White Mountain of God’s Grace

Friday, April 16, 2021

White Mountain Surrounded by Lush Forest?

…

OR

an ash dump?

Inglorious As They Are

Ashes Remind Us

How Undeserving We Are

And

How Gracious God Is To All People.

Deuteronomy 18:10-12

No one shall be found among you who makes a son or daughter pass through fire, or who practises divination, or is a soothsayer, or an augur, or a sorcerer, or one who casts spells, or who consults ghosts or spirits, or who seeks oracles from the dead. For whoever does these things is abhorrent to the Lord; it is because of such abhorrent practices that the Lord your God is driving them out before you.

Ephesians 5:9-11

For the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true. Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.

Words of Grace For Today

For whoever does these things is abhorrent to the Lord; it is because of such abhorrent practices that the Lord your God is driving them out before you.

Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.

Good old judgment of others who practice different beliefs, followed by exiling them.

The quality that is unacceptable of the practices that are of darkness and such abhorrent practices is that they seek to claim control of what cannot be controlled.

While these practices named in Deuteronomy are unacceptable and abhorrent practices, because they deny that we are dependent on God alone for everything, we ‘good’ Christians in the church have all sorts of practices by which we try to control what cannot be controlled, and thus to control other people with rewards for compliance and punishments for non-compliance with our ill-informed claims of what is ‘right’ and ‘good’.

Should we exile all the people from the church who practice the dark arts of controlling what cannot be controlled, that is: trying to control God’s will for creation and us people in it? Were we to do that I’m quite sure that there would only be left one person, the one devilish person who evaded being exiled by others by being the exiler of all others.

In other words: we all deserve condemnation.

Thanks be to God that God is gracious.

God is gracious to all people, even those who practice abhorrent dark practices.

Our response, so much healthier for all, is to be grateful, rather than judgmental.

Yet we so often choose to ‘get rid of the trouble makers’. Thus our churches are not filled with sinners. Instead they are mostly empty, and those that come are mostly judgmental sinners.

God have mercy on us all!

Complaints or Blessings?

Thursday, April 15, 2021

What Do We See?

Ice One Cannot Safely Walk On

or

Beauty Rarely Found?

Psalm 5:12

For you bless the righteous, O Lord; you cover them with favour as with a shield.

Acts 13:52

The disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.

Words of Grace For Today

Covid 19 presses challenges on us all, unequally.

The homeless and outcasts in Canada are recognized as deserving homes and inclusion, so thankfully an effort is made to provide for them. They receive safe places to live and eat if for no other reason because not to do so would lead to an outbreak among them that could not be contained and would spread to us all. At least this care is provided in the cities … well sort of … in some cities.

Immigrants who live multi-generationally with many people to a housing unit, many people to a bedroom, are now and again provided separate housing in hotels for those who must self isolate or quarantine themselves … again for our protection.

Pastors gather to discuss their ministries … and it becomes mostly a ‘bitch’ session, complaints of how difficult life is for them and their families, though most retain full pay and adequate work, and none lack for the necessities of life, even in Covid 19 times. Humour creeps into the conversation lessening the dark tone of complaints. Yet where is their overwhelming sense of gratitude? How does one inspire people to remember how blessed they are?

How often Scriptures record gratitude and thankfulness as the most appropriate and life giving response to all of life, all that appears to be good and all that appears to be bad.

For God covers the righteous with favour as with a shield, and in the face of great threat to their lives for being Christian still the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.

How then will we live this day?

Full of complaints, self-righteously expecting more from life?

Or

Filled with joy and gratitude, no matter the challenges that come our way?

Don’t celebrate? Or …

Wednesday, April 14, 2021

Now Matter How We See The Wonders of Creation

and Our Work in It,

All That Is Good

Flows from God.

Ezra 6:22

With joy they celebrated the festival of unleavened bread for seven days; for the Lord had made them joyful, and had turned the heart of the king of Assyria to them, so that he aided them in the work on the house of God, the God of Israel.

Luke 10:20

Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.

Words of Grace For Today

There is great reason to be joyful when those who rule over you turn their hearts to you and aid you in your nearly impossible, but necessary work, whether that work is to provide a house for the Lord where people can gather (after Covid 19) or to provide a home for a new family (like a refugee family or a new couple) without a home or to provide a home for a homeless person.

The disciples nearly impossible work is to cast out demons, to renew the ill people’s spirits, to give life. As they work the ‘spirits submit to them’ and they are able to give life to many people. We are to follow suit today, bringing renewed life, full life, abundant life to as many people as we can.

So the people of Israel celebrated the festival of unleavened bread (the Passover?) for seven days.

We have great reasons to celebrate our festivals as well. Usually we merely take a break, a pause, and focus on our own enjoyment, or gathering our families – or we used to before Covid 19.

All this, Jesus reminds the disciples and us, is barely cause to celebrate.

At first glance we do have to shake our heads, trying to clear them of some unknown cobwebs as we try to make sense of Jesus’ words. Certainly bringing life to others is THE reason to celebrate. Or is it that the disciples and we celebrate not bringing life to others, but rather the power they and we are able to exercise in order to accomplish our tasks?

That power is not ours. We have no right to claim it, nor to celebrate as if it were ours. That power remains God’s and God’s alone. We exercise it for others, doch it is God would exercises it for us for them.

God exercises that power, like many other life-giving powers at work in the world around us, along with our efforts, because God has written our names in heaven as God’s holy workers.

Therefore our celebrations are most life-giving for us, when we celebrate not that we ‘have’ power or can ‘exercise’ power. Our celebrations are most life-giving for us and all people when we celebrate what God has done for us miserable beggars and sinners: God has written our names in heaven, claiming us a God’s holy people.

Holy … or Not?

Tuesday, April 13, 2021

See God’s Gracious Gifts

Respond with a Life of Gratitude

Jeremiah 4:14

O Jerusalem, wash your heart clean of wickedness so that you may be saved. How long shall your evil schemes lodge within you?

Luke 3:8

Bear fruits worthy of repentance. Do not begin to say to yourselves, “We have Abraham as our ancestor”; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.

Words of Grace For Today

Just because God is gracious, does not mean we get to continue on endlessly sinning and abusing others to get ahead.

5% of the wealthiest in the world pollute more than the least wealthy 50%.

It’s not right.

People who lie in court and get away with it ruining other people are all too frequent. Excuses that the ‘loser’ is self represented, or that the court record does not support the truth is no excuse. The system is broken because people from the least to the top of the courts choose to break it.

It’s not right.

Abusively dumping your history of being abused on others, creating stress and drama that has not basis in reality is all too common, and excused as the right of the abused.

It’s not right.

Guests who behave like they own the place throw all common sense out the book. Guests ought to be grateful, not demanding.

It’s not right.

Taking more than one needs, and depriving (or avoiding knowing one is thereby depriving) others of the basics of life is how civilizations are built and sustained.

It’s not right.

God forgives. We all count on it. At times we all continue on with what we are forgiven, to our own and others great costs. People who do that all the time destroy all community and trust … and break God’s grace. God does not have to continue to forgive us if we refuse to acknowledge our ongoing need for forgiveness, and God’s sanctification of us (making us holy) so that we can amend our lives.

Life is good, when one is grateful and responsive to God’s forgiveness and grace.

That is right … always right!

Seeing the Light, Being the Light

Monday, April 12, 2021

No Matter How Dark

Our Horizons Seem

God’s Blessings Abound for Us

Jeremiah 33:9

This city shall be to me a name of joy, a praise and a glory before all the nations of the earth who shall hear of all the good that I do for them; they shall fear and tremble because of all the good and all the prosperity I provide for it.

Luke 2:29-32

‘Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.’

Words of Grace For Today

God’s blessings …

God’s blessings are named by us humans in many and various ways.

God’s blessings often are equated with prosperity and power, independence and might, progress and children.

Except for the children, all this seems to be a complete misapprehension of God’s way of providing for God’s people.

God, rather (as so often made clear in Jesus’ story and people’s reaction to him and his story) blesses us with salvation, which God prepares in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to God’s people.

This salvation rarely looks like worldly prosperity.

It is a life coloured first with gratitude, humility, service, and grace … oh, and the wisdom to recognize God’s blessings as salvation, i.e. forgiveness (freedom from the bondage to sin) and sanctification (making us holy, set apart, to be the presence of God for all people … as the people of light who exercise God’s Grace and love for all people.)

God’s creation has a greatness in it, and we as part of creation share in that grand wonder: that God provides this as a way, place, time for us to exist and be awestruck.

God provides.

We get to receive and share …

and hope that also tomorrow will bring opportunities to be bedazzled by God’s love.

God’s Glory

Strikes Awe

into All Who See

Choosing to Be ‘in Love’

Sunday, April 11, 2021

no matter how long the shadows

old age or illness cast across our paths

God intends for us to remain ‘in love’

with God, God’s people, and God’s creation.

Psalm 62:11

Once God has spoken; twice have I heard this: that power belongs to God.

Matthew 6:21

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Words of Grace For Today

I never understood young men who spent so much time working on their old trucks or muscle cars, fixing, tweaking, and adding 8 track tapes and speakers to them. (That dates me if nothing else does!)

I had to get old to read that whatever one spends a great deal of effort and time at, one falls in love with. So those young men, who invested so much time in their vehicles, fell in love with them, which brought them to spend even more time with them, until they did things that were not reasonable or logical or purposeful. They were continuing beyond all that into the realm of love.

Who would of thunk?

Thus it is that we humans assign value to things in our lives, which in and of themselves have no more than utilitarian value, if that, simply because we invest time working on them.

I can only imagine that someone who spends a lot of time accumulating wealth, power, or fame ‘falls in love’ with that as well.

What we treasure, owns our hearts, and brings us to do things that are not reasonable or logical or purposeful.

So it is in God’s creation. We humans, like the rest of the universe, operate on the principals of love.

This is God’s love permeating through the entire universe.

There is no power equal to the power of love, to heal, to give life, to give hope, to sustain life.

Once God has spoken God’s love to us and we have heard it once or twice we come to know and trust that power belongs to God, the real power that holds the universe together and gives us our very life and breath.

We can also, by investing our time and effort into things and projects and ideas that do not give life to us and others, ‘fall in love’ with evil and destructive forces that rob us and the world around us of life.

God intends, though, that we invest our lives (every bit of time and energy we have) into providing God’s care and unconditional love to other people. Thus we ‘fall in love’ with God’s creation and God’s people.

Then our hearts are found invested in the treasure that God created for us to live for: people, and people of all kinds.

When we live for other people, life never gets dull or boring, and we remain ‘in love’ with God and God’s creation, no matter how old we get. No matter how old or tired, or ill, we remain fully alive and in love.

What a life!

Fleeting Sunshine on Smoke or Light of Life

Saturday, April 10, 2021

Much of life is fleeting as sunshine on smoke.

God’s blessings are sure and forever.

Psalm 71:9

Do not cast me off in the time of old age; do not forsake me when my strength is spent.

2 Corinthians 4:16

So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day.

Words of Grace For Today

What used to take little effort and next to no time or thought, now takes great effort and forging onward through pain, dealing with lack of clear sight, and being exhausted way too soon each day.

Fear makes it worse.

There is almost no resolution.

‘If you have your health that is everything.’

It’s a nice sentiment, though the truth is more clearly ‘if you do not have your health, then nothing else can compensate for that. Life is a finite experience, and without health (as old age takes if from us piece by piece) that finite experience becomes smaller and shorter and smaller and shorter and then will soon end.

Our real comfort is that God does not ‘unbless’ us as we get old and ill.

Even as our bodies and minds seem to waste away, God renews our faith and trust, and thus we are able to continue on, blessing others with all we have left in life, of life itself.

Anything else is a mirage.

Threats and ‘Paddles’

Friday, April 9, 2021

We may think we are up a creek without a paddle,

Doch,

God provides all the ‘paddle’ we need:

God’s blessings and claim that we are God’s own

Isaiah 43:1

Thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.

Romans 8:31

What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us?

Words of Grace For Today

The challenges of our days can overwhelm us.

The challenges of Covid 19 can overwhelm us.

Other people’s lack of compliance with restrictions in place to protect us all from Covid 19 and it’s debilitating long term effects can not overwhelm us, it can maim us for life, or kill us.

What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us?

We may be terribly afraid of what can happen to us, or what others will try to do to us, even when we have done nothing to warrant such threats to ourselves.

While we may seek security in all sorts of manners and means, there is only one real source of security, no matter our circumstances, no matter how luxurious our ‘boat’ through the waters of life and Covid 19 may appear to be: Our only true security is God’s blessing and claiming us.

What does God say?

Thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.

We can relax, think clearly, plan and work as best we can, be thankful and generous with all we have, even our lives … for we can trust that we are in God’s hands.

The ‘Naked’ Truth

Thursday, April 8, 2021

Seeing Our True Selves

We Can Fear God’s Wrath

Or

Know God’s Grace

Genesis 3:9-10

But the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, ‘Where are you?’ He said, ‘I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.’

Hebrews 4:13

Before him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account.

Words of Grace For Today

The truth can bite.

God knows all the truth about us, all the little and big lies we try to live and force on others, all the deception that we pass off as truth.

It is something to know one is ‘naked’ before God, exposed, fully known, it is something terrifying …

unless –

…

unless one knows ones’ self very well,

unless one knows one’s self so well, or at least well enough, to be honest about one’s own ‘naked’ truth – of how broken one really is,

unless one knows God to be gracious and unconditionally loving and forgiving, willing to give even God’s own life that we may live,

then

well then knowing God knows one’s self as well as one knows one’s self, and even better, indeed knowing God knows us all perfectly is

a

great blessing and reassurance that

all will be well.

Even when the waters of hell and chaos surround one and our own turn against us, we know that God is faithful, gracious, loving, forgiving and life-giving.

Which means we can be the same toward ourselves and all other people.

Zero Sum Or Prodigious Blessings

Wednesday, April 7, 2021

Life is about seeing blessings in all things,

Looking also down to see beauty.

Isaiah 53:12

Therefore I will allot him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he poured out himself to death, and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

Luke 6:28

Bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.

Words of Grace For Today

If life is a zero-sum ‘game’, then the goal is to get ahead by whatever means, destroying as many enemies and people who get in your way.

With the earth overburdened with nearly 9 billion people, we are pressing the limits of what the earth can sustain, with our ‘great’ life style, comforts, and luxuries. It is the generations old solution to compete for the ‘limited resources’, and to ‘take no prisoners’ along the way.

We humans thus reduce life to a zero-sum ‘game’, a project of limited resources which each person or family or nation needs to seek to gain for themselves before others do, or to take them from others if they have the resource you want.

It is hard to imagine in this zero sum ‘game’ that anyone will stop to bear the sins of the many and make intercession for the transgressors, or bless those who curse you, and pray for those who abuse you.

Since God did not create life to be a zero sum ‘game’, rather that life is abundant for all if all share what is available, it is obvious that we will bless those who curse us, and pray for our abusers and the transgressors.

Life is a project of being grateful.

God has provided plenty … for everyone,

including blessings.

Life is not sustained by things, consumables, resources, comforts, or possessing more than others, or enjoying luxuries.

Life is sustained in being God’s blessings for others.

That changes the colour of life from a zero sum ‘game’ to a ‘game’ of giving to others what they need in order to have an abundant life (which is not the same as a life of comfort or luxury).

We get to celebrate all God’s blessings for all people, even those who curse us for not playing their ‘game’.