March 29, 2020 Sabbath to bless

A central theme within "Sabbath" is to take time, pause and first of all remind ourselves that this world doesn't revolve around us. It reminds us that we are not in control.

The first Sabbath for God's people was during the Exodus, chapter 16. The Israelites were told to stop, rest and quit fetching their manna, trusting God by eating what they had gathered the day before.

The Sabbath was a day to celebrate what they already had.

None of us would have chosen to take a break like this. But- regardless, now we have to. Instead of cursing the break in our lives and assigning it to evil, let's instead lean into it and ask God what he will teach us through it.

A Sabbath exercise forces us to put our hope and trust in the God who has always provided.

This Sabbath-break forces us to reinventory our lives. Is it possible that we can reframe this forced slowing down and see it as an opportunity for good?

I want you to each take an opportunity, at a meal soon, to ask each person at the table to count a blessing... To speak positively about something they've learned or received.

Colleen and I are really wanting to be able to teach our grandchildren that uncertainty is a certainty. And how you deal with the uncertainty is of utmost importance. I doubt we'll have another opportunity in our lifetime to teach our grandchildren the significance of choosing peace and hope in the middle of a challenging time. 😊

Taken from Tim Mackey's The Bible Project

https://bibleproject.com/church-at-home/week2-sabbath-rest

Video:

https://youtu.be/PFTLvkB3JLM

_____________________________

/

March 22, 2020 Zoom Edition

Brene' Brown

https://www.rightnowmedia.org/

Let Jim know if you have lost your invite or can't get in. With your email, I can invite you again.

______________________

Psalm 37 (ESV)

He will not foresake his followers

A Psalm of David

37 Fret not yourself because of evildoers;
    be not envious of wrongdoers!
2 For they will soon fade like the grass
    and wither like the green herb.

3 Trust in the Lord, and do good;
    dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness.[b]
4 Delight yourself in the Lord,
    and he will give you the desires of your heart.

5 Commit your way to the Lord;
    trust in him, and he will act.
6 He will bring forth your righteousness as the light,
    and your justice as the noonday.

7 Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him;
    fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way,
    over the man who carries out evil devices!

8 Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath!
    Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil.
9 For the evildoers shall be cut off,
    but those who wait for the Lord shall inherit the land.

10 In just a little while, the wicked will be no more;
    though you look carefully at his place, he will not be there.
11 But the meek shall inherit the land
    and delight themselves in abundant peace.

12 The wicked plots against the righteous
    and gnashes his teeth at him,
13 but the Lord laughs at the wicked,
    for he sees that his day is coming.

14 The wicked draw the sword and bend their bows
    to bring down the poor and needy,
    to slay those whose way is upright;
15 their sword shall enter their own heart,
    and their bows shall be broken.

16 Better is the little that the righteous has
    than the abundance of many wicked.
17 For the arms of the wicked shall be broken,
    but the Lord upholds the righteous.

18 The Lord knows the days of the blameless,
    and their heritage will remain forever;
19 they are not put to shame in evil times;
    in the days of famine they have abundance.

20 But the wicked will perish;
    the enemies of the Lord are like the glory of the pastures;
    they vanish—like smoke they vanish away.

21 The wicked borrows but does not pay back,
    but the righteous is generous and gives;
22 for those blessed by the Lord shall inherit the land,
    but those cursed by him shall be cut off.

23 The steps of a man are established by the Lord,
    when he delights in his way;
24 though he fall, he shall not be cast headlong,
    for the Lord upholds his hand.

___________________

Words of C.S. Lewis

"In one way we think a great deal too much of the atomic bomb. “How are we to live in an atomic age?” I am tempted to reply: “Why, as you would have lived in the sixteenth century when the plague visited London almost every year, or as you would have lived in a Viking age when raiders from Scandinavia might land and cut your throat any night; or indeed, as you are already living in an age of cancer, an age of syphilis, an age of paralysis, an age of air raids, an age of railway accidents, an age of motor accidents.In other words, do not let us begin by exaggerating the novelty of our situation. Believe me, dear sir or madam, you and all whom you love were already sentenced to death before the atomic bomb was invented: and quite a high percentage of us were going to die in unpleasant ways. We had, indeed, one very great advantage over our ancestors—anesthetics; but we have that still. It is perfectly ridiculous to go about whimpering and drawing long faces because the scientists have added one more chance of painful and premature death to a world which already bristled with such chances and in which death itself was not a chance at all, but a certainty.This is the first point to be made: and the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds."

"On Living in an Atomic Age” (1948) in Present Concerns: Journalistic Essays by C S Lewis

C.S. Lewis 1898-1963

Chapter 3 A Priceless Gift by Max Lucado

• What about your Salvation is still a mystery to you?

Romans 3 (The Voice)

Kelly and Mary Jane teaching crafts at UL2

When God’s people—or people who claim to be God’s people—are hypocrites, then God is the one who gets the bad name. How often do we say one thing and do another? How often have we set a standard for others only to break it ourselves? The saying is true: we practice every day what we believe; all the rest is religious talk. There is a lot of religious talk out there, a lot of smugness and self-satisfaction. But every day people readily violate their consciences and the Lord’s reasonable teachings. For faith to matter, it has to get under your skin.

Sin is more than just wrong choices, bad decisions, and willful acts of disobedience that violate God’s Word and are contrary to His will. It is that and much more. Paul knows sin is missing the mark or deliberately stepping over the line, but he also knows that sin is a power at work in him and every child of Adam. As strange as it may sound, sin seems to have a will of its own. Like an addiction, sin takes hold of us and causes us to act in ways we never wanted. For Paul the cross of Jesus deals finally and definitively with the dual reality of sin. Not only are we forgiven of our sins—our willful acts of disobedience—but we are also liberated from the power of sin.

_____________________

^3:21 But now for the good news: God’s restorative justice has entered the world, independent of the law. Both the law and the prophets told us this day would come. ²² This redeeming justice comes through the faithfulness of Jesus,^[h] the Anointed One, the Liberating King, who makes salvation a reality for all who believe—without the slightest partiality. ²³ You see, all have sinned, and all their futile attempts to reach God in His glory fail. ²⁴ Yet they are now saved and set right by His free gift of grace through the redemption available only in Jesus the Anointed. ²⁵ When God set Him up to be the sacrifice—the seat of mercy where sins are atoned through faith—His blood became the demonstration of God’s own restorative justice. All of this confirms His faithfulness to the promise, for over the course of human history God patiently held back as He dealt with the sins being committed. ²⁶ This expression of God’s restorative justice displays in the present that He is just and righteous and that He makes right those who trust and commit themselves to Jesus.
__________

In the incarnation and sacrificial death of Jesus, God is at work to extend salvation to those who fall under sin’s addiction. They are liberated from its power, cleansed of its stain. By “God’s restorative justice,” Paul means first the justice that belongs to God and reflects His character. God is just, fair, or in a word, righteous. But character is dynamic, not static. This means that God’s justice must express itself in some way. So it is in the nature of God’s justice that He acts to restore and repair a world that is not the way it should be. Above all, it is God’s saving actions through Jesus that constitute the gift of God’s restorative justice.

__________________
²⁷ So is there any place left for boasting? No. It’s been shut out completely. And how? By what sort of law? The law of works perhaps? No! By the law of faith. ²⁸ We hold that people are justified, that is, made right with God through faith, which has nothing to do with the deeds the law prescribes.

²⁹ Is God the God of the Jews only? If He created all things, then doesn’t that make Him the God of all people? Jews and non-Jews, insiders and outsiders alike? Yes, He is also the God of all the outsiders. ³⁰ So since God is one, there is one way for Jews and outsiders, circumcised and uncircumcised, to be right with Him. That is the way of faith. ³¹ So are we trying to use faith to abolish the law? Absolutely not! In fact, we now are free to uphold the law as God intended.

Footnotes:

3:4 Psalm 51:4

3:10–12 Psalms 14:1–3; 53:1–3

3:13 Psalm 5:9

3:13 Psalm 140:3

3:14 Psalm 10:7

3:15–17 Isaiah 59:7–8

3:18 Psalm 36

3:22 Often translated “faith in Jesus”

The Voice (VOICE)

The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.

_______________________

As you read Paul’s letter to the Romans, note that justification refers to God’s declaration that we are not guilty for our sins, redem redemption ption means that Jesus paid the penalty for our sins by dying on the cross, and atonement refers to Christ’s sacrifice on our behalf.

EXPLORATION

1. What does Paul say all people share when it comes to God’s laws and his standards?

2. How are people made right with God? What is required of them?

3. How did God demonstrate his righteousness in not just “dismissing” people’s sins?

4. How does God’s plan demonstrate his fairness toward all of humanity?

5. What should prevent believers from bragging?

6. How has God shown that he is both just and merciful to you?

Why does LENT matter?

Religion Can’t Save You

https://youtu.be/ej_6dVdJSIU

Romans 2:17-24 from THE MESSAGE

17-24 If you’re brought up Jewish, don’t assume that you can lean back in the arms of your religion and take it easy, feeling smug because you’re an insider to God’s revelation, a connoisseur of the best things of God, informed on the latest doctrines! I have a special word of caution for you who are sure that you have it all together yourselves and, because you know God’s revealed Word inside and out, feel qualified to guide others through their blind alleys and dark nights and confused emotions to God. While you are guiding others, who is going to guide you? I’m quite serious. While preaching “Don’t steal!” are you going to rob people blind? Who would suspect you? The same with adultery. The same with idolatry. You can get by with almost anything if you front it with eloquent talk about God and his law. The line from Scripture, “It’s because of you Jews that the outsiders are down on God,” shows it’s an old problem that isn’t going to go away.

___________________

Lent reminds us what is important. Lent helps us prepare for the great celebrations at Easter.

   *Lent has always been about renewal, about second chances, about new life in Jesus through the waters of baptism. Lent has always been about the important things.


Over the centuries, Lent evolved into the season we now keep. Beginning on Ash Wednesday and lasting until the week before Easter Sunday, the Lenten season is forty days (excluding Sundays). This echoes the forty days Jesus spent in the wilderness at the beginning of his ministry.

Lent starts dramatically on Ash Wednesday.

Those ash marks on people’s foreheads recall an ancient practice mentioned throughout the Old Testament. When people had done something awful, they would be covered in ashes as a sign of humiliation. It was a way of showing that it’s not all about us. We’re not important, but God is very important.

Lately, it has become more common to take things on for the season of Lent. People might decide to read the Bible or pray more. But we might also decide to focus on something like forgiveness. How can we practice forgiving others? Who do we need to forgive?

Lent quietly teaches us. We have all that we

need in God’s grace. We aren’t meant to look after ourselves alone but rather to offer sacrificial love to our neighbors. We don’t need to fear anything.

Loving God and loving our neighbors are the most important things. And Lent is a wonderful way to remember that life is about love, not about our own desires.

Taken from article: Scott Gunn: What is Lent and why does it matter?

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/what-is-lent-scott-gunn