February 2025 – Page 3

Umsonst

For Free

Friday 7 February 2025

No Matter the Word,

It’s Free:

The Beauty of the Earth,

and Our Ability to See It,

to Enjoy It,

and to

Be It for Others.

Psalm 63:2

So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory.

Revelation 22:17

The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come.’
And let everyone who hears say, ‘Come.’
And let everyone who is thirsty come.
Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift.

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Words of Grace For Today

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In today’s world everything has a cost, everyone can be bought, time is money, money speaks … and on it goes… supposedly!

But in God’s world everything has a cost, except, for what is most precious, the cost is covered

by the Creator, All-powerful, All-knowing, Present-in-all-time, righteous Judge, who loves us so much

that Jesus gave his life that we might receive the most precious of all: Life ( our lives with all the details known, good and bad, past, present, future … all our sins forgiven … life restored to us filled with perseverance, empathy, love, joy, hope, and the purpose that makes life so good: to share all that with others.)

Let the barkers cry all they want for us to buy, buy, buy,

But God calls and equips us to give, give, give

all that is most precious

to all who thirst for

Truth and Justice

and Life.

Not to Condemn

But to save … the whole world!

Thursday 6 February 2025

The Glaciers, and a lot else, are disappearing from the face of the earth.

Genesis 8:21

And when the Lord smelt the pleasing odour, the Lord said in his heart, ‘I will never again curse the ground because of humankind, for the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth; nor will I ever again destroy every living creature as I have done.

John 3:17

Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

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Words of Grace For Today

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Noah offers sacrifice to God, and God turns, finds the sacrifice pleasing, and promises never again to curse the ground because of humankind, though the inclination of every heart is evil from our youth.

Not cursed, but it’s clear, we really don’t know how to give God God’s due.

Always grabbing for more, at others’ expense, and at our expense, and at the earth’s expense.

Trade war is only the latest in our own backyard.

…

But Jesus did not come into the world to condemn it or us.

I like to take John 3:16 and place it after John 13:17. It helps counter the so familiar v16 being so out of context.

Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

Lots more context is really needed. There is no way we can all line up to believe, doing the right thing, making it right for ourselves with God.

Believing in Jesus is only possible if the Holy Spirit makes it so in us. We of course can refuse, back out, turn our back on it all. But no one can choose to turn to God. That’s all gift, given to us over, and over, and over again, by a God who loves us so.

Then we can, of course, choose to stop condemning others and the earth. That is what God wishes from us: a choice to love – as God loves – all creation.

Putting It All In Play

For the best friend of us all.

Wednesday 5 February 2025

Even the Beauty and Wonders of the World,

Do Not Compare to

the Love Jesus Gives Us.

Isaiah 50:6

God’s Servant said:

I gave my back to those who struck me,
and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard;
I did not hide my face
from insult and spitting.

John 15:13

No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

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Words of Grace For Today

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Jesus puts his life on the line. Puts it all in play.

Not just for his friends,

but for everyone, past, present, future.

Thank God,

or we’d be looking for a way, and impossible way, to get in God’s good graces.

…

It’s no fun having insults and abuse tossed at one, physical abuse – hitting- and psychological abuse – lies, manipulations, gaslighting, and more lies – tossed at oneself and around the community, destroying one’s reputation…

except

God’s Truth will out.

The abusers will be outed, and our salvation will be made clear to all, and all that we have laid down to protect others will be recognized, will save others, will be known to be good.

This is love in action for others, for the children, for the lost, outcast, despised, abused.

Uncovered Through and Through

By The Sharpest Scalpel!

Tuesday 4 February 2025

An Oil Lease, Cut Through the Woods, Reclaimed, Growing Free Again.

Like Us.

Jeremiah 23:29

Is not my word like fire, says the Lord, and like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces?

Hebrews 4:12

Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

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Words of Grace For Today

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Cut to the quick of life, by God’s truth.

Unable to hide in half-truths or full out lies.

Exposed for what we are by what we think and secretly dream of.

The chaff of uselessness burned away quicker than a fleeting thought.

Judged.

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What else can we expect from God’s Word?

…

Until the story of Jesus living, loving, dying, rising, forgiving us, renewing us … and walking with us through every day … holds our hopes up to the Light,

and pulls us, blessed, into another day

come what may

joyous

thankful

for it all

from God’s good hand.

Looking Back

Trusting Forward

Monday 3 February 2025

As the shadows lengthen,

the day of life coming to a close,

remember –

blessed Light

Ezra 8:31

Then we left the river Ahava on the twelfth day of the first month, to go to Jerusalem; the hand of our God was upon us, and he delivered us from the hand of the enemy and from ambushes along the way.

2 Timothy 3:11

… my persecutions, and my suffering the things that happened to me in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra. What persecutions I endured! Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them.

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Words of Grace For Today

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What memories I have, of trials, of lies, of abuse, of un-earned prison, of false judgments, of concerted efforts to destroy our reputations, of rejections, of false accusations, of being told to leave, of being forced to leave town …

of surviving, by God’s grace alone, when all else had failed,

yet being loved profoundly,

of experiencing God’s walking along with me,

of trust rebuilt from the foundations of life,

of many helping in small ways and huge ways,

of being dependent yet free,

of living the dream (hard as it turns out to be).

I’m sure you have your memories of life’s challenges as well.

Hopefully you have known and remember that God has walked with you through them, not removing them or resolving them, but equipping you to endure them to whichever end, theirs or yours, and knowing you are blessed to know life in it’s fullest and most truthful blessedness.

With the memories of God’s blessing in the past comes a hard-won trust in God’s promises for our futures.

Moving into today … all will be well, all will be well, all manner of things will be well.

Not Knowing Where

We Are Going

Sunday 2 February 2025

Not Where To,

But With Whom,

Whom We Trust Is Always God.

Numbers 9:18

At the command of the Lord the Israelites would set out, and at the command of the Lord they would camp. As long as the cloud rested over the tabernacle, they would remain in camp.

Hebrews 11:8

By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going.

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Words of Grace For Today

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I wish it were so easy to just follow a cloud and know that we were doing God’s will.

Of course, setting out without knowing why-when-towhere, camping wherever a cloud stops moving (when the wind stops blowing), and trying to have enough to survive on – well all that is not easy at all.

Moses and the people had escaped from tyranny, drudgery, and and and … but the wilderness … now that was a challenge.

Not that the people just took it all in without noticing how freaking hard it was. They complained about no water. Then about no food. Then about no meat. Then about no Moses. And they made themselves their own godlet out of their gold.

And paid for it. None of that generation made it into the Promised Land.

Now Ab and Sara had different challenges.

They did not live in poverty or want for much. But they were called to leave to go … to go they knew not where, but God promised them a new inheritance.

Today we might call that colonization of someone else’s homeland.

Of course when Ab set out not knowing where he was going, Ab was not alone. Sara was with him, and lots of other people, animals, and, and, and ….

Still they faced challenges we can be glad we never face.

Today there are millions of people who set out not knowing where they are going. We call them displaced people. Most don’t even have a place to go to. The UN estimates at the end of June 2024 122.4 million people are displaced (1 in 67 people on earth), only 43.7 million of them in refugee camps.

My not knowing where I’m going is hardly as traumatic. I, like most of us, do not know what challenges I will face any given day, because of politics (25% tariffs, 51^st state, no more carbon tax and rebates), or because of weather (wilder by the year because of climate change- and the cold is just plain hard, the heat unbearable, and the smoke debilitating, the winds more and more dangerous and destructive), or because of hatred somehow focused on me, or simply because I can lose faith and then hope, and then motivation to do what is necessary to survive today or tomorrow or next season or next year.

Where are we going?

We never know. What we can be is thankful we have some place to call home. And some stability in our lives. Millions have none of that. And many of them live within 50 km of us right now, and many many more within 500 km.

Wherever we are going, God walks with us, maybe not visible like a cloud, but palpable nonetheless.

Sinners All

Always Needing God’s Grace

Saturday 1 February 2025

Hell Fires Burn Hot

Already for us in this life

When we think we can earn our way free from them.

Only by God’s Grace

Daniel 12:2

Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.

Romans 14:9

For to this end Christ died and lived again, so that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.

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Words of Grace For Today

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At my father’s funeral the pastor gave a heartwarming eulogy using the image of a table around which his father welcomed so many different kinds of people.

If we accept that God judges us according to how good we are, what good we think, say, and do while alive, then the pastor set us up to be thankful that my father passed into everlasting life because he met the criteria needed, instead of being judged lacking and therefore passed into everlasting shame and contempt.

Except that is not at all how we believe God judges us, not at all, not at all.

We trust that Jesus lives, loves, dies, and rises from the dead to clearly demonstrate to us how much God always loves us, and that love includes that Jesus saves us from judgment according to our sins. Rather Jesus’ record replaces ours, and by grace alone we live and die in God’s favour, blessed, and equipped to be God’s love and forgiveness for others.

Later it became heart-rendingly obvious that the pastor did not once mention that my father was a sinner, who made his share of mistakes, who God loved, who Jesus died to save, and who the Holy Spirit equipped to do the good things he did.

Which made me sad, for myself and everyone else at the funeral, having missed that during his funeral. And it made me sad for the pastor, who close to retirement, did not provide the one clear message of God’s love that we receive and have to share, giving hope even in the face of death.

If we leave no room for God’s love and grace we do not honour the real person, or God’s promises to us and for us.

Do we then try to create a similar false version of life for ourselves, a living, lying eulogy?

Let’s pray we do not,

and trust that God will forgive us when we do.