Author: T L

Pressed Down

In Chains

Monday, July 7, 2025

Of Low Estate.

Here God Loves Us and Calls Us

to Speak Boldly of That Love.

Psalm 136:23

It is he who remembered us in our low estate, for his steadfast love endures forever.

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Ephesians 6:19-20

Pray also for me, so that when I speak, a message may be given to me to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it boldly, as I must speak.

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Words of Grace for Today –

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What the English translates as ‘low estate’ one German translation has as ‘unterdrückt’, ‘suppressed’ (as in suppress one’s anger) or ‘oppressed’ or ‘repress’ or literally ‘pressed down’.

In Mexico and other Central American and South American cities built on hills, the rich have built fantastic estates on the highest hills, not unlike one sees around L.A. The lower one descends down the hillsides (the direction the refuse and excrement flows) into the valleys, the poorer the houses become until in the valleys, in the dreck, one finds the shanties of the poorest.

While enjoying the ‘good times’ of living high on the hills it is more difficult to recognize that all goodness comes from God, and not one’s wealth, fame, or station in life. In the bottom of the valleys of life, where goodness is hard to see, when one recognizes goodness it is much easier to recognize that it comes from God. Still the challenges of life ‘on the top’ and ‘underneath’ can either drive one away from God or towards God.

As we struggle through life’s challenges, it is as if (regardless whether we live on the hilltops or in the valleys) we struggle to exist, as though we were pressed down to the bottom of life, where one misstep leads to death.

Here Jesus finds us, in the low and lower and lowest levels of existence as it becomes survival instead of existence.

Here Jesus finds us, or the reality is, God was with us all along, all along the hard road of life that became ‘low estate’ or poverty or barely surviving. What may change is we become newly aware that God walks with us, so we say ‘Here Jesus finds us’ meaning, even here we are or become aware that God is with us, and

and God loves us, with all the glory and blessing of divine, unconditional, all-powerful love,

and, as we are forgiven, revived, and given new life (though not often pulled out of our ‘low estate’), and newly equipped to give testimony to God’s love …

and as God does all that for us, Jesus sends us out

to share that same glorious blessing of divine love with everyone, with words only when necessary.

We, having been ‘pressed down’ just as olives are pressed down to make precious olive oil, become priceless treasure in God’s Kingdom, life savers for those in greatest need.

…

So –

How’s your day going so far?

Up on the hills?

Down in the valleys?

Do you see God walking with you?

Are your ready to share the wonders of God’s love with others?

Is Reconciling


The Bank Account Simple,

Sunday, July 6, 2025

Compared To Reconciling One’s Life With God?

God doesn’t freeze our accounts with God

but the banks … well . . .

Isaiah 55:7

Let the wicked forsake their way, and the unrighteous their thoughts; let them return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

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2 Corinthians 5:20

So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

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Words of Grace for Today –

…

If the wicked want to forsake their ways, I’m not going to stand in their way. Are you?

Or would anyone, really?

So let them!

Of course it takes more than letting them, before the wayward will return to God,

us being among them.

We need to be inspired by the Holy Spirit,

working through other people, circumstances, wonders, miracles, signs

or whatever it takes

so that we know

we CAN return to God

and expect that God will not do us in,

for God is ready with pardons unending.

God does the work of reconciling our lives with God.


Now if only someone would reconcile the the bank account for me at their cost . . . .

Is He The One?

The One To Save Us

Saturday, July 5, 2025

From Ourselves?

Right there.

He was yelling right there at the top of his lungs,


“What’s Wrong?!

Everything!”

Lamentations 1:20

See, O Lord, how distressed I am; my stomach churns, my heart is wrung within me, because I have been very rebellious. In the street the sword bereaves; in the house it is like death.

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John 4:29

The woman said: Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?

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Words of Grace for Today –

…

We make so much trouble for ourselves, giving us cause for so many lamentations, and agreements with the passage from Lamentations.

We wait with great expectation worn weary into apathy for the One who can save us from everything.

It is so easy to scream or resign or fight, because our world economy sings only one tune: that of powerful greed.

Greed feeds us selfishness, insatiable hungers, and a callous disregard for all creation. As greed permeates everything around us, it is difficult to sing the songs of God’s Kingdom. Each day we need new images to jostle our hearts, minds, and imaginations to recognize God at work around us, and in us, and through us for others. We need to be reminded that Jesus is our song each day on this wonder-filled journey. Otherwise, drowned in greed-fed-fears, we only ramp up the heart-and-mind-stopping panic around us.

How can we find freedom from greed? How can we find a blessed tomorrow from today?

Encountering a man ranting and raving loudly in the woods where people come to camp for free, I asked, “What’s the problem?” The guy stopped a second before screaming, “Everything!”

What is your Everything? At the checkout till they keep asking: “Is that everything?” with a wink, I respond “No, the universe is a big place and I can’t afford everything. I’ll just take these few things, thank you.”

…

Our times are as tumultuous as any. It’s difficult to tell who is or will be a threat. Southern neighbours are now irrational and unpredictable. Last year’s extreme weather keeps becoming this year’s norm. Wildfires wipe out homes, communities, and livelihoods, and disrupt even more lives with deadly smoke, planting time-bombs in our lungs and blood. It’s difficult to tell what is safe, what is sure to be lost, and where one can take even a short rest from the tumult. We do know that our future, like a wild rapids, is going to be more difficult, dangerous, and full of surprises from new directions.

Yet God knew all this would be so in our times, as God has known about every time in the past, and knows about every time to come. God created us with the only real security for life in this universe: God’s own assurance that, come what may, God is with us through it all. And God sent God’s own Son to save us from our own sins and the evil that permeates the world. Each day God calls us to allow ourselves to be dandled in safety on God’s lap in this New Creation. Each day the Holy Spirit sends us out to share the wonders of God’s steadfast love with all who need it. And in the end, God will call us home, to sing our thanks again, for we are home, home with the saints in light, home at last, home at last.

And that is our Everything.

The Last Hope

For Life Lost

Friday, July 4, 2025

Where Will You See It?

Waves Come In and Go Out

Washing Us Free.

Psalm 119:114

You are my hiding place and my shield; I hope in your word.

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John 6:40

This is indeed the will of my Father, that all who see the Son and believe in him may have eternal life; and I will raise them up on the last day.

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Words of Grace for Today –

…

How do you find that precious slice of time-place-tempo-song that gives you

everything to live for,

that gives you hope,

for another day, week, year, decade?

In the lives of those who have found a way to move from desperate-despair-loss-end

to become someone for someone, and maybe for a few more than one or two, maybe even for us all?

In the words that inspire one to dig deep?

Or in the faces of sounds defying the obvious end, despite the great loss getting into tomorrow from here?

Or in the safety of laughter and joy with children not yet stained by the short-harsh-brutish?

…

in the turmoil that is inevitably life,

the only hope for all kinds of life is

…

knowing that God is with us, for us, and

more than eager to redeem us, renew us, and give us renewed life each day.

Plans of Mice and Men and Women

Steps to Life

Thursday, July 3, 2025

Holy Spirit Guided

Colouring In Between the Lines of Life:

Greedily gobble it all up,

or give it your all, today.

Proverbs 16:9

The human mind plans the way, but the Lord directs the steps.

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Colossians 3:17

And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

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Words of Grace for Today –

…

We’d like to think that we can plan and set goals, work hard according to our plans, and reach our goals … and thus make life worthwhile.

We’d like to think that as we are executing our plans and reaching our goals, God directs our steps … and thus makes life worthwhile.

BUT

always that big butt gets in the way.

The rear-end of reality

that the plans and goals and executions we undertake, and even the goals we reach and celebrate

are

ALL

meaningless.

And God does not direct our steps along our planned paths.

…

Life as a human is so much more than we can plan.

And the only way to reach into that life and realize even a tiny bit of it, is …

to give up trying to plan and execute our way through life towards success (or the inevitable failures.)

The Holy Spirit offers gifts and guidance, and life becomes full, filled with meaning, as we strive to serve others selflessly, following Jesus’ Way, teaching, healing, and giving life to others with our daily sacrifices.

Then we are able at the end of the day, to give God thanks

for it all.

Precious as it all is

when we give it away so others may live.

Rich And Done

Or Sacrificing All Now and …

Wednesday, July 2, 2025

Rich Forever

Why Wait To Really Live?

Give Your All, Today!

Psalm 138:6

For though the Lord is high, he regards the lowly; but the haughty he perceives from far away.

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Luke 12:19-21

The rich will say to their soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.” But God said to him, “You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.

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Words of Grace for Today –

…

How people have yearned to be rich. To be able to ‘take a break’, head off on the ‘freedom 55’ train, give up deadlines for lifelines, to do what you want, when you want, where you want, and how you want, to turn ‘short, nasty, and brutish’ into ‘eat, drink, and be merry!’

But life simply does not work that way.

Life lived for oneself becomes perverse, if it wasn’t that already. And it rots from within, spreading to those around one, and affected by one. It’s living hell.

The true treasure of life is free, but not without cost. It is to live as Jesus did, giving everything to give life to others, to love one’s neighbour as oneself, even one’s enemies, and the downtrodden and outcast most of all.

To be truly rich, we only need recognize that God walks with us, blesses us, and sends us out to be that same blessing for all other people.

What’s In A Number?

158

Tuesday, July 1, 2025

42
10,000 – 1867 – 1870 – 1905 – 1986 – 2025
83.26 – 2.40

Numbers Usually Mean Something.

Can Numbers Mean Everything?

Psalm 73:26

My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

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Revelation 3:7-8

And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: These are the words of the holy one, the true one, who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, who shuts and no one opens: I know your works. Look, I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut. I know that you have but little power, and yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.

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Words of Grace for Today –

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from Wikipedia:

Canada Day, is the national day of Canada. A federal statutory holiday, it celebrates the anniversary of Canadian Confederation which occurred on July 1, 1867, with the passing of the British North America Act, 1867, when the three separate colonies of the United Canadas, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick were united into a single dominion within the British Empire called Canada.

1 July 1867 to 1 July 2025, 158 years: Happy Canada Day.

Of course Alberta was not part of Canada until July 15, 1870, and then only as part of the Northwest Territories. Only in 1905 did Alberta, along with Saskatchewan, become a province. So I guess for us in Alberta we only have 150 years to celebrate as part of Canada, and only 120 as a province of Canada.

Then again I didn’t show up until 1986, so I only have 39 years, and lots of Canadians have less, reflecting their birth dates, of course.

Then again there are many people who can celebrate being here in Canada’s land spaces since at least 10,000 BCE, so call that a 12,025 year celebration. Makes one feel old just looking at that number of life years.

But that’s not for individuals, just the indigenous ancestors. This year in Canada, on average, the life expectancy is now 83.26, but we have a 100% fatality rate, still. It’s the nature of things for us, eh!

As far as the other two numbers 2.40 is the latest bill I received that I have to pay. There’s certainly lots more waiting to be paid and many, many more to come (if I live as I hope to.)

And 42, well that’s the computers’ answer to the question, “What’s the meaning of life.”

Which any thinking person knows is wrong.

It’s either chocolate or ice cream, according to some.

More serious answers come in all forms. That’s the nature of things for us thinking (at least sort of, anyway) beings.

…

As for me and my household (which is non-existent anyway) I’ve noticed that God’s left a door open for us, for each and every one of us. It’s a door that no one can close in our faces.

Grace upon grace flows through Jesus’ sacrifice to save us, to rehabilitate us (daily), and to send us out to be that same Grace for others.

And that’s more than any number can contain.

Trying to Get Free

From What? From Whom?

Friday, June 27, 2025

To What? To Whom?

Made for this!

Living in the fog,

seeing the many woven webs

of humans, too.

First Samuel 2:6

The Lord kills and brings to life; he brings down to Sheol and raises up.

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Romans 14:8

If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.

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Words of Grace for Today –

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So much is wasted in life trying to get free from things and people

and especially God!

The real challenge and the greatest waste is trying to be free for something or for someone,

while trying to be free from God.

But we were made to be free

from everything

except God.

We were created to be slaves to God,

and Jesus made it plain:

we are given life to give life to others.

Thus slaves to God

we are servants to one another.

Simple math.

Simple ways.

…

And the most fought against of all the wasted human efforts through all time.

What’s wasting your day away today? The same old same old?

Of have you surrendered

to Jesus’ Way

and

God’s unconditional love?

Give it a go

or rather a surrender

and life will never be the same

and

life will be oh so good,

but never easy.

Fearing and Learning

Or Loving and Living

Thursday, June 26, 2025

Jesus’ Way

Love by any other name

still has thorns

the cost of love.

But you are nowhere without loving God.

Deuteronomy 4:10

How you once stood before the Lord your God at Horeb, when the Lord said to me, “Assemble the people for me, and I will let them hear my words, so that they may learn to fear me as long as they live on the earth, and may teach their children so”;

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2 Timothy 3:14-15

But as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it, and how from childhood you have known the sacred writings that are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.

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Words of Grace for Today –

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Learning to fear God …

and

be instructed in salvation …

All the stuff that people put together to make there own salvation, even when they say that God provides the salvation, it’s just that they themselves have to earn it, and of course they have earned salvation (of course, of course) and all their enemies and ‘those other people’ have not and fail to because they just did not do and learn and believe the right things.

The truth is

fear of God is only the beginning of a really miserable life.

Fearing and loving God is the complete package,

because what God has already done and made most obvious in Jesus Christ’s life, death, and resurrection –

namely God has offered salvation to every person of all time.

The only way to miss out is to resist and refuse and deny and turn away and rebel against the Holy Spirit’s work bringing us to believe.

From then on it’s all living as you were made and empowered to live:

righteous,

faithful,

loving,

kind,

and

working for justice for all.

A simple way to live,

just take up one’s cross and give up one’s life and find joy in giving life to others.

So we can do nothing to earn God’s Grace,

but we certainly can choose to turn away from Jesus’ Way and refuse to follow.

And that leaves us

fearing God and loving God

each day.

Come Builders All

Builders of All Kinds

Wednesday, June 25, 2025

There’s a Temple to Build!

Not Something Ugly or Deadly or Destructive to Earth Itself!

Build Something Worth the Goodness of God!

It is your body,

your life,

a gift from God!

Zechariah 6:15

Those who are far off shall come and help to build the temple of the Lord; and you shall know that the Lord of hosts has sent me to you. This will happen if you diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God.

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Revelation 15:4

Lord, who will not fear and glorify your name? For you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship before you, for your judgments have been revealed.

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Words of Grace for Today –

…

Young folks

Old folks

Everybody Come

Join the On-line Sunday School and

have a lot of fun.

Please check your chewing gum and razors

(and guns and knives – gotta include that nowadays)

at the door

and you’ll hear some Bible Stories like you never heard before!

…

Come and build! All you builders!

…

For the earth was made in six days and finished on the seventh.

According to the contract, it should have been the eleventh.

But the painters wouldn’t paint and the workers wouldn’t work.

So the quickest thing to do was to fill it up with dirt.

…

So

there’s lots of building left for us to do,

in each generation

in each time and place,

building God’s temple here on earth,

starting with your body, your life.

…

Everyone’s a builder of this temple.

Make it a good one, a worthy one, a vibrant one

that reflects the goodness God poured into you at birth,

the gifts the Holy Spirit dumped on you at your baptism,

and the cost Jesus paid to get you in the door of God’s steadfast love, grace, and …

well, and everything good!

…

Come, one and all, start this day

no matter what yesterday or yesteryear was and where it landed you and your body and your life,

start building a temple for God.

…

your neighbour needs you

more than you’ll ever know!