For the yoke of their burden, and the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor, you have broken as on the day of Midian.
Luke 1:78-79
By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.
Words of Grace For Today
It only takes a smile …
It only takes a smile to express the greatest things in life …
It only takes a smile to express the greatest things in life, which are to know that God has delivered us, and will deliver us,
for God has broken the rod of the oppressor. With tender compassion God has brought light to those who live in darkness and those who live in the shadow of death. God guides our feet (and our whole being) into the way of peace.
It only takes a smile to express thanks to God,
especially when that smile is given freely to strangers in need of hope,
especially when that smile comes flowing from the heart,
especially when that smile is followed by the hand and feet of the body of Christ freeing, and moulding, and assembling all that is needed to provide the basics of life to those who have nothing,
especially when that smile carries a promise that God’s favour is forever and always present in the generous, gracious gifts that share life abundant.
It only takes a smile that flows from the heart to the other person’s heart to say
I love you
and
God loves you.
Free up a smile or two or ten thousand today, add a twinkle from your heart … and make the world bright with hope.
There is no one who calls on your name, or attempts to take hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us, and have delivered us into the hand of our iniquity.
John 15:16
You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name.
Words of Grace For Today
All this reaching for …
… for viral posts,
… for glory,
… for fame,
… for wealth,
… for power,
… for … well for anything that will fill the emptiness in our being, an emptiness of being separated from God,
All of it is futile, and most of it fills us – not with what we want, but deceptive as it is instead we get filled right up with shtako, and it sucks the life right out of us as we reach ever more desperately.
Most futile of all are all the human efforts spent (wasted) reaching for God.
The games we create to try to convince ourselves that we have reached God: all the piety, all the restrictions on our lives, all the condemnations of others to make ourselves look good (in God’s eyes, as if!), all the hate for ourselves and others that builds and comes out as self-righteousness and bullying. All these games are so life-sucking that we are soon left as mere shells of the life that God created us to enjoy. And even then we reach and reach and reach for something, anything, to fill our overwhelming emptiness. All sorts of addictions follow: to alcohol (God’s gift so abused), to drugs (ingenuity of humans so perverted), to gambling (the gift of the necessities of life severely abused), sex (the gift of intimacy perverted by and into base self-indulgence and licentious promiscuity), work (the gift of labour perverted into an obsession that denies everything good in life), and on and on and on the addictions are numbered, not least of all the addiction to religiosity and piety (perverted from worshipping God, to worshipping one’s own efforts).
God’s gift to us of faith is exactly like the gift of life: only God can give it, we cannot reproduce it, nor even can we meet God part way to receive it. But oh, have we figured out ways to pervert, subvert, and deny it as God’s gift to us!
If God chooses to hide God’s presence from us then our prayers should well begin with Isaiah’s words, “There is no one who calls on your name, or attempts to take hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us, and have delivered us into the hand of our iniquity.” To which we should add: “SAVE US!”
So God is not.
As baptized saints we trust that Jesus came to demonstrate that we may often think God has abandoned us, Doch, God never does. God walks with us. God’s presence is not our choosing or in response to our doing or not doing, believing or not believing. God chooses us, to create us, to sustain us, to forgive us, to renew us, to make us saints able to be God’s Grace on earth.
As Jesus says, “You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last.”
This day, what fruit, what Grace, has Jesus led us to harvest from God’s great abundance, so that we have much to share with all around, especially the poor?
Those who mock the poor insult their Maker; those who are glad at calamity will not go unpunished.
Matthew 5:7
Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
Words of Grace For Today
The forecast is for -30⁰ tonight, dropping there by sunrise or an hour after.
Now, at 17:30, after the golden sun spread its butter across the trees, snow, and ice, as the sun has set only an hour ago, the thermometer sits squarely pointing at -30⁰, meaning it will get significantly colder before the ‘warming’ (or shall we say more accurately ‘the freeking-cold-mitigating’) rays of the sun start the thermometer’s climb to levels where humans can survive and machines run and breath does not freeze before it’s in one’s lungs or constantly in one’s own face.
Cold, and the challenges it presses on those living in these climes, is nothing to mock or to celebrate when others suffer it .. but you, of course, you are so privileged because you do not have to (or get to) suffer the cold.
Those who are poor, (and I fit rather securely in that category not to emerge before my death, other than by some inexplicable miracle – thank you liars all and corrupt officials too many to count), know the cold better than those who can afford to find comfort even at the extreme ends of the climate … expanding lower and higher and more extreme in so many ways as those extremes are now with climate change. To us poor the cold is not a simple thing or a nuisance. It is life threatening, directly. Is there enough wood ready and available to keep the fire going hot enough to avoid freezing as I try to get at least some sleep? Is the grate from the street sewer warm enough to keep my sleep tonight to be not just fitful, but also not the last sleep I get as I comfortably freeze and shake off this mortal coil? Are my blankets warm enough for another night of nightmares and cold sweats and nausea? Will I wake? And if I do will my body be as whole as it is now, or will a limb or extremity be frozen solid or frostbit beyond salvation?
These considerations may be the focus of many people’s mockery: what did you poor thing do to earn poverty, for surely you deserve it, yes? Are you not smart enough to do better? If you had only worked harder when you were younger and able OR if you would have played along with the corrupt leaders, thugs and bullies, corrupt bishops and lay leaders included! Oh, you fool, for succumbing to addictions that will kill you sooner or later, so why should we be concerned if your death is a comfortable one today, costing us nothing in health care … rather than your death at a later date after huge costs to us all as you die from your addictions. It matters not, of course, that I and many other poor people have no addictions or perversions. Instead what informs the corrupt on lookers are the rumours and false stories about us, which are told to protect the hugely guilty people who have cheated us of finances and years of good life. Then of course, many others are driven to addictions to escape the cruelty of people in their lives, or to mental instability, or to plain outright madness, by the inexplicable cruelty of bullies, weak bullies, destructive bullies, pitiful bullies.
To us poor people be God’s mercy shown, should we be so blessed. As for me and so many others baptized as saints, we have discovered God’s mercy for us and all others. Therefore we trust that God, if no others, will deal with us … and indeed does deal with us … each day of our lives with mercy, love, forgiveness, and favour.
What’s your night look like, for the coming night of cold? Is it your heart that is cold? Or just the climate outside? Have you learned to respond to others, especially us poor, with mercy, and love, and
This means that we have an overwhelming plethora of images of our world, manipulated to look better than reality by software written and rewritten by programmers … so much so that our imagination of what the world is has been bent, skewed, and perverted to such an extent that experiencing the real world has become extra-ordinary. Some find it marvellous to experience the real world. Others (those so disconnected from reality through their reliance on digital ‘connections’) find it outright daunting and even frightening.
The music of the spheres, as it was named centuries ago, plays through the universe, from the deepest points in space to the tiniest piece of creation on earth …
and
we are privileged to be able to sing along
with
wondrous praise
for the Creator of this magnificent creation
in which we were created to live, flourish, love, hope, and find connection with each other and with creation.
A great photo (in comparison to a snapshot or picture or video) uses all the tools at hand (in the camera and available to the photographer) and
imagines
the wonders that can be produced from a particular perspective of creation,
in order to create (as God made us able to be creative, not mere tools manipulated by software)
an image that speaks volumes
(of praise)
about
the Creator, us creatures, and this amazing planet we live on (and some of us are so privileged to have shelter to call home on.)
So we sing songs of praise that are fitting to the gifts God gives us, and we sing and make melody to the Lord in our hearts.
What will we do this day with all God’s gifts?
Will we selfishly destroy and destory other people’s connection to reality in order that we can ‘get ahead’ or
will we sing God’s praises?
What will you do this day with all God’s gifts?
Will you selfishly destroy and destory other people’s connection to reality in order that you can ‘get ahead’ or
will you sing God’s praises?
Choose as you will, but as for me and mine, we will serve the Lord, and sing and sing and sing God’s praises in our hearts and in all we do each day, as God makes us saints able.
Made All That More Visible by the Wonderful Light,
So May the Light of Christ Make Obvious
the Fog of Evil and False Convictions
That Abound, Also Here!
Psalm 126:3
The Lord has done great things for us, and we rejoiced.
Ephesians 1:3
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.
Words of Grace For Today
Every day the only way to survive, after the evil that has been focused on me to bring about my undeserved destruction, is to remember that the Lord has done great things for me, and I rejoice!
Fridays, we remember all those people who are falsely accused, harassed by the police soliciting false reports about them, fabricating evidence, and falsely convicted by judges who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! (Isaiah 5:20) We especially pray for men who are falsely accused by their spouse or partner, for there seems to be no end to the false charges and convictions based on obvious lies by women about good, honest men.
We pray that the Light of Christ will come to bear on each false conviction and those that brought it to be, that God’s justice will come to be for the falsely convicted and come down on all those that contributed to the false conviction and the destruction of their lives.
We pray, that as it is for me it will be for all those falsely convicted: that God has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. And that those heavenly places will be where we are now on this planet earth.
Alas for those who go down to Egypt for help and who rely on horses, who trust in chariots because they are many and in horsemen because they are very strong, but do not look to the Holy One of Israel or consult the Lord!
Hebrews 2:1
Therefore we must pay greater attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away from it.
Words of Grace For Today
Rest.
Today instead of looking to ‘Egypt of might and horses many and chariots strong’, not even when these things of might, many and strength in our lives are carried by so many and various ways of working, of securing money, favour, and power, of being our own people, today
yes
today
we rest.
We rest in the Promises of God,
The Gifts of God,
The Saints of God,
The Forgiveness of God,
The Grace of God,
The Generosity of God,
The Love of God,
The Faith given to us by God,
and
The hope, that
…
that all things will be well, all things will be well, all manner of things will be well,
because,
All manner of things are already, today, by God’s Word that Creates, Sustains, and Renews,
by God’s Will, all things are already today well, quite well,
Even now, in fact, my witness is in heaven, and he that vouches for me is on high.
Hebrews 11:1
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
Words of Grace For Today
It’s a quiet day ahead, for a cold winter Saturday, following many cold, cold days …
and not a little frustration with people who live by full disregard for truth, and who seek my death, sooner than later, but slowly so the suffering continues and they can be pleased with their sadistic efforts. It’s one thing to have one’s ex after you, it’s another to have the courts helping her. There is always more injustice than justice, more evil than good, and more death of good people (and not enough of evil people?)
How to remain hopeful that the future will be better?
…
Well, that is actually a futilely placed question,
for one cannot hope that the future will be better.
The only thing one can do is live well in the present, in the face of evil to be gracious and good. In the face of those who wish one dead, to live joyously.
The moments are not rare when the spectacular works of God can be seen here and now, they require only that one has ears to hear and eyes to see … and hearts to celebrate life with gratitude.
We have faith and hold to it as the future moves into the present and then the past. That faith is not something we conjure up or make or assemble … no in any way.
Faith is a gift … a gift freely given by God to us. Therefore it will never fail, nor succumb to evil of any kind or quantity.
Facing evil, God vouches for us saints, and there is no surer witness. More we do not need.
Therefore we see the future, not as something that need be better, but rather as more of the present gifts God gives us: that we are vouched for, and we can live gracious and gratefully and generously …
And Was Even as the Sun Set Golden Light All Over the Snow.
God is Exactly the Opposite:
Appearing Hard and Judging All,
God is Actually Gracious and Generous For All.
Deuteronomy 4:39
So acknowledge today and take to heart that the Lord is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other.
Colossians 1:19-20
For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.
Words of Grace For Today
The all in one package of God
Three in One, yet all One.
Acknowledge God and take it to heart that God is God. Simple
and
yet
So impossible
for us frail, sinful humans.
The real nugget in all that we can say about God is that Jesus is God’s clear statement that God is pleasedto reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.
Jesus’ story is not God making a special appeal to special people.
Jesus’ story is God making a very demonstrable appeal to all humans of all time: God wants to reconcile us all to God, no one is left out.
When God is pleased to do something so gracious and generous for all people, all people being so equally undeserving, then this is something truly awesome. It changes everything we thought we might have known about how life works.
We get to respond.
So do we respond by lying about others, framing them for our own sins and failings? Do we hide behind lies told by others, and corrupt practices, and the corruption of people in high places?
OR
Do we start to exercise God’s grace and generosity for ourselves and for all other people?
And [the Lord] said [to Moses], ‘I will make all my goodness pass before you, and will proclaim before you the name, “The Lord”;and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. But’, he said, ‘you cannot see my face; for no one shall see me and live.’
2 Corinthians 8:9
For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.
Words of Grace For Today
God saves Moses by covering Moses’ face as the Lord, in all the Lord’s goodness, passes by Moses.
For all of us God’s great goodness becomes visible in Jesus, a living human being. The greatness and goodness of God is not as we might have expected, such greatness that it over powers all evil. Instead God’s goodness becomes visible for us all in that Jesus gives up all claim to greatness, is born into poverty, lives in poverty, dies in poverty … so that we might come to know God’s greatness lies in self-sacrificial love, everything given up so that we might live, forgiven and renewed, and filled with hope … hope that all will be well, for us and for all people.
In this gift of hope God shows us all mercy, mercy that we certainly do not deserve, but without which we could not live.
All the livestock and the plunder of the towns we kept as spoil for ourselves. So at that time we took from the two kings of the Amorites the land beyond the Jordan, from the Wadi Arnon to Mount Hermon (the Sidonians call Hermon Sirion, while the Amorites call it Senir).
Mark 3:35
Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.
Words of Grace For Today
Ancient claims of land belonging to a particular people are seldom anything but a bit hypocritical.
The land claim of Jews in the Middle East is well known to be established on their claim that ‘their land’ was stolen from others and their right to it was that God promised the people land. To this day the displaced Palestinians have legitimate grievances and suffer terribly waiting for the world to provide a reasonable resolution to being displaced since 1947, and earlier.
Indigenous land claims in Canada are based on white people stealing the land, though the indigenous histories are not without similar events through their own histories.
As long as people have lived, the competition for land has been a repeated source of terrible struggles, losses, and long term grievances.
So we, in our history, record that we took land from the Amorites, and kept livestock and plunder from their towns.
We are no better than the worst of all humans.
We are only saved by God’s Grace.
Only if the Holy Spirit inspires goodness in us, inspires us to do God’s will, and inspires us to be saints, are we able to reflect God’s love for us to others.
The Holy Spirit’s work, God’s work (by God’s will) alone determines then who is Jesus’ brother, sister, and mother. God alone makes us children of God, makes us Jesus’ siblings, and brings us to recognize that we are all ‘in this together.’ We are all each others’ siblings.
Land claims are crucial to pay attention to and to honour.
More important is to honour the gifts God gives us, not to try to hoard them for ourselves, and to share them with all those in need.
