Author: T L

Servants, Happy

Birthday

Saturday, April 12, 2025

Cyrus.

See the Light?

Serve the Light

of Christ!

Joshua 5:14

And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshipped, and he said to him, ‘What do you command your servant, my lord?’

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Acts of the Apostles 26:15-16

I asked, “Who are you, Lord?” The Lord answered, “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. But get up and stand on your feet; for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you to serve and testify to the things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear to you.

…

Words of Grace for Today –

…

Jesus calls and bids us die.

Dietrich Bonhöffer

Jesus calls each one of us, to different lives of service,

always self-sacrificial service.

Not self accomplishments, nor accumulating wealth, power, or fame.

Just service,

bringing the basics of life, and the extravagant gifts of the Holy Spirit, to all people, especially those most in need.

Where of where

are you going this day?

With Jesus?

Or off into the wilderness so large it swallows up souls day after day?

Being Exalted or Halted

In God’s Good Time

Thursday, April 10, 2025

Meanwhile, Serving With Humility

Living the dream,

solitude

surrounded by green pastures

beside still waters.

First Chronicles 29:12

Riches and honour come from you, and you rule over all. In your hand are power and might; and it is in your hand to make great and to give strength to all.

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1 Peter 5:6

Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you in due time.

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Words of Grace for Today –

…

I prayed, God give me a billion dollars. (It used to be for a million but with inflation, well you know….)

God answered, “In a minute.”

Nothing happened. I’m still as poor as ever. So I asked a wise person why God did not follow through with God’s good promise.

The wise person said, “God will in God’s good time. For God a billion years is like a minute, and a minute is like a billion years. In a billion years your billion dollars will be yours in heaven. It’ll be worth a dime today, and worthless in heaven. God always keeps God’s promises.”

…

Oh, it’d be great, wouldn’t it, to be great

With riches and honours beyond number!?

God calls us,

not to make ourselves great,

not in anyway,

but rather to serve others

so that even the poorest

have the basics of life,

blessed life,

life abundant.

That can cost us everything.

It did Jesus.

It did numerous saints who have gone before us.

It will us

if we serve Jesus, by humbly serving others, as the Spirit guides and equips us.

In God’s good time.

In God’s good time God gives us wonders upon wonders to enjoy each day.

Where Are You

Looking For

Wednesday, April 9, 2025

Wisdom and Guidance?

See The Light.

Live In The Light.

Be Made Radiant.

Psalm 34:5

Look to him, and be radiant; so your faces shall never be ashamed.

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John 13:15

For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.

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Words of Grace for Today –

…

The routine of life,

which we make happen when there is no routine,

lest we go crazy,

some of us more than others,

…

The routine of life

does not give us wisdom on how to live well.

The routine of life only teaches us

to survive.

…

So where do we look for wisdom and guidance?

Conspiracy theories built on our fears, fears augmented by fake news and social media echo chambers?

Human constructed ways and means of building fortunes, fame, or satisfaction?

…

Human constructed ‘divine wisdom’ that looks exactly like human wisdom on how to get the best for oneself and one’s own?

…

or

From Jesus, still presented by humans in human words, but with a difference from the rest;

namely that Jesus is the example,

and we do not have to strive to emulate him on our own, in fact we simply cannot, not unless we first recognize that on our own we cannot accomplish anything good.

God comes to us, forgives, restores, and revives us, and then sends us out to be that same forgiveness, restoration, and revival for all other people, even if it costs us our lives.

That’s the example Jesus provides for us. We cannot.

But God can

and does

for us

and through us for others.

Thus we become radiant in our routines, and never need be ashamed of what God accomplishes through us, nor our failings that God forgives over and over and over again.

…

So where are you looking today for wisdom and guidance?

Turning Back

Being Turned Back

Tuesday, April 8, 2025

God’s Can, Our Can’t

The Beauty Only God Can Give,

A Day Brought To A Wondrous Close,

Is Ours As We Share It With Those Most In Need.

Second Chronicles 30:9

For as you return to the Lord, your kindred and your children will find compassion with their captors, and return to this land. For the Lord your God is gracious and merciful, and will not turn away his face from you, if you return to him.

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Luke 22:32

Jesus spoke to Simon: but I have prayed for you that your own faith may not fail; and you, when once you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.

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Words of Grace for Today –

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God is gracious and merciful.

God can save us from ourselves, and from our enemies.

God can bring us to live life abundant

by sharing God’s generous gifts with others in need.

God can!

We cannot!

We cannot save ourselves!

We cannot make our lives better!

We cannot help others!

We cannot even turn back to God.

Only God can turn us back.

Nothing good can happen without God making it happen.

Nothing good happens that is not something we do for others.

Just another day in trying to fix it ourselves and making it worse.

And God saving us from ourselves,

and sending us out to help others.

Were It So

So It Is

Monday, April 7, 2025

Sin Casts A Wide Net

The Well Trod Path of Sin.

Easier than bushwhacking our way?

Psalm 103:6

The Lord works vindication and justice for all who are oppressed.

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James 4:17

Anyone, then, who knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, commits sin.

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Words of Grace for Today –

…

Scriptures contain so many promises and promises and promises of how God comes to the aid of those who suffer, especially those who suffer at the hands of other humans.

But

we honestly can say

We truly wish it were so!

…

The deep rooted, widespread, ongoing problem is simply that we humans are creative, most creative, when it comes to doing what we know is not right,

telling ourselves

so rationally

so heartfelt

so comprehensively

that though we know we are doing wrong,

we really are doing the best

for us

and that makes it right.

…

And since God created us to love, which requires freewill, including the choice to not love,

therefore

we will always be very creative at sinning,

and causing harm and suffering to others (and ourselves – for doing others harm, causing suffering, always comes back on the perpetrators more powerfully than on their original victims.)

So we could go out and wipe out all those sinful people. Ending humanity no less.

But the most profound word is

that vengeance is God’s,

not ours.

…

So we will continue to sin, causing harm and suffering,

and we will continue to hope that God will set things right.

Maybe in the afterlife?

Maybe in our hearts?

Maybe not turning everyone from vengeance, destruction, and manipulation (deadly as any other attack on another person),

but bringing a few in every generation to know

love

as the purpose of life,

and joy a free gift from God.

No Fool

No Fooling

Tuesday, April 1, 2025

Only God Gives Happiness.

The Path Following Jesus

is Soooo Steep,

We Cannot On Our Own Make It,

Not At All.

Psalm 146:5-7

Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord their God, who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them; who keeps faith for ever; who executes justice for the oppressed; who gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets the prisoners free ….

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2 Corinthians 9:10

He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness.

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Words of Grace for Today –

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When we think we can …

we can make things better for ourselves, and our loved ones, and those like us …

we can do God’s Will …

we can do God’s Will, not like yester-years, but now more completely, better, more blessedly …

we can make the world right with our judgments and efforts …

When we think we can

we take the first step into foolishness

and disaster

for ourselves and everyone effected by us.

Only when we turn,

helpless

hopeless

exhausted

hungry for life

thirsting for truth

starving for love …

Only when we turn, saying I can NOT,

Only when we turn to God, and cry for help,

do we start the day well,

reading ourselves to shared the gifts of God,

being Jesus’ hands and feet executing justice for the oppressed; giving food to the hungry,

making, by Grace alone, things better

for all creation.

Dwelling In

Or Letting The Word

Monday, March 31, 2025

Dwell In Us

Some Can Choose Where to Live.

Most Live Wherever They Can.

Only God Can Bring the Word to Dwell In Us.

And Bless Us Where We Live.

Psalm 145:10

All your works shall give thanks to you, O Lord, and all your faithful shall bless you.

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Colossians 3:16

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God.

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Words of Grace for Today –

…

With Gratitude, always Gratitude

for all God has given to us, all God has done for us, for life, and forgiveness, and renewed life

again and again.

Thus we give thanks always, in every way, reading, meditating, singing, and always sharing God’s gifts with those most in need.

But

contrary to popular un-wisdom,

we cannot dwell in the Word

to any good result.

Confession starts our daily relationship with God,

and we must confess,

not that we have sinned and will do better, not that our efforts will make a difference.

No.

We confess

that we cannot. We have tried and tried and tried and always failed. Only God can bring good out of us. We confess we cannot.

We cannot dwell in God’s Word.

We pray that God’s Word will dwell in us, written on our hearts, etched in our minds, and emblazoned on our foreheads.

Only God can do this.

We cannot.

We cannot dwell in God’s Word.

We pray, God dwell in us

today.

Persecuted Judged Blessed

By God’s Judgments

Sunday, March 30, 2025

God’s Turning It All Right-Side-Up

Quebec photographer Charles-Frédérick Ouellet captured this photograph while embedding with a SOPFEU wildfire fighting crew in July 2023. The photograph has won the North and Central American Single Photograph award at the 2023 World Press Photo contest. (Charles-Frédérick Ouellet/Submitted by World Press Photo)

From Disaster to Distant Galaxies to the Smallest Subatomic Particle-Wave

Psalm 105:7

He is the Lord our God; his judgments are in all the earth.

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Matthew 5:10

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

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Words of Grace for Today –

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God judges everything, everyone, every issue in all the universe.

We, of course, make our own judgments, against each other, against ourselves, against nature itself as we extract, exploit, and lay waste God’s wonders in us and in all creation.

God’s judgments are long since disclosed,

as best we were able and willing to be disclosed to

through the generations.

…

And then Jesus came, the clearest revelation of God’s will for us and all creation, turning our disclosing and discussing and diverting and distracting from

God’s will already revealed to us.

Until now we have no excuse,

except all the same old excuses,

for not knowing God’s will for us.

God’s will simply put: to love God with all our heart, mind, and strength (and soul),

and to love one another and all creation

as God’s gifts to us

to share

especially with the poor.

Always the poor.

For God turns everything upsidedown on us

making everything rightsideup.

The persecuted are blessed and given the Kingdom of Heaven.

(After the poor are blessed, and satisfied!)

God’s Holy Temple

Defiled

Saturday, March 29, 2025

All Creation Holy and Defiled

All Is Holy,

All Of It,

Wonders And All

Habakkuk 2:20

But the Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him!

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Mark 11:17

He was teaching and saying, ‘Is it not written, “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations”? But you have made it a den of robbers.’

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Words of Grace for Today –

…

So often we think of God as being there,

over there,

in that place,

that one holy place,

or one of many holy places.

Like churches, Temples, etc.

We make rules of how we are to behave in those special, holy places.

Good rules and traditions of hallowed places of prayer, worship, singing, giving thanks, feasting, welcoming all and sharing with everyone.

Which frees us to behave otherwise in all our places.

And that we are so good at that even in those special hallowed places we have behaved horrendously.

But!

God is everywhere in all creation.

All our places are first and foremost God’s places.

Our behaviour in ‘holy places’ as well as everywhere, should be governed by our following Jesus example, and the example of many, many saints who have gone before us, and who walk among us even today.

Reverence, prayers of gratitude, prayers of intercession, and acts of selfless love, acts of justice, acts of bringing equality to all.

Keeping God’s hallowed places holy, means keeping all creation holy, us included.

Hovering Overhead

Protection? … or Drones!

Friday, March 28, 2025

What Do We Hear/See?

See the Drone Threat, Or Is It The Moon Reflecting Christ’ Light?

Isaiah 31:5

Like birds hovering overhead, so the Lord of hosts will protect Jerusalem; he will protect and deliver it, he will spare and rescue it.

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Matthew 10:6-7

but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. As you go, proclaim the good news, “The kingdom of heaven has come near.”

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Words of Grace for Today –

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Hovering overhead these days,

one thinks of drones, loaded with missiles of destruction used against targets, against enemies, against … too often, innocents.

Who protects them, and us

from Drones – including the metaphorical drones of crazy voices threatening our very lives, livelihoods, sovereignty?

Reset one’s mind to hear/see first the promise long ago given, that God will protect us, that God will bless us, that God will walk with us even when the way is troubled with our earthly demise, laden with minefields of unknown threats and disasters.

Knowing God’s love

unconditional love

for us

and for our enemies,

and remembering it first,

then

the drone threats are

nothing

in comparison to the blessings God already pours out on us, so we have so much to share with others.

Fear not.

Move with the Light,

The Kingdom of God is here!