Living by the Sword

In a Word

Monday, September 30, 2024

Like the Clouds Pouring to the Sunset-Horizon,

So People Have Died Unnecessary and Early Deaths

at Our Hands.

Second Samuel 2:26

Then Abner called to Joab, ‘Is the sword to keep devouring for ever? Do you not know that the end will be bitter? How long will it be before you order your people to turn from the pursuit of their kinsmen?’

Matthew 26:52

Then Jesus said to him, ‘Put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword.

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Words of Grace For Today

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As Jesus and many others have said:

‘Those who live by the sword will die by the sword.’

But that is not the problem for most people.

The problem is that those who live by the sword

have helped thousands of millions to their unnecessary and early deaths.

The truth is

that there are lots of ways we help others to their unnecessary and early deaths,

starting with ignorance and apathy,

a cruel or unthinking word,

an action to ‘protect our interests’

while decimating others’ interests and lives directly.

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How not to particiapate in this popular project?

Compassion.

Thoughtfulness.

Prayer.

All that Jesus directed us to with the greatest command:

to love our neighbour as ourselves.

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And how will we do that today,

in a new

and newly effective way?

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That is every day’s challenge, now isn’t it!

Words, Words, Words

Destructive, Precious Words?

Saturday, September 28, 2024

Words can point us to the Light,

the Light destroys

and gives LIFE!

Psalm 19:14

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.

Luke 2:19

But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.

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Words of Grace For Today

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Words,

Words.

It’s just words, right?

Words given weight over our lives,

when there is no such need.

It’s just words, right?!

Right!

…

Except –

What we say and write can be more powerful than the worst weapons on earth, or the best physicians with the best medicines and procedures.

Words

reflect the thoughts and hearts of us all,

of us few,

of us too few, who actually know how to think clearly.

What we say and write can be most powerful.

Sure –

Words can destroy.

And then –

Words can heal a broken heart.

Words can heal a broken mind.

May we find the words that give life amidst all the evil that permeates creation and us.

Everything

Is Good!? NOT AT ALL!

Friday, September 27, 2024

Some Things, Some Moments, Some People,

Maybe,

But Everything is Good?!?

Com’on, Get Real!

Isaiah 65:18

But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating;
for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight.

1 Timothy 4:4-5

For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected, provided it is received with thanksgiving; for it is sanctified by God’s word and by prayer.

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Words of Grace For Today

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Who can say that everything is good!?

Evil abounds.

Rottenness corrupts even the strongest parts of creation, and people most of all.

(Maybe we are the weakest part of creation?)

So how can all be good?

Except neither writer says everything is good.

Both say that what God creates is good.

Then we go and mess it up, making it evil.

So how to not do that?

Probably, given all that is written and experienced through the ages, that is not possible.

Yet today we have the possibility of giving God thanks,

and in giving thanks we help somethings retain their goodness that God created,

even the goodness that God created in us.

So give thanks

for All that God

has created good!

Before ‘Yet’

And ‘Job answered’

Friday, September 20, 2024

What Came Before All This?

Summer?

Nighttime?

Injustice?

Hope?

Job 9:1-9

Then Job answered:
‘Indeed I know that this is so; but how can a mortal be just before God?
If one wished to contend with him, one could not answer him once in a thousand.
He is wise in heart, and mighty in strength—who has resisted him, and succeeded?—
he who removes mountains, and they do not know it, when he overturns them in his anger;
who shakes the earth out of its place, and its pillars tremble;
who commands the sun, and it does not rise; who seals up the stars;
who alone stretched out the heavens and trampled the waves of the Sea;
who made the Bear and Orion, the Pleiades and the chambers of the south …?

1 Corinthians 8:6

… yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.

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Words of Grace For Today

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There’s something before ‘yet’.

Is it important?

There was something before Job answered.

Is it important?

Context sometimes is everything.

Our context is simple to adduce:

God created everything and can do anything and everything.

We are creatures who live a short time, often suffering greatly,

even at our best when we love, it always ends in suffering the loss of love

or our life.

How can we pretend to take on God?

Yet

(there it is again)

Yet, we do so often,

So often to make good through and through fools of us,

like the ant that tries to escape from the anteater’s tongue.

Or like the mouse that tries to free itself from the trap.

Or the young bird that tries to fly through a window.

Or a person who tries to speak as if God.

What will we do today?

Live humble lives before our Creator?

Live futile lives trying to be our own godlets?

Who

Will Rescue Us?

Monday, September 16, 2024

And The Skies Run Red With Their Blood,

As God Lets Evil

Take Itself To It’s Own Bloody Death?

Isaiah 50:7

The Lord God helps me;
therefore I have not been disgraced;
therefore I have set my face like flint,
and I know that I shall not be put to shame

Matthew 14:30

But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, ‘Lord, save me!’

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Words of Grace For Today

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The OT reading for this Sunday Jeremiah 11:18-20 overlaps in theme with this verse:

It was the Lord who made it known to me, and I knew;
then you showed me their evil deeds.
But I was like a gentle lamb
led to the slaughter.
And I did not know it was against me
that they devised schemes, saying,
“Let us destroy the tree with its fruit,
let us cut him off from the land of the living,
so that his name will no longer be remembered!”
But you, O Lord of hosts, who judge righteously,
who try the heart and the mind,
let me see your retribution upon them,
for to you I have committed my cause.

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So it is time to ask:

And who is out to get you?

By guile and deceit

in secret

and hidden ways

so that those uninitiated to such devious ways will not see or suspect or ever know

of the evil that is worked against you?

Oh, you say, there is no such effort made against me.

But then how would you know?

And what is all this about polarization of peoples, infiltration of social media to effect election outcomes, hate created fear motivating voters, world domination by fascist dictators, war hungry leaders hiding in war their failing support at home, the economy played for the benefit of the already rich to get richer and the already poor to get poorer (if there is such a thing for many) and for the middle class to sink, sink, sink closer to poverty?

Are these not already a few powerful manipulating what can be to send us closer to our deaths?

Are you paying attention?

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But God is with us. And we will see our enemies destroy themselves.

Thanks

For the flow?

Sunday, September 15, 2024

Welcome to Paradise,

is it the Wilderness?

Deuteronomy 6:10-12

When the Lord your God has brought you into the land that he swore to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you—a land with fine, large cities that you did not build, houses filled with all sorts of goods that you did not fill, hewn cisterns that you did not hew, vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant—and when you have eaten your fill, take care that you do not forget the Lord, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

John 6:32

Then Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven.

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Words of Grace For Today

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Poverty is a wonderful lesson in humility,

or so they say,

Those who are not poor.

Thankfully the food bank is a steady and good supply of most basic foods and some others,

actually some very odd food that I’d never try or eat if I didn’t get them there.

Take Cookies and Cream Oatmeal.

A treat in a breakfast food.

Well I suppose they’ve made and sold lots of sugar cereals for decades, so why not this, too?

With

all

this

food

I easily forget

how hard it was

before

the food bank.

Not that I forget (life is too hard) how much God provides.

Every morning I thank God for everything that keeps me alive, and it’s more than just enough.

Lately there’s been so much meaningful labour

it’s hard to keep up

as winter is coming

and autumn is not that long

And there’s still wood to start collecting.

But,

little by little

a thing here and a thing there gets done

and

I start to think

I may even be ready, for winter,

‘God willing and the creek nor rising’.

So today

first the thanks,

then the celebration,

then the meal

then

flat out work

if the rain is not too much or

the smoke too thick.

And how is your day shaped? With thanks, remembering who supplies all that keeps you alive, celebration, meal, and work?

Or is it something else.

Whatever, may it be blessed,

and may you remember who blesses it,

even if you live in the land ‘flowing with milk and honey.’

Hemmed In

On All Sides

Tuesday, September 3, 2024

Finding the Path Home?

Out There Somewhere?

Psalm 139:5

You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.

Acts of the Apostles 17:27-28

so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us. For “In him we live and move and have our being”; as even some of your own poets have said, “For we too are his offspring.”

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Words of Grace For Today

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Trying to escape from the Wildernesses

of poverty

of hunger

of harassment

of threats

of apathy

of depression

of other people’s wildernesses

of the desert of a parched soul;

We’ve all tried at one time or another to escape

or at least minimize the parched heat, or the soppy wet floods, or the thunder, lightening, and wind storms of an angry planet or soul that seems out to do us in.

While we may try on our own, in real desperation, as even the least of believers to seek God,

yet God is not to be found, for God is before us, behind us, above us, under us, and to each side of us, walking with us through all the deserts and wildernesses that we traverse.

For we are God’s children, also this day, with all it’s challenges and things to be rightfully feared.

No other solution is needed, and we do not escape at all. God gives us what it takes to make it through, for even if death finds us, and takes us, there God gathers us in

to a home like none we have yet known. Home.

Be nice to have a home even in the wilderness, or maybe especially in the wilderness, eh?!

Fresh Start?

Ailments No More?

Monday, September 2, 2024

Rain Drops Clear The Air,

For a New Day.

Psalm 147:3

He heals the broken-hearted, and binds up their wounds.

1 Peter 2:24

He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that, free from sins, we might live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.

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Words of Grace For Today

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It is an odd, illogical thought, that we can be healed because someone else is wounded. That is the illogic of sacrifice. It is the illogic behind living organ donors (like kidney transplant donors).

The obvious truth is that we all need and want to be healed. Our physical ailments may come to mind first. Old people know ailments of many kinds that seem to multiply as the years pass. Far too many younger people suffer the cruel, random selection of genetic, developmental, and accidental ailments. While medicine makes advances each year, we still cannot heal all these ailments. We simply suffer them.

The most severe, and life-robbing, ailments we suffer are not the physical ones. They are our psychological and spiritual wounds and ailments that reek havoc in our lives, and the lives of many around us. The ‘science’ to heal us of these ailments, or at least mitigate their disruption to our lives makes advances to be sure, but the progress is minuscule for those who suffer.

How can God promise to heal the broken-hearted, and bind up their wounds.

Or to heal us by his wounds?

Yet both the Psalmist and the writer of 1 Peter don’t make that promise. They state it as an accomplished deed.

Oh, to live knowing our broken hearts are healed, and our wounds have been bound, that we have been completely healed so profoundly that it has cost someone else his life.

By faith we know exactly these things to be

how, since our baptisms,

we start each day,

each encounter

each challenge.

Good Morning!

A Fresh Start, Again!

Wounds and sins have no power over us.

Time for ‘Show and Tell’

Of God’s Name

Wednesday, August 28, 2024

Fishing For The Catch Of One’s Life

…

And Then Sharing It With Everyone In Need.

First Chronicles 22:19

Now set your mind and heart to seek the Lord your God. Go and build the sanctuary of the Lord God so that the ark of the covenant of the Lord and the holy vessels of God may be brought into a house built for the name of the Lord.

John 1:45

Philip found Nathanael and said to him, ‘We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.’

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Words of Grace For Today

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The sanctuary, the temple, is not built for God to inhabit it, but for God’s name to dwell there! What a treasure, to know that in this new and holy place one could go and call on the name of the Lord and

…

be heard!

What a treasure for Philip to share with Nathaniel, that they have found the Messiah promised in the Holy Scriptures, wherein the name of the Lord is to be encountered by one’s mind and heart … and soul.

And then to be able to go and encounter the Name of God, the Word wherein the Name of God dwells as surely as God’s name dwelt in the temple. And to encounter the Name of God, the Word of God in a living person.

And for us today to encounter the living Word of God in so many ways

in Scripture,

in Worship,

in Sacraments,

in Fellowship,

in Works of Love that give the basics of life to others in dire need,

in the Wonders of creation,

in the Wonder of love

and hope

amidst the present darkness.

Come! Come and see the Living Word!

Can you invite those in such great need to encounter God’s Name, God’s Word, God’s Living Presence?

You Know Who

Needs the Light

Monday, August 26, 2024

When the Light Is About To Disappear …

Psalm 56:13

For you have delivered my soul from death, and my feet from falling, so that I may walk before God in the light of life.

Mark 5:41-42

He took her by the hand and said to her, ‘Talitha cum’, which means, ‘Little girl, get up!’ And immediately the girl got up and began to walk about (she was twelve years of age). At this they were overcome with amazement.

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Words of Grace For Today

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If you are in a foreign country where the government is not at all friendly to your own country, and you are there working with the ‘alternative’ hope for the people, their church … and people go missing all the time … having an arrogant, unpredictable, and violent bully-cop, who has it out for you, point at gun mere inches away at your face is a sure way to convince you your life is likely going to come to an end.

The outcome that shakes one to the core is to have that cop’s partner kill him with an equally violent bullet to the head, and then tell you that you are protected.

Seeing evidence that this protection, though never again seen in person, has continued through one’s life is mind boggling.

Certainly, one gives God thanks with the words of the Psalmist, I will render thank-offerings to you. For you have delivered my soul from death, and my feet from falling, so that I may walk before God in the light of life!

These kind of deliverances are rare. Many people would hope they would be more common, as countless people loss their lives to violent bullies.

The kind that all of us need at one time or another in our lives, and for most of us quite frequently in our lives, is a deliverance from the enemy within our own hearts, minds, and souls. This kind of enemy drags us through the dirt and darkness of life more efficiently than lead poisoning … from a bullet at close range. This enemy of life is self-created. Oh, sure, circumstances contribute to the darkness of life in endless ways. Yet we are not bound to llow the inevitable challenges of life grow out of control until we succumb to the hopeless darknesses of complacency, lethargy, and despair.

From these enemies of life, we all need deliverance all too often.

So Jesus says also to us this day, “Come, Get Up!” Inviting us to walk in the light of life.

See, the light is right there. Just walk into it, and bask in the steadfast love of God …

and then get our butts in gear, to provide that light to all people, especially …

well you know who.