is incurable, your wound is grievous. There is no one to uphold your cause, no medicine for your wound, no healing for you. All your lovers have forgotten you; they care nothing for you; for I have dealt you the blow of an enemy, the punishment of a merciless foe, because your guilt is great, because your sins are so numerous. Why do you cry out over your hurt? Your pain is incurable. Because your guilt is great, because your sins are so numerous, I have done these things to you.

Therefore all who devour you shall be devoured, and all your foes, every one of them, shall go into captivity; those who plunder you shall be plundered, and all who prey on you I will make a prey. For I will restore health to you, and your wounds I will heal, says the Lord, because they have called you an outcast: ‘It is Zion; no one cares for her!’

1 Peter 2:24

He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that, free from sins, we might live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.

Words of Grace For Today

If we spent everyday counting our sins …

we would have no time for anything else.

If God spent any time counting our sins and letting us pay for them,

we would have no time for anything else.

God’s attitude towards us and our sins is made clear in Jeremiah’s words with one word: therefore.

It seems to be unexpected. It would not be the way we are with those who sin beyond count in such despicable ways.

Yet this therefore is for God the way God is. The way God is for us.

For God sees our incurable countless sins and …

and therefore God defeats our foes that do us woe. We who were called outcasts, are called most blessed.

God turns our sins into opportunities for us to learn of God’s mercy. Jesus’ story is God bearing our sins on the cross, so that we can live free, healed, and even righteous.

For that we can be grateful.

Words to Inspire

Tuesday, December 14, 2021

The WORD That Makes The Mix

Of Life

Precious

Psalm 119:19

I live as an alien in the land; do not hide your commandments from me.

Ephesians 5:15-16

Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil.

Words of Grace For Today

Wise words and free advice usually end in people trying to fool themselves they are good enough as they destory their neighbours and the aliens in their land: their contributions to the days being evil abound.

Words of free advice and wise words are like rules; whether most people admit it or not the human stance on rules is that they are good. Others ought to follow them all. Themselves are allowed all sorts of exceptions and ‘understandings’ and leaways so that all their bending and breaking of rules is acceptable.

The challenge in life is not really to know what one must not do and what one must do. The challenge in life is to have an attitude towards others and all creation that brings one to deal with it all wisely, as followers of Jesus, as faithful people, as good people, as those who live grateful for everything that is.

To inspire humans to live such lives requires more than admonishments, exhortations, and pithy wise words on how to live. The Word must reach deep in the heart and transform it from greedy to generous. That takes a miracle.

A miracle it is that only God can bring to be for each person.

Jesus’ story is that God does that for each person.

Take that to heart, no matter what the day brings.

God’s Downtrodden, Poor, And Needy

Monday, December 13, 2021

God’s Miracles Are Not Mysteries

But Lovingly Given to Those Most In Need

Of Blessings

As Leaves In Spring Grow On Branches Once Frozen

Psalm 74:21

Do not let the downtrodden be put to shame; let the poor and needy praise your name.

Luke 1:58

Her neighbours and relatives heard that the Lord had shown his great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her.

Words of Grace For Today

The way the world works, the downtrodden, poor, and needy are left out to ‘flap in the wind.’

God works through the downtrodden, poor, and needy as Jesus’ story makes so clear:

John the Baptist and Jesus are each born of mothers who are of no account, Jesus’ mother even more so than John the Baptist’s/ Elizabeth is married to a priest. Mary is not even married and she is engaged to a poor carpenter, from a nothing place called Nazareth.

Those who fear and love God know how to celebrate God’s work through the downtrodden, poor, and needy: we celebrate for God raises up the lowly, and brings down those who consider themselves to be on high. The wealthy are brought to poverty. Rulers are brought down to be peasants. Powerful are brought down to powerless. Oppressors are turned on and oppressed. This is justice, God’s way.

The miracle is not this justice.

The miracle is that without making the downtrodden, poor, and needy new occupiers of the wealthy, ruling, and powerful who ignore those on the outside of their privilege and comfort, God takes the outsiders (the downtrodden, poor, and needy) and blesses them with the blessings so amazing and over-abundant that those wealthy, powerful, rulers, and oppressors have no hope of living as fully, as blessed, as well.

God brings us on the outside to be God’s insiders, who carry blessings enough to share with all people. That is the miracle; to be feared by those who try to gain it themselves, and to be celebrated by those to whom God gives God’s favour and Promise.

Which Is It? Name It!

Sunday, December 12, 2021

No Matter the Dark Obstacles

God’s Love

Holds The Universe Together

Ezekiel 39:7

My holy name I will make known among my people Israel; and I will not let my holy name be profaned any more; and the nations shall know that I am the Lord, the Holy One in Israel.

John 17:26

I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.

Words of Grace For Today

To know God’s name and to keep it holy is a gift given to us all, though we often, more often than we care to admit, we turn our back on the gifts from God and use God’s name in vain, and more as our own avenue for our own selfish wishes. All in vain.

God in God’s name is what brings us to live with grace and hope.

God in God’s name is what brings us to know the love that holds the universe together.

This is the gift that gives us life.

This is the gift that we turn away from when we follow our own ways, deceits, and greed.

This is the gift that God extends to us again and again, each time we turn away from God.

This day, which will it be for us, to turn from God, or to accept God’s grace bring us to return to God?

It will be both and neither, as God wishes.

So we live in God’s favour, blessed and living as we breathe.

For this we can be thankful.