Do Right

(if we can.)

Sunday 14 January 2024

Make No MIstake,

Most of Life is This Clear,

as Our Choices Are,

As wELl,

make no mistake?

Isaiah 56:1

Thus says the Lord: Maintain justice, and do what is right, for soon my salvation will come, and my deliverance be revealed.

Matthew 3:14-15

John would have prevented him, saying, ‘I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?’ But Jesus answered him, ‘Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.’ Then he consented.

…

Words of Grace For Today

…

How to do what is right, when so many people stand in the way of anyone doing right, for they have turned truth upside down, hidden it under the foundations of their straw houses, and gone on to create their own ‘truth’.

Only by the power of the Holy Spirit can we do right,

but it’s a nice piece of advice

to keep in mind

if and when

we think

are free to choose.

For Doing Right gives others life, and makes obvious the false ‘truths’ that so many people live out in their lives.

Thanks to God that the Holy Spirit gives us the awareness that we are made free

free to choose

to do right

free to share

all that life is

free to give

thanks to God

for all that is good.

Guests?

We Are All Guests

Some Desperately Need Homes, NOW!

Friday 12 January 2024

globalnews.ca/news/10213526/edmonton-rowland-road-homeless-encampment/

“Edmonton police officers and city crews could be seen at a homeless encampment in the area of 95th Street and Rowland Road on Tuesday morning [9 January 2024]. Police and cleanup crews were met with resistance from people who live in the camp and from advocates who showed up to support them.” Global News

Psalm 119:19

I live as an alien in the land; do not hide your commandments from me.

[or another translation: I am a guest on earth.]

2 Corinthians 5:1

For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

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Words of Grace For Today

…

Just because we know that we have a home waiting for us

after life

even if the earth is destroyed

even if the universe is destroyed,

does not give us an excuse to destroy

life

the earth

this universe!

These are gifts from God

to be treasured.

Life to be lived with integrity, kindness, and mercy for others.

The earth to be used and guarded from destruction so that future generations have a better earth to live on.

The universe to be explored and admired and guarded from destruction of all kinds, because this is our home now

And God said life, the earth, and all the universe are Good.

So we ought to keep it all that way.

Instead of bulldozing tent cities, the last, most secure place for many people who find themselves homeless in the cold of winter and the heat of summer,

How about making a home for them as well,

a good, safe, nurturing home

on earth?!

Fire

Of Life

Thursday 11 January 2024

Fire,

The Destroyer, Saver, and Refiner!

Which is it today for you?

Isaiah 48:10

See, I have refined you, but not like silver; I have tested you in the furnace of adversity.

Colossians 4:2

Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with thanksgiving.

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Words of Grace For Today

…

An easy life, without many challenges, just interesting events that turn out wonderful, with an ability to help others without taking too much trouble to do good …

is that what we wish for?

Baptized in water, by the fire of the Holy Spirit, with God’s Word (the same Word of such power that in the beginning this Word created all that is out of chaos), we might wish for an easy life.

This is certainly not that, for which God has saved, freed, and renewed us.

Instead it is the furnace of adversity that God sends us into, each day, that we may not only be saved, freed and renewed, but that we may also offer God’s Word to others

with our voices, feet, and hands.

It would be impossible to enter into the fray

and remain as God saved us to be, ambassadors of Hope, Love, and Grace,

if we do not also each day begin, continue, and end with prayers of thanksgiving for all God gives us

to share

with the most desperately needy, hungering, and thirsting people on earth.

A small task each day it is not,

and that with the fires of adversity lapping at our feet, hands, and breath.

Epiphany!

New Year’s Resolution Worth Making (an eye opener)

Saturday 6 January 2024

Finding Our Way Through the Brambles of Life,

Alone?

Psalm 25:12

Who are they that fear the Lord? He will teach them the way that they should choose.

Matthew 2:12

And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.

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Words of Grace For Today

Going a different way.

I suppose New Year’s resolutions are the imagination and statement that one will go a different direction going forward.

The three wise men, being warned in a dream, take a different route on their return home after presenting gifts to the child Jesus.

How many times are we going to try to ‘go it a different way’, forward or back, and it will be merely another futile attempt, a classic demonstration that we are not quite in complete control of our lives, not even when we make choices to become better people.

Thank God,

like the dreams sent to the three wise men, like the Law given to the people new to the Wilderness on their way to the Promised Land, like the Prophets sent to guide the nation Israel and it’s people overrun by more powerful neighbours, like the science that can tell us the consequences of our actions (like burning fossil fuels in the extreme we have and still do, and seemingly cannot stop doing),

God does send us notice and guidance.

But that is never enough.

We need to be convinced that 1. God will forgive us our failures (or else we are frozen by guilt past, present and especially future), 2. God will renew our spirits so that we can possibly do something right and good, and 3. God will help those, who we harm and those of us who are harmed by others, to heal.

A New Year’s Resolution worth making each year:

We will pray: God help us to accept forgiveness and boldly go out to do your work in this precious creation, and help us all heal from all the harm we’ve done and is done to us.

And then go boldly into the days’ ‘breach’, so to speak, bringing God’s grace to bear on others’ lives.

Return,

Repent, Believe the Good News

Friday, December 29, 2023

Our Well Worn Paths, Beckon,

But God Calls For Us To Turn,

And See Anew.

Deuteronomy 30:2-3

… and return to the Lord your God, and you and your children obey him with all your heart and with all your soul, just as I am commanding you today, then the Lord your God will restore your fortunes and have compassion on you, gathering you again from all the peoples among whom the Lord your God has scattered you.

Mark 1:15

… saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.’

…

Words of Grace For Today

We think all too often that we do not need to repent and return and believe anew the Good News.

But

in this in between time

we remember

humbly

that

we need start each day

with confession,

followed by repentance,

Then returning to God

and believing anew

the Good News,

That

promises us that God is eagerly waiting for us to repent, return and believe anew.

Another day

A new beginning

again.

Crying

For Help

Weeping With Thanks

Thursday, December 28, 2023

What Wonders God Works, As the Sun Rises, Beginning a New Day!

Psalm 104:14

You cause the grass to grow for the cattle, and plants for people to use, to bring forth food from the earth,

Ephesians 5:20

… giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

…

Words of Grace For Today

People in desperate situations hope that someone will make a difference, help them, provide the basics of life and security.

Trapped on an island overrun by the enemy in a world wide war, the doctors and nurses and voluntold helpers (having found their way to the camp of the resistance fighters) have bound up patients for months or is it already years with old strips from old clothes. Everyone is malnourished if not starving. Everyone’s clothes are tattered and torn. Uniforms for soldiers cannot be required since no one has them. Spotty communications begging for supplies bring at most ‘Stand bye.’

Then, wrangling with all sorts of resistance from the infighting and egos of the top generals and admirals, a small group of 4 soldiers disembark from a submarine in rubber boats and paddle through the surf. Met by members of the resistance, more rubber boats are dispatched from the sub with supplies. Not enough, but something.

Visiting the ‘hospital’ the new soldiers still in black dyed fatigues cut open the new ‘plastic’ sealed packages of sulphanilamide, a new antibiotic and dressings. Weeping with joy and relief the doctor orders the nurses and helpers to take off all the bandages on the patients and to pour the sulphanilamide on and cover them with new dressings. Patients with fatal infections now have a chance at life.

(paraphrased from W.E.B. Higgins’ Behind Enemy Lines)

Ahh the immense tears-of-joy outpouring when assistance arrives for those subsisting as they irritate the enemy.

How many more people on earth this day could cry ‘Would that assistance were brought here!?!’

And we carry on, giving thanks for all that we have, all that keeps us alive, and all the blessings each day that come our way. It may not be supplies, clothes, and food, or shelter sufficient to stand the new normals of weather wind heat and cold, but it is all we need to know joy.

Christmas!

Blessed Christmas!

Monday, December 25, 2023

The Light At Noon,

Is Enough To Show Us

God’s Bright Love.

Isaiah 38:14

Like a swallow or a crane I clamour, I moan like a dove. My eyes are weary with looking upwards. O Lord, I am oppressed; be my security!

Luke 2:11

… to you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is the Messiah, the Lord.

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Words of Grace For Today

Blessed Christmas,

May we not get lost in our efforts,

and let God’s wonders wash over us,

transforming us

and our views

or this world

with love.

The Short Version

Saturday, December 23, 2023

Colour Your World Whatever Colours You Wish,

But If It Isn’t Coloured With God’s Love,

It’s Nothing.

Hosea 6:6

For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt-offerings.

Romans 13:10

Love does no wrong to a neighbour; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.

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Words of Grace For Today

Love is the short version of all the law.

Love of God, along with fear, for that is proper and right.

Love of neighbour, for that brings us to do right by them all.

Love of enemy, for that saves us from hate, and provides hope for the lost souls of this world.

Love of self, for that is to reflect God’s take on us.

Lots of other things are demanded of us by others, others who do not love God, neighbour, enemy or self. Lots of things that are not good for anyone in the end.

So let us hope this Advent,

that we will learn again each day to love

as God loves us

steadfast

and

sure.

Left to Beg

Tuesday, December 19, 2023

We Can Do As Much To Bring the Rains, As We Can to Bring Evil It’s Due.

Psalm 34:16

The face of the Lord is against evildoers, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth.

Romans 12:12

Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer.

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Words of Grace For Today

Well, would it be so already today, that the remembrance of evildoers were cut off from all creation!

But it is not so, and will not be so, in spite of any and all efforts we may spend and waste toward that end.

We are left to rejoice in hope, be patient in our sufferings, and persevere in our prayers that Jesus will come to judge the living and the dead,

and in the meanwhile we pray as beggars, for we have nothing else, God resuscitate us from the dead, that we might live the few short days we have left on this blessed and condemned earth (blessed by God and condemned by us all.)

Another day, full of challenges, full of blessings, full of waiting and letting God do God’s new things with and to us, and full of our efforts to answer God’s call and sending us into the world to be God’s grace

for all.

Another day.

Another ….

Wishing!

Wishing But Left Waiting

Monday, December 18, 2023

In Midwinter We Can Wish For the Golden Light Of Summer,

But There Ain’t Nothing We Can Do To Make It Come.

Daniel 2:21

He changes times and seasons, deposes kings and sets up kings; he gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding.

Luke 1:52

He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly….

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Words of Grace For Today

Not just a few people whom I have known more than deserve the wish that Jesus would come to judge them, cutting through all their lies and false rumours and self justifications for the evil they work against others. Then they would be stopped in their tracks and their victims would be restored to life as it was before they so destroyed them with lies and abuse and all kinds of evil.

For while these abusers and evil doers are still all too active in their evil doing, they have long since ceased to live, for their spirits have been taken by the Evil One, and they walk as shells in motion without heart and soul.

Jesus come!

But

There is nothing in that wish,

not for those wishing it,

nor nothing that stops the evil nor restores the victims.

So we wait.

So we wait and can do nothing to bring Jesus’ judgment and healing.

For there is nothing to be done to stop the evil doers and their evil, nor to restore their victims.

So we wait.

So we wait, so oft impatiently, for there is no other hope for things to be made right.

So we wait, and pray: come Lord Jesus, come!

…

until we remember that through forgiveness God heals the victims of evil, and the perpetrators as well.

So we pray, come Lord Jesus, come! Forgive us, heal us, and if you must, forgive those who still work evil against so many victims, helpless to defend themselves, except that they rest in your presence

here already today,

for while there is nothing to do to bring Jesus to come,

we can recognize Jesus is already here,

among us,

healing us,

even when we cannot pray that our abusers would be forgiven,

even when we hope the Holy Spirit would bring our abusers to amend their lives.

So we wait, and pray

our thanks that Jesus is already come, is here, and will come again to judge both the living and the dead.