Hey You!

Ya, You! You know who you are!

Wednesday 10 January 2024

Do We Dare Depart From the Worn Path of Evil,

and Follow the Light of Christ?

Psalm 34:14

Depart from evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue it.

Romans 14:19

Let us then pursue what makes for peace and for mutual edification.

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Words of Grace For Today

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Depart from Evil …

Well to depart one must first be engaged in it, right?

So, you out there, who are engaged in evil, you know who you are, depart from it!

It does you no good!

It destroys other people, as you intend, and even beyond what you intend. And it also destroys the goodness of life for you yourselves, blind to that as you may be. But the Devil has your hearts and souls wrapped up like a hot sauced enchilada. One bite into your way of life and it’s curling sweats, gasping for breath, grabbing for water that does no good, (not even fruit juice can help against the Devil’s hot sauce) and then it’s lights out ….

Oh, you may still be breathing, but it’s the fire of the Devil that consumes everyone around you and yourself.

The only escape is to depart from Evil and seek peace so diligently that it becomes one’s life’s pursuit.

Well, that won’t work either.

The only escape is God’s Grace promised of old, promised to each of us in our baptisms, and demonstrated most clearly in the life, healing, death, and resurrection of Jesus, God’s own Son.

Thankfully, we receive that Grace each morning, noon, and night (and all moments in between!) Therefore we are able to purse peace and what makes for mutual edification, mutual among all people!

What a day God has open for us today?

Dare we step into it?

Knowing

Knowing Power

Or Knowing God?

Tuesday 9 January 2024

Do We See the Power of Machines,

or the Beauty of Nature,

as Gifts from God?

First Samuel 2:10

The Lord’s adversaries shall be shattered; the Most High will thunder in heaven. The Lord will judge the ends of the earth; he will give strength to his king, and exalt the power of his anointed.’

John 1:29

The next day he saw Jesus coming towards him and declared, ‘Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!

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Words of Grace For Today

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It is one thing to recognize power that overcomes one’s adversaries with might, thunder, and violence, and then to attribute that same kind of power to God.

It is a completely other kind of thing to recognize the power that God exercises for us all.

Of course, God could exercise that power might, thunder, and violence, again and again and still not bring us to know peace or a blessed life.

Instead God, sends Jesus, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.

Only when we know we are free from the guilt and destruction of our sins are we able to know peace and live a blessed life, not just for ourselves but for all other people as well.

That is the kind of power that God has and exercises,

for us all.

So with that freedom each morning, what will we do?

Chains or Freedom?

God says, “I Love You”

Sunday 7 January 2024

Freedom! To See The Light

Clearly, Brightly

Through All Obstacles!

Exodus 14:13

But Moses said to the people, ‘Do not be afraid, stand firm, and see the deliverance that the Lord will accomplish for you today; for the Egyptians whom you see today you shall never see again.

Acts of the Apostles 26:29

Paul replied, ‘Whether quickly or not, I pray to God that not only you but also all who are listening to me today might become such as I am—except for these chains.’

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Words of Grace For Today

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John Baptizes Jesus with water, God enters the event, forever to be remembered as Jesus “was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

Such it is spectacular when God reveals to all whose Jesus is, and who that makes him: God’s Son, and Our Saviour come as a human to teach, heal, and sacrifice himself to save the world and demonstrate God’s love for the world.

So also God sends the Holy Spirit in our baptism to claim us, cleanse us, renew us, and equip us to be God’s workers on earth for all people.

In the fall of 2002 Minnesota’s respected senior senator, Paul Wellstone, died in a plane crash along with his wife, daughter, three campaign workers, and the two pilots. Out of that came an example of a wonder: Shortly after the crash, someone hung a banner of a well-known quote of one of the deceased aides, Mary McEvoy, over the entrance to the building where she had worked. Her words challenged, “What would you do if anything were possible and you knew you could not fail?”

McEvoy’s question evokes a freedom for living in the face of chaos, a freedom we receive in baptism, when God’s Voice claims us as beloved children.

Never free from sin, but always forgiven and renewed for life as God’s workers in creation, we can choose to life out of the freedom the Holy Spirit offers us each day,

or not?

What will it be today?

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.’

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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.

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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.

Between

Between Times

The Beginning

Wednesday, December 27, 2023

In the Darkness of the Between Time,

The Light of Christ Shines

Brightly.

Isaiah 44:6

Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts: I am the first and I am the last; besides me there is no god.

Matthew 6:9

Pray then in this way: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.

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Words of Grace For Today

Between Christmas and New Years is always a time between.

Between the past and the future, and not quite the present,

sacred, set aside

set aside for reflection on what really is.

In the beginning is always God,

and our response to God can always begin with remembering how sacred and hallowed God’s name is, a reflection of God.

For God is not far off, nor so buried within us that we cannot know God, as much as our finite, limited, human brains will know the infinite, unlimited divine.

Thus

we begin each day

praying God’s thanks

begging for mercy and forgiveness

singing God’s praise

and

celebrating Jesus’ presence with us

even this day,

the third day of the Christmas twelve.

Boxing Away

Boxing Day Failure

Tuesday, December 26, 2023

One Day In and

Our Memory of Jesus

is More Faded

Than the Morning Moon

Setting

Isaiah 60:16

You shall suck the milk of nations, you shall suck the breasts of kings; and you shall know that I, the Lord, am your Saviour and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.

2 Timothy 1:9b-10

This grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Saviour Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.

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Words of Grace For Today

Boxing Day

brings to the fore the obvious

necessary

failings of Christmas.

It’s when the commercial xmas takes over, crowds rush to the stores, sales and stock are piled high and wide, and money flows like smoke from a huge, hot wildfire.

Many retail stores turn a profit only because of the huge boost in December, and particularly on Boxing Day. Large stores turn extreme profits on this day, adding to the wealth they collect for stock holders and executives with huge bonuses.

Year after year, we attempt to remember that God is the sole source of our well-being. That God is the only source of a life worth living.

Christ comes as an infant, a sign that God’s true power is not in force or wealth or in possessing or possessions accumulated, but rather in the love that is pure, true, and steadfast.

We gather with small candles lit in the darkness and sing our faith on our sleeves of God’s wonders for us all, and then …

we run to the store the second day of Christmas to spend and get and possess all that we can.

What a huge failure we all are.

Our only rescue is in God’s Grace. God’s forgiveness.

So much for sucking life from the nations of the kings of the world. All that is is poison for our souls.

Pause, amid the hectic, and remember

God’s goodness in the simple, pure gifts of love

that sustain us each day.

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.

Perfect !??!?

Quatsch!

Friday, December 22, 2023

Knowing Our Place,

Wholly Dependent On God,

Is Obvious Living Close To

and Dependent On Nature.

First Samuel 12:15

… if you will not heed the voice of the Lord, but rebel against the commandment of the Lord, then the hand of the Lord will be against you and your king.

James 1:25

But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act—they will be blessed in their doing.

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Words of Grace For Today

Wow!

As Advent is in it’s final week, and we reflect on how God works Wonders for us, though we too often distract ourselves with doing, impatient as we are for God to works wonders for us, here comes Sam and Jim to mess with our hearts and minds.

As if!

As if we could follow the perfect law!

Not a chance.

Not a chance in all creation.

We are but beggars, sinful beggars, begging for God’s mercy and forgiveness,

and

when we forget and think that we can somehow walk the line, stay perfect, follow God’s commandments,

then

we have already taken a huge leap out of God’s Grace into the Devil’s own arms.

Not that we should just give up, as if God were not merciful, having forgiven us again and again and promising to forgive us for the rest of our lives, and always and again restoring us so that we can work God’s grace for others.

Not that we should just give up and be as evil as we can be, as greedy as we can be, as selfish and destructive to others as we can be.

Trusting God’s steadfast love, we can proceed to give our best effort to do what is right and good for all people, especially the poor and outcasts, the vulnerable and sick, the elderly and the dying. We will never do that perfectly. But trusting that God will forgive us, we can proceed with confidence in God’s Grace taking on every challenge that comes our way.

So also this day, in this last week of Advent, as the daylight of each day slowly lengthens.

Blessed we are. Not proud of our gifts, but proud that God claims us as children and equips us to share all God’s gifts with others.