Month: August 2021

The Music We Dance To

Wednesday, August 11, 2021

Like Bush and Trees

Standing Between Us and the Light

So Life Will Always

Challenge Us with

Trials and Tribulations.

Always,

Though,

God’s Light Shines

into Us.

1 Samuel 26:24

As your life was precious today in my sight, so may my life be precious in the sight of the Lord, and may he rescue me from all tribulation.

Acts 23:11

That night the Lord stood near him and said, ‘Keep up your courage! For just as you have testified for me in Jerusalem, so you must bear witness also in Rome.’

Words of Grace For Today

Paul, arrested by the Roman Tribunal (one man, not three), is released to stand with the chief priests and council (who had attacked him to kill him because he taught against their religious rules, faith and power). After Paul tells his story of conversion to follow Jesus and bring the Good News of God’s Grace for all people, the crowd seeks to attack him, so the the Tribunal arrests Paul again, and binds him to lash him. Paul protests that he is a Roman citizen and cannot be mistreated if he is not convicted by a Roman trial. Forty (or more than enough) Jews give themselves to not eat until they have killed Paul. They ask the chief priests and council to ask to question Paul again. They will kill him en route to them. The Tribunal hears of it from a relative of Paul’s and he is shipped off to Caesarea, the Roman capital for the region. That night, as the travel plans are put in place, and Paul waits for what will come next the Lord stood near him and said, ‘Keep up your courage! For just as you have testified for me in Jerusalem, so you must bear witness also in Rome.’

Dangerous times, dangerous message, dangerous travels on foot and sea, dangerous trials: the bring Paul to Rome. That’s the last we hear of Paul.

Yet Paul, imprisoned often for his sharing the Gospel of Jesus’ love, God’s Grace for all people, takes every opportunity to share what he has experienced and then studied to understand: God is gracious to all people. All people can be children of God. All people can follow Jesus’ Way.

…

David has angered Saul, the anointed King of God’s people. Saul has sought David’s death. David has run for his life. Saul has pursued him.

At night David and Abishai sneak under cover of night into Saul’s camp, and instead of killing God’s anointed (and suffer the real guilt that would bring on him) David takes Saul’s spear and water jug as proof that he was there and could have killed Saul, but choose not to.

The next day David yells into Saul’s camp, disclosing that he has spared Saul’s life. Saul relents, admits he has done wrong, and gives up his pursuit to kill David.

Then David utters to Saul these words: As your life was precious today in my sight, so may my life be precious in the sight of the Lord, and may he rescue me from all tribulation.

Mercy on David’s part gives David courage to beg God for mercy; that God would find David’s life precious and that God would rescue David from all tribulation.

Doch

God does not find David precious because of the mercy David has shown Saul. God finds David precious in spite of all the shenanigans and wrong and utter evil David does. God does protect David from some tribulation perhaps, but David brings all sorts of tribulation down on his own head. Such is the consequence of a thieving, conniving, murderous life that David chooses at times to pursue for his own benefit. It does not produce benefit, but great tribulation for David and his family … and God’s people.

Still God finds David precious. We remember him as a broken, sinful, God-made saint and leader. David’s story says less about David’s goodness, and so much about God’s grace, mercy and steadfast love toward David and all of God’s people.

If God can use David to bring this message to us, certainly God will use any and all of us to bring a message of God’s Grace told so well in Jesus’ story.

The price for us is not nothing.

Like Paul (once Saul who pursued, persecuted and killed followers of Jesus) and like David, we will suffer trials and tribulations, even at times unspeakable.

Yet always God will declare to all that God finds us precious, that God has adopted us as God’s own children, that we are blessed beyond all imagination with abundant life. Always God will walk with us.

We get to live filled with gratitude, humbly confessing our sins, courageously sharing the old, old story of Jesus and his love for all people, and responding to all evil done against us and around us with grace. We get to live, walking through life’s trials and tribulations, like a graceful dancer, to the music of God’s steadfast love.

There is no other music so beautiful and inspiring to be able to dance to!

Septic Truth; Glorious Blessings

Tuesday, August 10, 2021

Like Flower in the Grass

We Are Here Today and Gone Tomorrow

On Our Own We Are No More Than Weeds

In God’s Gracious Light We Become Beautiful

As We Turn Our Lives Towards God

Job 21:22

Will any teach God knowledge, seeing that he judges those that are on high?

Romans 12:16

Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are.

Words of Grace For Today

The beginning of wisdom is the fear and love of the Lord.

The critical piece in fearing and loving God is that one has then identified one’s place in creation, in the universe, and among God’s people.

Some have said (and said rightly) that the original sin (the one that leads to all others, the first sin, the one portrayed in Eve and Adam eating the fruit of the forbidden tree and getting kicked out of the garden of paradise) is pride or arrogance, that is hubris. It is to place oneself incorrectly in creation and among God’s creatures. It is to place oneself above what one is not above. It is to claim one is wiser, purer, better, more powerful, etc., etc. than one actually is. It is to forget that one is God’s creature, and a miserable sinful one at that.

This misplacement of oneself is often borne of and supported by luxuries that one enjoys (that others cannot) leading one to think one has ‘earned them’ when they are only gifts given by God, and then abused as trophies reflecting one’s supposed station high above others. In fact one, with this false pretense of status, has actually placed oneself on the lowest rung of sinners, those that delude themselves with falsehoods about their own worth.

So we see that money corrupts, power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

The danger in being one to speak about these corrupting self-image sins is that one participates more fully in them; the only difference is that the ‘luxury’ that one touts as a marker of one’s ‘better status’ in creation is a supposed wisdom, one about other people’s sins. Wisdom about other’s sin and a blindness to one’s own sins is a powerful tool of the devil to win hearts and souls. With the goodness of God (wisdom in this case) claimed as one’s own, one has misplaced oneself in creation, supposedly better than all those miserable rich, powerful, famous sinners. In fact one actually marks oneself therewith as right in the pack of miserable sinners who think they are above others in God’s creation.

Ahh, what is one to do? Should one pretend to know nothing? Should one abandon one’s calling and consecration to bring God’s Word to all people? No, one simply need return to remembering that all people sin, oneself as well. That everyday is a sinners path for every person, oneself included. That only by Grace is one able to be a saint, a God-made saint. One humbly prays for forgiveness, trusts that it is given even before one asks, and proceed humbly through the day, as one of God’s lowly creatures, called to speak truth, even though one is at ‘the bottom of the cesspool of sinners’ on earth.

One will then have no trouble associating with the lowly, providing comfort to the lonely and distressed, aiding the helpless and hapless alike, freeing the prisoners, and acting for justice for all people … all in Jesus’ name. One lives filled with gratitude, giving God credit for anything good one is able to do, proclaiming from ‘the bottom of the cesspool of sinners’ on earth how great God is to bless such a miserable sinner as oneself, a sign that God does bless any and all who will receive the blessing even as they fear and love God from ‘the bottom of the cesspool of sinners’ on earth.

Dumbstruck

Monday, August 9, 2021

Winter, Spring, Summer, or Autumn

God’s Gracious Wisdom

Leaves Us All in Awe,

Dumbstruck.

Isaiah 11:2

The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.

Luke 20:26

They were not able in the presence of the people to trap him by what he said; and being amazed by his answer, they became silent.

Words of Grace For Today

God blesses us all with gifts. Most often we ignore them as gifts, assuming we have full title to them and all they can bring to us.

God blesses some of us, it seems very few of us, with amazing gifts of the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.

Quite understandably when those who claw their way on their own efforts to positions of power and status, at others’ expense and lives, encounter the one so blessed they attack to undo what is foreign to them and therefore a threat to their fragile ‘house of cards’: simple goodness and kindness.

The encounter rarely goes as they planned or hoped and if …

if they are at all honest or honourable, they will quickly realize that this person embodies for God the reality of God’s rule over all, which their lives so contradict, and yet which is what they seek to achieve on their own …

and

they are dumbstruck, with awe

and

with fear.

Such is the encounter with God’s blessings that are not denied or rejected by the person receiving them.

The world needs more such blessed, holy saints … those who God chooses as God’s own children, who do not pervert or attempt to control God’s blessings. The world needs saints to embody God’s will for all on earth, namely that we live for each other, simply, gently, kindly, and graciously.

The wasps built another new nest, since I did not eliminate their queen with the second nest destroyed. That nest was eliminated last night, for the wasps are so plentiful that they make simple tasks a huge risk, as they buzz my face without notice if I am outside working or walking.

To have a safe place where I can live the wasps need to be reduced in number so that this space is rarely prowled by wasps. Thus the nest must go and all in them. So last night at 1:20 the new nest was saturated and the wasps all eliminated, queen and all in the nest.

This is not how God calls us to live with other people, no matter how threatening their prowling is in our lives, no matter how many times they have ‘stung’ us leaving us incapacitated for days, weeks, years.

It is not difficult to image how much better life would be if one’s enemies and their ‘nests’ could be eliminated.

God chooses that even our enemies receive grace, and the time for the amendment of their lives. Better a convert (a grace-made saint-sinner) than a dead wretchedly evil sinner.

The sun rises. The sun sets. Another day in God’s creation as a blessed grace-made saint-sinner. When we recover from encountering God’s awe-fully wonderful and gracious wisdom our prayer is the same: God bless all goodness, leave sinners dumbstruck at your gracious wisdom, and eliminate all evil … in us sinners, all (also in our enemies.)

Blaster or Refuge Giver? Which Are You?

Sunday, August 8, 2021

Just Another Sunset

Which is Everything.

For It Is God’s Promise Fulfilled.

Isaiah 25:5

For you have been a refuge to the poor, a refuge to the needy in their distress, a shelter from the rainstorm and a shade from the heat. When the blast of the ruthless was like a winter rainstorm, the noise of aliens like heat in a dry place, you subdued the heat with the shade of clouds; the song of the ruthless was stilled.

Luke 1:51-52

He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly.

Words of Grace For Today

God definitely favours the poor, those in distress, and those lowly in life.

God provides the refuge, shelter, relief from the storms of the wickedly ruthless. God lifts up the lowly that they may not be so low as not to be able to live, and live abundantly.

God definitely does not favour those who cause others distress, those who are ruthless, those proud and haughty, nor the powerful.

God subdues the ruthless who are like a blast of heat or a blast of a wintry storm (snow and ice or rain, it matters not). God stills the song of the ruthless who think they have won so they sing their songs. God knows theirs is not a song to have sung by anyone. God scatters the proud with the terror of their own thoughts, the turmoil in their own hearts. God takes down those who are powerful and cruel.

There are many who camp for months on crown lands, never removing after 14 days their equipment, or they play a game and move every 21 or so days to a different campsite, so it looks like they have not camped in the same place. They are proud. They are hard on the land. They are sure that they are entitled to special treatment; they do not have to obey the laws.

There are many who come for a weekend, or 4 to 7 days, maybe even 14 or 28 days, and they camp with a wonderful view of the water, a mere 2 or 10 or 15 metres away. Perhaps they are oblivious to the proper care of the land and water, that camping is allowed but not within 30 metres of any body of water. They come in large motorhomes, in huge 5th wheel units, or long bumper pull campers, or short motorhomes or even tents. They claim the right to enjoy the water up close and to party and have open fires and drink at all hours and walk between campsites drinking.

Then there are those who bring quads and side by sides, who erode the fragile roads, plow through the brush, and make noise at all hours with their engines. And the partyers blast their loud music into the wee hours of the morning.

It is hard work to respect the laws and respect the land. Moving every 14 days, leaving crown land for 3 is expensive. Setting up and tearing down is not simple or easy.

What does God do about these proud people who destroy the land and water for their own ease and enjoyment.

Nothing.

God sends enforcement people from time to time; but they do little.

God sends educational people even less often; and they do precious little.

The Devil sends bullies and they simply rip up the place.

We thank God, that the storms of evil are calmed, if not all, then the ones that would steal our lives and our safety from us. We thank God that many of the people who come, even if they disrespect the laws and the land, do show a minimum of respect for other campers, and we are able to survive.

It’s not very high that God has lifted up the lowly homeless campers, yet it is high enough above the rock bottom of sure and quick death that there is always another sunrise to enjoy, another rain storm cooling away the searing heat, another snow storm laying down enough for skiing, another sunset to close out a full day, and always another gentle, kind person to speak to.

These are God’s people, doing God’s work of providing refuge. Are you one of these?

Or are you one that blasts others to get ahead?

God provides refuge. That keeps the grave at a distance. That keeps alive the promise of new life each day. That enables us to be God’s people for others, providing them refuge.

Giving Freely, or Taking and Destroying

Saturday, August 7, 2021

The Greatest Gift Given:

To Share the Beauty Evident Everywhere

Even in a Simple Blade of Grass

At Sunset.

1 Chronicles 29:5

Who then will offer willingly, consecrating themselves today to the Lord?

2 Corinthians 9:7

Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

Words of Grace For Today

Arnold began life in poverty in a dictator run country, occupied by the Soviet Union, the son of a pastor, who served a number of small community parishes. That position came with a parsonage and large parcel of land. It was the pastor responsibility to provide care for all the people in the parish and to care for the land and the parsonage … and all the churches he served.

That meant that the ‘poverty’ that Arnold grew up with was relatively luxurious. He enjoyed running water and a toilet that flushed. Apartment complexes had toilets at one end of the building, the excrement falling in a large pipe from each floor to the bottom. There was no running water, just a high trafficked ‘outhouse’. Coal provided heat though it meant gathering it, carrying up the stairs, starting and stoking the fire for cooking, warmth and hot water. The smell of coal smoke was everywhere. Out in the country in the parsonage with it’s land the smell was barely noticed. Where many had not place to run and play, the parsonage land provided all sorts of places to play and find solitude with birds and animals the only noise to be heard.

In the world of adults, though, the secret service police recruited so many informants that one never knew who was watching and who would inform on you, even if it was not the truth. Arnold learned well from the secret police how to observe others and to make the best of their weaknesses for one’s own good.

Arnold lived his whole life vowing never to be one of the people others took advantage of. He would be the one to enjoy the best luxuries of life, whatever that cost other people around him.

Arnold was a ‘taker’ and a destroyer, an accomplished fabricator of lies to cover his own weaknesses and to destroy others who threatened him, most of all those who knew his weaknesses. Being a destroyer and a taker has it’s high cost … of guilt or psychotic oblivion to others or dread of being discovered. Arnold suffered terror jags every day, as most destroyers do knowing well that ‘what goes around eventually will come around.’ Hiding the truth costs more and more lies, until one cannot tell what is true anymore, not at all. The terror becomes inexplicable and inescapable.

Tina grew up a missionary kid in Africa, then in Minnesota. Her parents were medical missionaries, ones who brought caring and curing as the reality of Jesus’ old, old story in this world. Their actions spoke God’s love. They gave up lucrative careers in Minnesota to serve in Africa. When a tropical disease almost killed and fully disabled her mother, they returned to Minnesota to serve as medical ‘missionaries’ even there, giving all they had to provide care for many children and patients and people in the community.

Tina learned early that no matter what happened, the measure of life was certainly not money nor luxuries nor privileges enjoyed. The measure of a good life was in giving what one had. In all she did, she worked hard, listened to people, provided good words, assisted people further in their own lives, and never developed any idea that she had to acquire or possess or earn property, things, wealth, position, status or power. Serving was it’s own reward. Life would take care of itself, or rather God would provide what was needed in life.

Tina was a giver, a self-denier in order to provide for others. Tina enjoyed what she did, even when Arnold took her to the cleaners, ran her through the courts and into prison for crimes she had not committed, and left her destitute, so far in debt she would never be out of debt in this lifetime, barring a miracle of money. Even destitute Tina gave and gave and gave, even when all she had was a funny word, an encouraging word, or just a smile. Long ago Tina offered herself, being ordained as a pastor, dedicating her life to sharing the old, old story of Jesus and his love, not merely with words but also with actions of caring for all people and all creation.

These passages have long been used to encourage people to give generously to their congregation’s coffers to cover the costs of churches equal or greater in majesty than the wealthiest in their communities. Sometimes, well rarely, the pastor was compensated well. More likely the parish saw it as their duty to keep the pastor in poverty so that she or he would not sin with the evil’s of money, which really was the parishioners’ sins of greed and coveting the education of the pastor (well what used to be the good education of the pastors. Now that education of pastors is watered down to only the basics of learning how to do whatever will keep parishes alive, serving whatever passes for faith – which is more likely corrupt power. Forget any integrity in caring God’s Word or the traditions and heritage of the church alive in the parishes. So dishonest pastors flourish, corrupt parishes thrive, and the rest suffer. Nothing new for the Devil has always worked best in churches.)

These passages speak to a much more profound part of life. It is not the offering plate or the volunteering in the parish that is so crucial. These are of minor importance in God’s Kingdom. These passages address our attitude of being grateful for everything we are and have at our disposal – our gratitude for God providing all that is needed and more, our gratitude that when we were and are still wretched sinners, God chose and chooses to love and forgive and give renewed life and walk with us.

Giving to God flows freely and cannot be forced, or it corrupts those who force and those who give. It also corrupts those who try to force others and those who do not give, but take everything they can get from life.

The crucial matter is how we make up our minds to give what we give. Do we decide to give so that it makes up for the ‘taking’ we do in the rest of our lives? Are we like Arnold, takers and destroyers, giving only to cover up our greed, hatred of others, and our scrapping to have everything we can get? Or do we decide to give because God has given us everything? Are we like Tina, givers and bearers of Jesus’ love that brings life to others? Do we share, knowing that what we share never was ours anyway? It is all on loan from God for the purpose of sharing it with all other people, in Jesus’ name and as signs of God’s love for all people?

Choose we do, each time we make a decision: do we serve God or do we serve own ‘interests’?

Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

Blameless? Only by Undeserved Grace.

Friday, August 6, 2021

A tree

Closer is still a tree,

Is still a tree,

Is still a tree,

And Always Remains a Tree, Bark and All.

So we, too, always remain sinners.

Genesis 17:1

When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram, and said to him, ‘I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless.

Matthew 5:16

In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.

Words of Grace For Today

Abram is, best estimate, a conglomeration of actual historical figures, collected into one archetypal character, our ancestor. Whether the stories belong to one man or many different people, at 99 Abram is old. God did invite Abram to walk before him, and Abram was by God’s grace alone, blameless at that time.

Abraham would go on to cheat, lie, covet, commit adultery, kill (or at least plan to kill, and his own son no less), … a good archetypal character. Doesn’t matter if it is one person or many people’s stories gathered under one name. This is true about Abram: God love him and Sarah. God did exceptional things for them, gave them land and descendants, when they were nomads who left home, and cheated their way to some kind of security, passing Sarah off as a sister, and then exactly their hosts honour and wealth when he treated Sarah as Abram’s sister instead of his wife. They used Sarah’s handmaid as a surrogate ‘wife’ for Abram to secure themselves God’s promise of descendants, and then set Hagar and Ishmael packing into the desert wilderness to die when they did not need them anymore, when God provided Sarah a son, Isaac.

Abraham and Sarah certainly were not ‘blameless’ before the Lord, the Lord who knows everything.

St. Paul had it right, Abraham was reckoned to be righteous by grace through faith. God made Abram blameless before God, and God blessed Abraham and Sarah with all they had.

The danger for us when we forget is that we assume God made Abraham and Sarah perfect people … so we think we can become or be made (even by God) to live blameless for the rest of our lives, or even for a day! We cannot.

God alone makes us righteous by grace alone (that is by God’s doing to us as a free, undeserved gift) through faith.

If we think Abram or we can be righteous on our own, we have to live in great delusion, disconnected for our own reality, and we have to try to remove anyone from this real world who knows and will say honestly how broken we really are. It’s impossible except by faking it and becoming truly evil.

The effort to be perfect after our baptisms has been embraced by many Christians, as a way to control others. It’s all a lie … a huge lie that has lived for many generations.

Christ gives us a little light. Just a little light. And the Holy Spirit keeps it burning in spite of all the sins we commit. We cannot choose to be blameless. We can choose to not hide the little light that Christ gives us. We can actually let Christ work through us in all our days, and pray for forgiveness each morning, noon and night.

Or …

Well the other choice is nothing less than living a deluded, dangerous, and evil life … which God surely knows about and will judge those who so choose to live this delusion.

…

We choose to let our lights shine, Jesus’ lights given to us to carry through our days … not so that people will we awestruck by our having these lights. Rather we choose to let these little lights shine so that others will give God praise, adoration and worship.

People will say: God chooses those sinful people to carry Christ’s light to the world. The wonders done cannot be because of those people. It has to be God’s doing. They will worship God for God’s great works in us good sinners …

and …

They will know that God can work such wonders in their own sinful lives as well.

(That’s carrying the light of Christ for others to see!)

Dreams, Power, & Home

Thursday, August 5, 2021

God’s home for us home is built

on the power of God’s

mercy, grace and enduring kindness

Jeremiah 23:28

Let the prophet who has a dream tell the dream, but let the one who has my word speak my word faithfully. What has straw in common with wheat? says the Lord.

1 Corinthians 2:4-5

My speech and my proclamation were not with plausible words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God.

Words of Grace For Today

God speaks to us in many and various ways.

Prophets reported their dreams, many waking dreams, that they knew were God speaking to them. They warned the people (usually the kings and rulers, but also the common folk) of the sin and evil of their ways and God’s response of ruin and exile. They encouraged the people in ruin and exile to have courage, for God would not leave them abandoned. The warned kings and rulers of God’s people and their enemies of the destruction that would come because of their foolish, proud, arrogant, and stubborn ways of trying to find their own way without or against God!

These words remain as they have been collected and recorded. They are warnings, cautions, and encouragements still for us today.

Even so these words, from dreams and prophetic wisdom given by God, most always work from the power of might that can destroy one’s enemies.

There were many false prophets, people who spoke their dreams as if they were from God, and the dreams and the prophets were not from God at all. Even when the words were wise, or wise of a sort, they were not from God.

Jeremiah compares these false prophets to the straw that is left after the wheat is harvested. They do not bear good fruit, though until the harvest they support the good fruit of grain that feeds the people.

Straw is nothing like wheat in its value and ability to sustain life. Straw is laid down to absorb the excrement and urine from animals in a barn or barn yard. Wheat is ground to make food for people or maybe mash for young animals or as a nutritious supplement for animals. Wheat feeds. Straw once used is set out to rot or to be burned.

So the words of false prophets, even those alive today, are worth little but to absorb crap, and attract crap they do until the dung heap in politics and on the internet starts to rot and stink to high heaven.

Precious are the words from God, as wheat is precious. They give life.

How can we know the difference? Sometimes it is a challenge and we are duped into believing false words of false hope … that drive us further from hope!

The difference is in the power in the words. The power of might that can destroy is not the power of God’s word. The power of God’s word is what God does with our lack of might, our lack of character, our lack of integrity, our lack of goodness, our lack of faith, our weakness of the most miserable kinds.

The power of God’s word is that it addresses our weaknesses and failings with grace, with mercy and kindness, with forgiveness and renewed life. God’s power is made known in how God gives abundant life to even the greatest sinners and the most horrible people. God’s power is made known in the sacrifice that God makes, giving the life of his own son over to the power that would destroy life. God makes this sacrifice in order to communicate to us (in Jesus’ story) God’s love for us, and the lengths that God goes to in order to offer us grace, and acceptance, and renewed life, and a home with all the saints of all time.

Welcome home! This is where the treasure of the fruit of the vine, the kernel of wheat, and the heart of love and hope is made real by God’s love for us. This is where there is food enough for all and a feast for every soul no matter how bruised or beaten. This is where everyone is actually welcome. It’s not just an empty phrase of a congregation looking for like-minded self-righteous people to fill the pews and pay the bills, but hating and condemning those who are different.

Whoever you are … this home is built not with power and might, cement and wood, furniture and cupboards. This home is built on the power of God’s mercy, grace and enduring kindness.

Welcome home!

Spoils and Priceless Treasure

Wednesday, August 4, 2021

The Spoils

not so precious at all

of

Last Night’s Supper

Psalm 119:162

I rejoice at your word like one who finds great spoil.

John 6:68

Simon Peter answered him, ‘Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life.

Words of Grace For Today

When one thinks of ‘spoils’ that one may find, which are of great value, one thinks of the ‘spoils of war’ or something similar, where great destruction has been wielded against people. The aftermath leaves things ruined, and among the ruins there are valuables, valuables that the destroyers did not find, or at least did not take with them. Then the passing of time has covered over the mess of ruins, valuables included, until …

We came upon a small mound in the far corner of the woods. That is I, with a camera, made this find. Good that I had a witness or it would not be believed, even by me. I walked, the camera working it’s record-taking of the beauty and devastation that would be uncovered. Then the whole mound circled and nothing unusual discovered I discounted it all as an ant colony since the place was crawling with them.

I walked on, only 4 metres, to find my foot disappearing into the ground, and then my leg and then all of me as the camera was not recording anything, and my mind was racing with self-preservation thoughts, until I came to a soft landing, sort of, given the circumstances with my head a good foot under ground level. I looked about after I felt enough to know I was not hurt from tip to toe. Before me was a doorway built of rocks moulded (that’s the only way to describe how exactly they were fit together) into an arch. Under it a cavern opened up under that ‘ant colony.’

Cautiously I probed forward, the camera providing light and recording at first nothing but rock walls and a void ahead. Then ….

I cannot disclose the treasure I found, for it’s value is ancient, beyond compare, and priceless. This was obviously the spoils of something like war, taken before the destruction and hidden in safety never to be retrieved, or taken after the destruction and hidden to be collected later. But there was no later for those who knew of it.

I’ve been homeless for years now. The wealth in this treasure will provide for me a home more marvellous than all my dreams. Though late in years I will do all that I could dream of and still be able to do yet more, for money will be no obstacle now for me.

Even so this discovery is only what it is. It does not compare to the treasure that God provides in Jesus and Jesus’ story of God’s love. This is an old, old story, which was given to me when I was not even a quarter year old, and which has given me life, a home (even when I was homeless), fed me, given me a career, a defence against all my enemies (oh, how many and how foolish they have been), and provided wisdom beyond my years from early in life. Most precious it has provided me with forgiveness for my sins, giving me the possibility of living in God’s truth, by grace alone.

While the enemies are attacking again, like the ants that never seem to be defeated entirely no matter what one employs, my defence is sure. My defence is God’s Word given to us in Jesus Christ. What more could anyone need. For when under attack or at peace we know God’s Promises are for us. There is nowhere else we need to turn to for life abundant. Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life.

This eternal life (which started for us long ago in this life on earth) is a treasure more priceless than anything in all of creation. It is a treasure which a camera can record only glimpses of on rare occasions. Thus my camera keeps searching, taking me along, to record the spartan glimpses of God’s greatest treasure: forgiveness and renewed life bringing us to eternal life all our days on earth and beyond.

This treasure never spoils.

Salvation

Tuesday, August 3, 2021

No Matter How Evil Presses in on US

God Promises Light,

Christ’s Light

for God’s Saints.

Daniel 3:28

Nebuchadnezzar said, ‘Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who has sent his angel and delivered his servants who trusted in him. They disobeyed the king’s command and yielded up their bodies rather than serve and worship any god except their own God.”

Acts 12:11

Then Peter came to himself and said, ‘Now I am sure that the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me from the hands of Herod and from all that the Jewish people were expecting.’

Words of Grace For Today

Sometimes God saves people from death by the hands of their enemies and even provides recognition in their enemies of the enemies sins against them, God’s judgment of those sins, and the righteousness of God’s people (by Grace alone … and innocent where the false charges are concerned!)

But that’s the exception.

Peter, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are among the fortunate ones who were not killed (or falsely convicted) by Herod, Nebuchadnezzar, and countless other unjust people of power, including corrupt judges today.

Evil runs rampant in the world, in history and still today … and countless people go missing, having been disappeared. Countless people die of neglect and the consequences of other’s sins: from war, from unnecessary famine, from evil’s need to hide it’s dark and cruel works.

We give God thanks for the few people who were saved from destruction and death. We give God thanks that even those of God’s people who are destroyed or killed unjustly are promised eternal life and justice. We give God thanks that as God is gracious and merciful to us, so God gives those who are horrendously unjust with the power they have that same mercy and grace, giving them every opportunity to repent, recognize God, and confess their sins. God gives so many evil people more than ample time for the amendment of their lives.

Today, we breathe yet another day, enjoying the bounty of God’s creation, it’s beauty and wonders. We bask not in the sun, but in the light of the son, who forgives us each day again and again and gives us renewed life. To Hell with evil (in God’s good time), this is life as God intended us to live it. So we breathe yet another day, grateful and gracious towards others, even those that would destroy us, for we remember the old, old story of Jesus and his love for us and all people.

By Grace Alone We Stand Firm

Monday, August 2, 2021

Even Against Wasps

And Other Enemies

That Would Kill Us

We Stand FIRM

Leaning on Christ

Exodus 14:13

But Moses said to the people, ‘Do not be afraid, stand firm, and see the deliverance that the Lord will accomplish for you today; for the Egyptians whom you see today you shall never see again.

Hebrews 10:23

Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful.

Words of Grace For Today

As we do repeatedly when threats arise against us, the people following Moses into Freedom, led by God no less, repeatedly complain that it would have been better if they had not up’d and left their ‘safe’ slavery in Egypt to follow Moses into the Wilderness, just to die.

This time Pharaoh’s army has caught up to them as the have crossed the Red Sea. They exit the path through the water to stand on the opposite shore, the ‘gateway’ into the wilderness. At the same time the horses and chariots and men of Pharaoh’s army, spears and swords ever ready, enter the same path through the waters.

Moses promises them that they should hold fast. They will never again see these soldiers, these Egyptians ever again. God has delivered them and it is not for nothing.

God is gracious and faithful. The people then watch as Moses takes his staff and the waters, which were pulled back to create their path to freedom, are let free to fall back in their course. The horses, chariots, and men are swamped and drowned in the returning waters. They will never be seen again by anyone.

God keeps God’s promises.

Later they people will run out of water. They will complain and say that it would have been better to live full lives in slavery rather than die of thirst. God remains always gracious and faithful. Moses will strike a rock with his staff and water will flow from it, the people will drink their fill, and they will move further into the wilderness.

Then they will run out of food. They will complain and say that it would have been better to live full lives in slavery rather than die of thirst. God remains always gracious and faithful. Quail rain from the sky at night for them to eat meat. In the morning the dew will leave a thin layer of bread, enough for one day (or two if the next day is the Sabbath.)

Then, while Moses is up Mount Sinai, they will run out of patience. They will turn to Aaron, give him all their gold and the will worship the calf made from it. God has provided for them in every way, and God will not leave the people to die in the wilderness that day. God remains gracious and faith even when the people are not. Moses smashes the tablets that the ten commandments are written into. The golden calf is melted away. Moses will go up the mountain to get a second copy of the ten commandments. (It will take a bit more than a good photocopier or printer-scanner to produce them, inscribed in stone as they are.) When Moses will come back down, the people now will return to worship God, who is gracious. As a consequence not one of the people alive that day at Mt. Sinai will cross the Jordan into the Promised Land. Their descendants will, but not them.

God is gracious and faithful and just.

So God is with us as we repeatedly complain and turn from worshipping God.

Freed from slavery to sin, we too often face challenges and think that we ought to return to be slaves of sin. God has other plans. Jesus continually forgives and renews us sinners so that we can also at the same time be God’s faithful people, the saints who share God’s grace with all people. We are the people who share the whole story of Jesus and his love, the old, old story. We are the people who do this only because God graciously makes us able, because God first loves us so that we can love all other people. Even our enemies who catch up to us just as we set foot in the freedom of the wilderness. It does not require much since we will never see them again;

God is faithful and gracious and just.

Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful.