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Tuesday, March 19, 2024

In the Darkness Look Not Out There Far Away,

But Close By,

For There Your Home Is Ready, Waiting,

Just for You.

Deuteronomy 33:27

He subdues the ancient gods, shatters the forces of old; he drove out the enemy before you, and said, ‘Destroy!’

John 14:1-2

‘Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling-places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?

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Words of Grace For Today

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Driving out the enemy and destroying it,

sounds like finally all will be set right.

Until

we realize that we are that enemy, we are the ones creating false gods, and giving our lives in worship of them, so that

if-when we destroy those enemies,

that in us that would so worship other than our God

will be destroyed.

Are we ready

for that!?

But do not let our hearts be troubled, for by Grace alone, God will save us

and

give us a home

like none other,

especially prepared and reserved for us,

where love flows freely

and all ills are cured

and we are finally

set free from our own sin.

Ready?

Start today living in that place already prepared for us.

Answer the invitation to Come

into the heart of God’s love for each of us.

Good Words

& Deeds

Saturday, March 16, 2024

Dark Shadows Cross Our Paths.

Do We Trust the Word That All Is Well Ahead?

Psalm 105:1

O give thanks to the Lord, call on his name, make known his deeds among the peoples.

Romans 10:17

So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the word of Christ.

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Words of Grace For Today

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The Word

created in the beginning

and

continues to create every minute thereafter

always faith grows or dies from what one hears (and reads – a kind of hearing from others).

So Jesus calls us to share the Good News, with words if necessary, but first with acts of love and kindness, meeting people’s real needs, so that the Word spoken will already be validated by our actions.

And that is an impossible task on our own, for we always mess up our actions and motivations with self-interest and selfish concerns.

Thank God, the Holy Spirit can create faith in us, and in our thoughts, words, and deeds, so that the Good Word is heard

in our actions

and then

in our words.

Get talking after doing good!

The Smudge

Of Wonders

Saturday 3 February 2024

Oh, How We Avoid,

The Crystal Clear Lessons of Darkness,

Building Fires

That Consume Even Us.

Psalm 32:8

I will instruct you and teach you the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you.

Matthew 4:19

And he said to them, ‘Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.’

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Words of Grace For Today

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Life is like the Milky Way, all out of focus, hinting that something is there, with a smudge across the still night sky, dotted by tingles of light.

So I thought as I stood at 3 am, after stoking the fire, in the quiet night, mild winter air.

Oh, that life were just that peaceful and still and smudged a creamy wonder! Then I see the space station bright, moving too fast to be a star or planet.

As I wonder what else is to be seen,

I grab at my glasses, realizing they are those for working on computers, close range top, closer range on the bottom, hoping to switch them for the distant glasses.

But they are no where to be found.

So I put on the computer glasses and what was just a smudge and a few tingles, starts to ring clear against the black of night,

yet the Milky Way is now a creamier cream with more hints of tingles spotting it up for the view.

Is life this way, out of focus, even at the best of times?

This is what it is like when we follow Jesus, when God instructs us: what were mere hints at God’s greatest wonders come into focus

against a back drop of so many wonders that we cannot distinguish one from the other.

And in the still of the deepest darkness

we realize that God always finds a way to show us the miracles of weakness,

of God’s all powerful love

for us

all.

Hurry

Hurry and Come Down

(Me?! But I Worked So Hard to Get Up Here!)

Tuesday 16 January 2024

From the Ur-Waters of Precreation,

to the Storms of Today,

God Claims Us.

Isaiah 43:1

But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel:Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.

Luke 19:5

When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, ‘Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today.’

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Words of Grace For Today

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How hard we all work to get where we are!

Like Zacchaeus we may have taken advantage of others, but the work was not easy and the price we paid, over and over again, was not nothing.

It’s cost us so much, really.

Then Jesus calls us, “Come Down. Hurry!”

God formed us, named us, and claimed us, and

did God ever intend for us to climb so high up where we’ve gotten,

on the backs of other people

paying the price with our hearts

minds

and souls?

Coming Down can be harder than climbing up. It’s not easy. It’s hard to give up what we think we’ve earned.

Down with Jesus, breaking bread with him, celebrating the goodness of life, we see again how far we’ve wandered away from God’s love and life

given to us in the beginning.

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The beginning of each day

each minute.

Paying Light

Forward

Monday 8 January 2024

With Whom, Caught in Darkness,

Can We Share The Light of Christ?

Isaiah 9:2

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness— on them light has shined.

Hebrews 6:7

Ground that drinks up the rain falling on it repeatedly, and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God.

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Words of Grace For Today

In 1666 the Black Plague hit Herxheim, DE killing many inhabitants. The village was quarantined and food became scarce! The neighbouring villages delivered bread to the borders of the quarantined village, which saved many from starvation.

In thanks the villagers swore each year to return the gifts, delivering a wagon full of bread to the neighbouring villages. They have kept this tradition for more than 355 years.

Of course, the bounty of the land (blessed by God) provides food for most of the world (if only we would distribute it fairly and generously it would be more than enough for everyone.)

More important for life than food, is the love and care that we provide for one another. The Herxheimers knew they were loved by their neighbours, and each year the return that love in a small way with their wagon of bread tradition.

What can we do today to provide for those most in need the bread of life, food, and more importantly love?

To whom do we owe our survival because of the gifts of food and love they have given us?

How will we offer thanks, to God, and to people, and

Is it not most precious and needed if we ‘pay it forward’ to those most in need, sharing the Light of Christ with those caught in darkness, instead of returning gifts to those who have plenty (also more than plenty of resources to enjoy light)?

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?

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.

Not to Come Up Short,

Remember!

Wednesday, December 20, 2023

Remember How God’s Grace

Lights Up Our Lives and

God’s Whole Creation!

Psalm 103:2-3

Bless the Lord, O my soul, and do not forget all his benefits— who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases,

1 John 4:10

In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.

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Words of Grace For Today

As the days get shorter and shorter and the darkness longer and longer, it is time to remember:

remember how hard we’ve all worked to get where we are.

How arduous the journey has been.

How competitors and enemies have taken possibilities and resources from us, leaving us with so much less.

And still we have come out okay, or so we say.

For we could have gotten more if we’d been like our enemies, vicious, uncaring, unscrupulous, deceptive, and downright dishonest about anything and everything that would give them an advantage, damned by the cost to others.

But we did not.

Some would say we suffer now because of it.

They are right of course.

Kindness, honesty, and fairness are always rewarded with suffering, even being cast out and labelled as abominations.

But remember

remember

that we have come so far by God’s Grace alone,

and this day we survive only by Grace,

and living in God’s Grace is more wondrous than all the advantage our enemies have stolen from us, as we have worked to save the most vulnerable from destruction and disaster.

Remember

That we live in the love of God for us, enabled only by that love to be anything good at all, and able to love others, creation, and God above all.

Short days, long nights.

Remember

God’s love shines brightest in the darkness.