Surely NOT Us!
Ah, But Really?
Monday, June 19, 2023
How Many Suns?
How Many ‘gods’?
Ah, If Only We Admitted
How Many ‘gods’
We Turn To?
Jeremiah 17:13
O hope of Israel! O Lord! All who forsake you shall be put to shame; those who turn away from you shall be recorded in the underworld, for they have forsaken the fountain of living water, the Lord.
Revelation 21:6
Then he said to me, ‘It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life.
Words of Grace For Today
We humans have made up commandments and rituals and criteria to convince ourselves WE have followed God and deserve to enter heaven: St. Peter, Open the Gates!
But
it is all self-deception.
Worse, we turn our commandments and rituals and criteria as the basis of judgment against others who have not complied and followed our ways, which we claim are God’s ways.
So we condemn them, damning them to hell,
and we ‘save’ ourselves, sending us to heaven
or so we think.
Truth is our commandments and rituals and criteria are not God’s. Our judgments are not God’s. And St. Peter ain’t opening the gates for us. Instead the devil is. And the Devil gleefully welcomes us into what he has made to look exactly like what we conjured up our ‘heaven’ to look like, … which is totally separate from the essence of God, namely grace, mercy, and unconditional love. The Devil doesn’t wait for us to die, either. Forget that delayed ‘reward’ idea. It’s now and forever
unless
God intervenes with grace, mercy, and unconditional love, saving us from ourselves and our judgments of others.
We have all turned away from God. We have all forsaken God and God’s good ways for us.
We can only beg,
beg for grace,
beg for mercy,
beg for unconditional love
to save us.
Thankfully God has plenty of grace, mercy, and unconditional love for us all. God asks that we exercise that same grace, mercy, and unconditional love for others. So much for our commandments and rituals and criteria by which to judge others, and deceive ourselves.
Ah, mercy me!
Can we abandon our commandments and rituals and criteria for God’s grace, mercy, and unconditional love, also this day? By the Holy Spirit working in us, why not!