And love
Monday, December 4, 2023
God Can Burn It All Down,
or Light a Fire Under Our Lazy Butts.
Which do we need today?
Isaiah 41:10
… do not fear, for I am with you, do not be afraid, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my victorious right hand.
Matthew 21:15
But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the amazing things that he did, and heard the children crying out in the temple, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David’, they became angry ….
…
Words of Grace For Today
Fear can grab us without notice.
If we often let ourselves stay there, then the path for fear (one of the Devil’s favourite tools) is slick and becomes more and more travelled, more and more often without any reasonable cause.
Especially if we, like the chief priests and scribes, hold on to power by dominating others with fear fuelled by deception, corruption, manipulations and/or false gods or words supposedly of God.
Fear can rip our clear thinking minds right out of us, pressing us down into anger, anxiety, and panic … which keep us from thinking straight or being able to recognize what is real around us. We react to false fears as easily to real fears, always with disaster, whether we freeze, run, or stand ‘our ground’ to fight.
All a waste of time, energy, and life.
God’s word so often calls us to not be afraid.
God knows we have enough real reasons to be afraid.
Yet, God promises us that God walks with us, and therefore even when there are real reasons for us to be afraid, we not need fear. Instead we can participate in Jesus’ reign throughout all creation, wherein love, sacrificial love, is more powerful than anything that could threaten us.
Love carries us, even into and through death.
So there is no reason to fear,
unless we turn from God, and then we rightly fear God.
When we realize that God has turned to us, again and again with steadfast love and mercy, forgiving us, renewing us, equipping us, and sending us out to share the power of sacrificial love with all creation, then
well, we still fear God, for God is all-powerful, able to end us and all creation in the blink of an eye. Yet we also love God, for God has given us and does now give us and always will give us life, precious blessed abundant life.
So we breathe, and sing and dance in praise and thanks for all God is and does for us.