When you have eaten your fill and have built fine houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks have multiplied, and your silver and gold is multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied, then do not exalt yourself, forgetting the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
1 Thessalonians 5:18
Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
Words of Grace For Today
When one lives in ones own land, owns a home, has possessions that provide food security and financial security (or the appearance thereof), and has seen increases from generation to generation then…
then it is all too easy to forget one’s past.
It is all too easy to forget one’s sins.
It is all too easy to forget God’s great miracles that have and still do deliver us all daily, because it may appear to us that we are captains of our own fate and that we have delivered ourselves and worked hard to earn all we have.
All possessions, position and power, security and safety can disappear in a minute.
There is no real life that forgets one’s past, one’s ancestors’ past, and God’s good works in the past … and in the present.
The only real life that is worth a moment’s participation is to live filled with gratitude for all God provides.
Breathe.
Breathe again.
Breathe deeply and slowly … and again.
That is God’s gift most basic: that we can breathe and their is air that sustains life. Everything else that sustains our lives are also gifts from God.
Real living is wonderfully experienced as God’s overly generous gifts for us, though we deserve none of it, and only because God finds that we are precious.
God finds all other people precious, and in our thanks for all God gives us, God asks us to be the conduits of God’s demonstrating to all others how precious they are.
Yet I planted you as a choice vine, from the purest stock. How then did you turn degenerate and become a wild vine?
Revelation 2:5
Remember then from what you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.
Words of Grace For Today
Humble pie, these readings are for today.
God creates us good, choice vines from the purest stock.
We degenerate and become wild vines, producing little good!
We have fallen from the greatness that God created us to be, to live out in creation.
What are we to do?
The most common human response is …
Denial.
No, we are not that bad. No, we have not fallen. No, God did not create us to be good only.
And on go our denials, some quite marvellous in their creativity.
What is God to do?
We expect that God will punish us, removing our lampstands, unless we return to being good and doing good works.
This expectation is more denial. It is not just that we have fallen. We cannot rescue ourselves or ever again but sin, behave as wild vines, fail to do the good works that God created us for to do.
Doch, God does not punish us. God has mercy on us and is prodigiously gracious with us. God forgives us. God promises to forgive us. God invites us to face reality. God invites us to repent.
To repent is to turn about: we cannot ‘turn about’ and be and do good; but we can ‘turn about’ our pride and arrogance that denies our prolific sins. We can acknowledge, confess, and rely solely on God’s forgiveness … and then move forward relying solely on God’s Grace each day, each moment.
We become humble, grateful, and gracious with ourselves and others.
We recognized that we are broken, somewhat repaired, vessels that carry in our brokenness witness to God’s overwhelming mercy, grace, and love for us (and for all people, and for all creation).
Creation needs our good hard work. We need our hard, diligent, and good work … for our own survival and for the survival of all other people … and more than survival we work to provide abundant life for all people.
This day has it’s fullness waiting.
Are we ready to repent … and let God guide us to (with joyful thanks) accomplish the work that is ours this day?
Do not hide your face from me. Do not turn your servant away in anger, you who have been my help. Do not cast me off, do not forsake me, O God of my salvation!
Luke 23:42-43
Then he said, ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’ He replied, ‘Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.’
Words of Grace For Today
While the challenges of life and the challenges to life rise up against us, and enemies lay in wait and attack and remain ever ready to destroy us with violence, gaslighting, and/or false witness, there is no shortage of our own sins (having nothing to do with the false convictions made by false witness and dishonest, dishonourable, and lying judges, the gaslighting, or our enemies lies about us) which are the real threat to our very lives.
Others’ attacks can physically harm us and even end our lives on earth. Others’ gaslighting can nearly drive us mad as we grapple with what is actually real and what is not, which is a whole other kind of hell to live through. False witness and false convictions and judges’ dishonest rulings can put our lives in jeopardy in jail, ruin our reputations, and make life very lonely as friends turn their backs on us and even our pastors refuse to communicate with us.
These are all terrible.
Still the worst thing that threatens our lives is not from outside ourselves. It is always from within. It is our own sins which can lead us to doubt God’s grace and to fear that God will turn from us.
Our own sins bring on the valleys of the shadows of death that threaten not only our physical life, not only our sanity, but our very souls … so that there is nothing left of life, and indeed of us. These experiences are when we lose our love of God and fear that God no longer loves us … and we only fear God.
We cry out.
We cry out if we are even still that capable: Do not hide your face from me. Do not turn your servant away in anger, you who have been my help. Do not cast me off, do not forsake me, O God of my salvation!
The valleys of the shadows of death are no illusion. They are certainly the work of the Devil himself/herself/themselves [in these valleys the gender is irrelevant!]
Our fear of God is no illusion.
Our cries are not illusions.
Always, always, always God answers us as he answered the criminal that hung on a cross with Jesus and cried out to Jesus for help: Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.
Today.
No waiting.
No delay.
Today, though we suffer greatly in these valleys, today we will be in paradise with Jesus.
These are the words that again and again usher us out of the valleys of the shadows of death and back into the Grace which gives us life, light, and hope. These words stymie the wishes and efforts of all our enemies. These words usher us back into abundant life.
God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.’
1 Corinthians 3:22-23
Whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all belong to you [as God’s Temple, God’s Spirit dwelling in you], and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.
Words of Grace For Today
1 Corinthians 2:18 reads: Do not deceive yourselves. If you think that you are wise in this age, you should become fools so that you may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.
Blessed to have dominion over every living thing we humans have thoroughly deceived ourselves as if we owned and could do with the creatures and creation what we pleased, even if that meant ruining earth as a habitable planet for other species and even ourselves.
Everything is from God.
We are all God’s.
God’s Spirit lives in us.
We are blessed to be blessings to others, not to wreak havoc on others and the rest of creation.
Our dominion over anything is always as stewards, and stewards for a God that created everything, declared it GOOD!, and loves creation and all creatures in it.
It’s all about reality.
First and ultimate always is we are God’s.
We are not some other human’s possession or work.
We are not independent beings.
We are ALL in this together, as Covid 19 has taught us.
While we are not in the same boat, some are in a few people in each luxury yacht and some are bailing to save everyone in their overloaded leaky dinghies, and some are hanging on to flotsam for dear life.
God gives us dominion in order that everyone can live even through a pandemic (when the circumstances of life for each and all become more obvious) in a save boat.
We have lots to do, and always it is futile to proceed as if we were anything less or more or other than God’s stewards.
I hereby command you: Be strong and courageous; do not be frightened or dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.
2 Timothy 1:7
For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.
Words of Grace For Today
If we try and try and strive and focus and discipline ourselves and practice then can we be strong and courageous, not frightened or dismayed? Can we learn with practice and discipline to not be cowards but emanate a spirit of power, love and self-discipline?
No.
We cannot pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and be anything better. Life is disappointing that way.
Doch, if we realize that God has already made us saints and there is nothing better, then leaning on God’s Grace instead of our own abilities (sinning boldly as Luther put it – which is not to just be great sinners, it is to serve God and know that doing so we will inevitably sin … and God will forgive, redeem, renew and guide us as saints) — then leaning on God’s Grace instead of our own abilities we can be (by God’s grace and only as God empowers us) strong and courageous. God’s Spirit of power, love and self-sacrifice and self-discipline will flow from God to us and over us, through us, and over all the people we interact with and more.
We are not alone; God is with us wherever we go, on that we can rely for everything in our lives. We work as diligently and consistently as we can, trusting that God will guide us. We spend time in prayer asking, praising, and … listening for God’s guidance that comes in the most mundane and surprising ways.
We are not alone; God is with us wherever we go, so that we are by God’s power, bold, courageous, strong, and remarkable saints.
There is nothing better we can strive to be or to improve ourselves in relationship to God’s love for us. What we can do is resist the temptation to not be what God has made us to be: saints … hardworking saints.
Trust God’s Grace. Love all people. God will show us the way forward.
It’s never boring, this life of discipleship, and never quite as we expect it to be; that’s being a God-made saint.
The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and delivers them.
Luke 11:10
For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.
Words of Grace For Today
There are enough challenges to everyday,
even ordinary everyday days.
Through in upheaval like a pandemic, or injustice focused at oneself, or … [fill in the extraordinary upheaval that meets every life] the challenges can seem to be a bit overwhelming.
Then it is good to know that God’s Angels ‘encamp’ around we who fear and love God.
Then it is good to know that when we ask, God provides (what we need, not necessarily what we ask for). When we search, God guides us to find (what we need, not necessarily what we thought we sought). When we knock, God opens (the door that God knows we need to have opened, not necessarily the door we were banging away on).
To fear and love God.
To fear and love God is the beginning of everything good.
To fear and love God is the beginning of every good day, every good hour, every good minute.
To fear and love God is the beginning of every good relationship, project, or yearning.
Help us, we pray, to fear and love God before all else, (more than all the things that threaten to and do upend our lives.)
Help us, we pray, to trust God’s Angels are with us, (no matter what threatens to and does upend our lives.)
My hand laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand spread out the heavens; when I summon them, they stand at attention.
John 1:1-3
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.
Words of Grace For Today
God, who comes to our rescue, who delivers us again and again, who sanctifies us making us holy and thus wholly capable of bearing the Good News of Grace to all people … God, who loves us, is the One who spoke a Word in the beginning before anything including time, spread out a right hand to create the heavens, laid the foundation of the earth.
The universe was not created by some godlet. Nor is our God some inconsequential being, to be ignored or dismissed.
It’s more than ‘turtles all the way down’ that the earth is founded on; it is founded on unconditional love.
In the beginning was the Word. We later came to know this Word as Jesus, the communication from God in a human life; the language we can understand.
The heavens and earth may come to attention when God summons them. God did not create us so bound to God’s Word. We get to really mess up terribly, ignoring the Creator and the Word if we so choose … which we humans do all too often.
The Word came to communicate that God accounted for our rebellion and sin and evil. God forgives us our rebellion and sin and evil, and sets us right with God our Creator and Sustainer. Thus we may forge ahead each day, each minute, not hounded and horrified by the depth and breadth of our past rebellion and sin and evil. We may live free of that, and bind ourselves anew to receiving God’s blessings in such an abundance that they spill off us to those around us; they flow through us to others even emptying us … purifying us and taking the life right out of us as we become the bearers of God’s Good News of Grace to all people: God loves us!
Now with God standing with us, why would not the hoards of armies surrender to us making noise? Why would the walls of Jericho not crumble at our trumpets’ calls? Why would the chaos of un-creation void (the ocean waters) and the storms of chaos breaking in through the heavens not obey the Word spoken: ‘Be still!’
May our hearts be also stilled this and each day, from the chaos of fear, false pride, jealousy, and greed, so that we can calmly face the challenges of each day, even if it is one day among many of a pandemic.
Breathe deeply
Relax
Meet the challenges with patience and assurance that God is with us, saving us, guiding us, inspiring us to do holy things for all peoples.
Gideon answered him, ‘But sir, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all his wonderful deeds that our ancestors recounted to us, saying, “Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?” But now the Lord has cast us off, and given us into the hand of Midian.’
Mark 4:38
But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, ‘Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?’
Words of Grace For Today
Why is this happening to us?
Where is God?
Does God not care?
When unjust judges take life from us …
When the one who said, ‘I love you. Marry me?’, turns on you with physical violence or worse (because it is unseen) psychological gaslighting, lying to police and to church and to courts, destroying your reputation, leaving you so far in debt you will never get out, and your health plummets into pain and disarray …
When friends, bishops, and seemingly good people join the gaslighting as if you were a social pariah or dangerous sexual deviant, scapegoating you instead of dealing with their own failings to deal with reality and truth …
When there are no friends left to stand by you …
When flood waters wash away your home and life and hope …
When wildfires rage wiping out your home and life and hope …
When petty warlords churn your homeland into a war-wasted horror of death, bombs, night raids and killings, rape, torture, and dread of your neighbour falsely (or rightly) betraying you bringing death squads to your door to take you away never to be seen again …
When powers turn on your way of life, destroy it, and work to extract resources and power from your home land, leaving masses of your people without the necessities of life …
…
When you have lived in the wilderness for years, eking out a living of a kind, and you read of the wondrous deeds of God, as God saved our ancestors from these, similar and other worse assaults on their lives,
Then you and we will rightly ask, “God! Where are You!?! Do you not care for us!? Will you not save us, NOW! Before it is too late!”
Gideon asked this for his people. In time, as God instructed him, ((his ‘army’ blew the trumpets marching around Jericho, bringing down it’s walls, delivering it and then the rest of the Promised Land into their hands. — That was not Gideon. That was God delivering Joshua and the people. God did this so many times.))
In time, as God instructed him, Gideon with just a small army, drove out a great army and captured it’s kings … using surprise and loud noise making.
The disciples asked this as the storm of un-creation on the sea tossed their small boat about at whim between the tall waves and battered it with wind. They knew their deaths into the deep of the void (what was before creation) was imminent. Jesus wakes and speaks only a word. The un-creation void of the deep waters and winds of the storm settle into the fresh breeze and calm waters on which life was sustainable as the fishers knew so well.
God may not resolve the danger that threatens our lives. God is not a puppeteer, interrupting our freewill and others’ freewill as we choose our ragged paths forward in life through creation and human-made un-creation as we go (which we and others must then try to survive if it possible at all!)
God loves us.
God stands with us.
God suffers and weeps with us … at the loss of any of creation and any of God’s creatures … for God loves creation and all in it, and created it GOOD!
God does give us, sometimes, the possibilities to struggle against the evil that threatens us and to survive. If we live, God is with us. If we die, God is with us and gathers us home … home at last.
So whether we live or whether we die, we are God’s beloveds, blessed and grateful for whatever life we get to live in this miracle of creation!
God does not ever abandon us. Not ever. Not even during a pandemic. The stories of God rescuing our ancestors provides us witness to God’s love and care.
Thus, no matter how great the waves of evil pound over us, we do not lose hope.
As we live, we are God’s people who stand with others as the great waves of evil pound over them.
This is love. This is grateful, hope-filled living.
Keep my statutes, and observe them; I am the Lord; I sanctify you.
Matthew 7:24
Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock.
Words of Grace For Today
God gives commands.
People receive the commands and reinterpret them as the necessary things to be done to be acceptable to God.
God corrects the reinterpretations back to God’s Grace: God acts for us first, bridging the whole gap between divine and finite humans. Then we get to act as sanctified people … and we still sin.
How do we wish to live, always running from goodness, or in a house built on a rock, the rock of God’s Grace for us?
The human mind plans the way, but the Lord directs the steps.
2 Corinthians 3:5
Not that we are competent of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our competence is from God.
Words of Grace For Today
Who are we?
We are fallible and arrogant, needing reminders regularly of how fragile our grasp on reality, truth, and goodness are.
We are able to give God all God is due: our lives in service to others so that they may experience and know the Grace of God which gives us renewed life, even though we deserve nothing but condemnation and expulsion to the emptiness of the Void.
Rather than giving us what we are due, God forgives us, redeems us, renews us and sanctifies us so that we can reflect the Light of the World to all in need.
It is only because God so constantly renews us and makes us holy (sanctifies us) that we are able to do anything good.
The human tendency is to forget God, God’s gifts, and claim all that is good is our own doing. This is a foolish error that costs us so much each day, and it costs so many other people so much each day.
We may think we make plans that we are capable of carrying out. So it is only with sinful plans! Any good plans we make, as well as the steps we take, are possible only because God has saved us from ourselves and through the Holy Spirit permeating our being inspires us to things so much better than we could ever do or imagine on our own.
God does not control us like a puppeteer. God inspires us, and if Luther is correct, we can at most surrender to doing what God asks of us and moves us to be and do. We, on the other hand, have free will (not to do good) only to do sinful and evil things, selfish things, destructive things, common things … and then lie to ourselves about how ‘good’ our evil ways are.
Oh, God, save us from our own sin, and the deceptions that allow us to think we can be anything without you! (Like thinking we can plan our own good way.)
God, help us to see the wonders of being and doing as you inspire and enable us.
God, help us extend this same Grace to all other people, sinful and evil as they are.
