Saving Private Ryan?

Or just us old goats?

Thursday, March 28, 2024

Thinking we can make it through life on our own

is like

thinking we can walk through the woods

to the sun rising.

Proverbs 14:34

Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.

Luke 22:39-40

He came out and went, as was his custom, to the Mount of Olives; and the disciples followed him. When he reached the place, he said to them, ‘Pray that you may not come into the time of trial.’

…

Words of Grace For Today

…

We would like to believe that our lives serve a great purpose.

Maybe we will do something as purposeful as ‘Saving Private Ryan’, sacrificing our own lives so that the last son of a family of fallen sons can return alive to his grieving, thankful parents. Of course we’d like to turn the story just at tad, and survive as well.

But that is not likely to be

if we are left to our own devices.

The temptations of sin are great and the cost is absolute, final, and ultimate.

Unless …?

Unless what?

…

Unless God saves us.

So we pray ‘save us from the time of trial.’

Save us.

Or we are lost.

The Rich

And the Poor

Wednesday, March 27, 2024

What Stands Before Us?

Obstacles?

Or Wonders?

Psalm 109:31

For he stands at the right hand of the needy, to save them from those who would condemn them to death.

James 2:5

Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters. Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him?

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Words of Grace For Today

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While the wealthy enjoy comforts unimagined by previous generations, the poor suffer on, as in every generation, just to survive. Because the wealthy presume they have earned the comforts and luxuries they take for granted, and that the poor have not, they sink into a false sense of security that blinds them to the realities of God’s good creation. First among them they forget that nothing we have is our right or what we have earned, for everything have and are (especially our abilities to work to ‘earn’ anything) is given to us by God though we certainly deserve none of it.

The poor are not so blinded, for they enjoy only the real joys of life as we struggle to survive another day, another night, and then again another day. Their eyes are opened to the wonders that God provides. Their joys immense, even while their sufferings overwhelm their ability to survive! Out of such paradoxes the Holy Spirit nurtures faith, faith in God’s good grace for us all.

And which are we, who enjoy more comforts than imagined by the generations gone before us? Do we know how to live faith, each day, amid our ‘little sufferings and discomforts’?

Pray, then, that God will save us, too, wealthy and blind, or poor and joyous at creation’s wonders.

Making Way

Through uncharted, turbulent waters

Tuesday, March 26, 2024

Where Will Our Journeys End?

Buried in Cold Graves?

Or …?

Isaiah 43:16

Thus says the Lord, who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters,

John 14:3-4

And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going.’

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Words of Grace For Today

…

We try to make our way through the days ahead, not knowing what will come for sure, for the future, though it repeats the past often, is not at all predictable, not at all.

Only God can part the waters of the Red Sea for the rag-tag group running for their lives from Pharaoh’s army. Only God can part the water of the future’s chaos to show us the greatest and only security there is for our lives: that God walks with us into each new day. God walks right there along side us through all the frightful unknowns and challenges, the temptations and our failings, and the offering of joys and small triumphs. Hearing God’s footfalls beside us give us courage like none other.

For we know, that, no matter how circuitous and daunting our paths may turn out to be, the end of our journey will be at home with Jesus.

Proclaim

With Patience …

Monday, March 25, 2024

It May Have Seemed A Good Idea,

But Then We Find Ourselves Out on a Limb

of A Tree

Ready to Tip Into the Waters

of Death!

Second Chronicles 18:13

But Micaiah said, ‘As the Lord lives, whatever my God says, that I will speak.’

2 Timothy 4:2

proclaim the message; be persistent whether the time is favourable or unfavourable; convince, rebuke, and encourage, with the utmost patience in teaching.

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Words of Grace For Today

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Proclaiming the Good News ought, it seems, to be a wonderful experience,

but

humans don’t like to have their ‘apple carts upset’, ‘their cheese moved’, ‘their boat rocked’!

Surprise surprise

not!

Most often the Good News messenger is ‘shot’, vary rarely with a camera,

or hung

or burned at the stake

or buried alive

or crucified.

So do we really want to follow Jesus?

…

Well, to whom else shall we turn.

For only Jesus has the message that brings life,

true life to all who hear and follow

a rather humbling path

of service to God’s will

in service to others.

It’ll take all the patience we can muster to face down the opposition and derision others will throw at us,

but God walks with us,

and there is no greater blessing.

So onward, One Step, One Word at a time.

Forever

And Ever??

Sunday, March 24, 2024

it may seem the horizon of life goes on forever

past the moon setting orange and down ….

First Chronicles 17:27

… therefore may it please you to bless the house of your servant, that it may continue for ever before you. For you, O Lord, have blessed and are blessed for ever.

Matthew 25:34

Then the king will say to those at his right hand, “Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world…”

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Words of Grace For Today

…

Ahh, the hubris that would make a human think their kingdom could continue without end!

If ever there were a true saying about everything in life it is simply, “this too shall pass.”

Only God continues without end.

So we know, our sufferings

and our joys

shall pass.

Until one day God gathers us into the home created for us.

Meanwhile there’s much to be done to surrender our wills to God’s

and work to give the essentials

of life to the millions

starving, who face

sure death

today.

The godlets

Like GREEEEEED are not so small!

Saturday, March 23, 2024

Isn’t It Time, To Recognize Reality,

Sins and All!

Jeremiah 16:20

… mortals make for themselves gods? Such are no gods!

Colossians 3:5

Put to death, therefore, whatever in you is earthly: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed (which is idolatry).

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Words of Grace For Today

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Greed is certainly a long-lived godlet, an idol that we embrace so hungrily. This godlet like all idols eats at our hearts from the inside out, starting with fake insecurities and fears that we then try to buy our way free from. Stupid, but very seductive, widespread, and destructive.

Jesus addressed these insecurities. The people are enthralled and filled with exuberant hope as Jesus enters Jerusalem to put an end to the corruption, the tyrannies, the wild insecurities and fears that rob all the people of life.

But with God everything is not as it seems.

Insecurities, Real and Faked

We may not fully grasp the insecurities the people suffered in Jesus’ time. It may even be difficult to fully understand the insecurities we suffer today.

What author Astra Taylor had to say may help. She wrote about the dangerous insecurities of our times which threaten our future, even as a species. In particular she points to false and manufactured insecurities planted in us, and nurtured among us every day by our consumer society.

Guarantees of safety from great dangers pour over us, like use this shampoo to save yourself from dandruff, use this antiperspirant to save yourself from career and relationship ending stink and stains, buy this car to save yourself from the dangers on the roads. It’s not just one message. Together the accumulation of them all, our collective responses, and the unspoken expectation that we will “keep up with the Jones’s” subvert our ability to see where real dangers actually threaten us.

Yes. It’s a paradox – we live in the most prosperous era in human history, and the greatest disparity ever between the rich and the poor keeps growing. Because the wealthy people buy into it with gusto, guaranteeing their ability to make mega-luxury purchases of fake security at the cost of the basics of life for the rest of us, millions of people struggle to survive until the next day.

With the burning of our energy inheritance of fossil fuels, nature’s timekeeping becomes increasingly confused causing plants and animals to fall out of sync. In a world so out of joint insecurities multiply exponentially, as does self-righteous anger.

Taylor says to counter that destructive anger “We need to … acknowledge and embrace our [real] insecurities, while resisting manufactured ones. [By facing reality, especially our real fears, we can foster] a wisdom that can guide … our personal lives [and] our collective endeavours.”

CBC Ideas Newsletter for 18 March 2024, Astra Taylor’s Massey Lectures of 2023, rebroadcast this past week on CBC radio’s Ideas. Adapted 2024

By Faith

That maybe a lot to take in. Yet we know by faith that we cannot escape all insecurities. Every generation has heard scriptures teaching us to put aside false insecurities and fears, maybe not in those exact words. We practice the confession of sins as the beginning of worship and prayer. Confession includes recognizing and letting go of our false and manufactured insecurities and fears.

Our faith has also taught us that things are not always what they seem!

The Whole Shooting Kaboodle-dom!

Not for us! But for Christ!

Friday, March 22, 2024

Just When We Thought

It Was All Ours!

We Pass Away Into Oblivion.

Psalm 102:26

They will perish, but you endure; they will all wear out like a garment. You change them like clothing, and they pass away;

Colossians 1:16

… for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him.

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Words of Grace For Today

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We’ve taken dominion over the earth

and darn near ruined it into being an inhospitable wasteland, wherein we cannot survive much longer, or maybe we’ve crossed over the point of no return and it’s a done deal.

Our error, made new each day, is to assume God made it all for us.

But

God created it all for Christ!

Even us.

So that’s our place, not rulers but servants.

And once we surrender to that truth,

then Christ shares the blessings of life with us,

first and foremost the blessing of being blessings for others.

Smarts

Or Smart-ss, or rather Wisdom?

Thursday, March 21, 2024

Finding Our Way,

Following the Path of …?

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.

1 Corinthians 1:30-31

He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, in order that, as it is written, ‘Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.’

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Words of Grace For Today

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Oh, we try!

We try to be as smart as we can, but

the results are often that we are just pretending, having missed the boat on wisdom and instead having jumped aboard the ship of fools.

God, by comparison to our futile efforts, gives some great capacity for knowledge and others for wisdom. Seldom do the two overlap, but when they do …

Then we enjoy pearls of wisdom that are precious, and never do they call attention to the one so gifted, but rather point to the giver of everything, especially wisdom, – God our Creator, Saviour, and Sustainer.

To give God thanks, pointing to all things evil and life ending for others, is a sign of true evil and foolishness.

To give God thanks, and point to God for all things good, this is a sign of true wisdom.

Let us pray today we may be gathered in by the Holy Spirit in the second category, able to share all we are and have with those in need.

Memetic Desires

Or God’s Way?

Wednesday, March 20, 2024

Dreary Woods, Wishing For Someone Else’ Life?

Living in God’s Country, a Paradise?

Psalm 116:12

What shall I return to the Lord for all his bounty to me?

Luke 17:15-16

Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan.

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Words of Grace For Today

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While so much of what goes on around us, towards us, and finally in us has to do with insecurity, and our fruitless efforts to escape its ugly claws on our hearts and minds, there is nothing so refreshing for our souls as to

a) take a vacation to a warm, sandy, sunny beach in the Caribbean?

b) win an all expenses paid ski vacation to a destination of our choosing and at a time of our choosing?

c) inherit $100,000,000?

d) move into one’s dream house with views to the mountains out the front windows and over a river valley where the sunrises each morning, with no mortgage, a gift from a secret admirer?

e) …

Oh, stop that crap produced by generations subjected to memetic desires through advertising and others ‘possessing’ what we come to want and then need, until we use innocent scapegoats to resolve our misunderstood desires.

What God offers is life, life at its best!

All we need to wish for is the continued ability to be thankful for all we have already, gifts from God’s good hand and gracious dealings with us undeserving, sinful people.

Filled with thanks, our days progress with less outrageously unfounded covetousness and conflict – outward with other people, and inward with our own hearts and minds.

Thank God for thankfulness,

and may we have a greater dose of it each day, if you please.

Today, Come

Home

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.