Grace Alone Online

Psalm 23 is a favorite of many.  Most know the line, "Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life...."  Today we reminisce about a childhood game: Hide and seek.  There is more in this game than meets the eye.  The game is in our DNA...  Adam and Even sinned, they hid from God.  then god seeks them.  We play hide and seek in our adult lives with each other....and with God.  Will God find you?

The Gospel reading is from Luke 12:49, where Jesus begins.....“I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! But I have a baptism to undergo, and what constraint I am under until it is completed! Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division." and the preacher says, "This is the Gospel of the Lord." What?  I thought Gospel was Good News of Jesus salvation for all humankind.  Why, then, does Jesus say these words that cut us to the quick.  I though Jesus was my best friend.  Here what Jesus has to say!.....

We all want to live the good life.  I mean, we want to have the best life now that we can have. And there is plenty of peer pressure and advertisements to make us feel that way. Financial security, good health, no worries about our future, a nice place to live, happy family life, good friends and neighbors–who doesn’t want all that? Your best life now. A steak on the grill, a margarita in your hand, relaxing on the patio in the shade. Take life easy: eat, drink, and be merry!  So what does King Solomon mean when he says in Ecclesiastes, "Vanit of vanities.  All is vanity."  Emptiness?  If I have everything and work hard for it...why should it be called emptiness?

"There's a Place for Us" - a memorable song from Leonard Berstein's musical West Side Story.  We all have dreams shattered, plans that are upset.  We lose our place - or it seems we're always trying to find our place somewhere, some how, some way.... It's daunting, but even for Ezekiel things did not go the way he had planned.  Whatever your shattered dreams, your alterations to your life's plan, this message is for you!

Ezekiel's vision takes him to the valley of dry bones - a desert place.  No life, dusty, deserted.  These are the people of Israel.  a few chapters later, Ezekiel is taken to see a desert where only a trickle of water is coming out from the temple of the Lord.  An eyedropper is the measurement of the trickle.  Suddenly it explodes into a gushing river.  This is the water that brings life to everything in the valley.  How many times does the Lord show that He takes something simple and small and make great His Day of Salvation.  How has He done this with you?

I don't know if we're hard-wired this way, but it seems that all people SEE, then they FEEL, then they ACT.  Seeing leads to feeling, which leads to doing or acting upon the feeling about what is seen.  Ezekiel speaks to this point when he sees the glory of the god of Israel.  God, however, is also seeing, feeling and acting.  His glory is based on His feeling....His feeling is in response to what He sees.  See God's glory today and listen in.

Long before Heart of Stone was sung by the Rolling Stones, and long before Neil Young was "searching for a heart of gold," the Lord told the people of Israel that they had hearts of stone, because of their rebellion and sinful lives they did not seek Him or obey His statues.  What does the Lord God have in store for them?  What He had in store for them, he also had in store for us!  Find out what our heavenly Father did!

In 1887, Anthony Showalter composed the hymn, Leaning on the Everlasting Arms. The hymn’s refrain includes these famous words—“Safe and secure from all alarms.” Safe and secure from all alarms. You know, all we hear these days are blaring, loud-sounding, heart-stopping alarms. And fear accompanies being alarmed. Even beyond fear there is one word that can sum up our alarmist and fearful reactions: We’re a nation in pandemonium.  How can we have peace amid pandemonium?

There’s a reason why Jesus calls himself the Good Shepherd and not the Good cowboy.  Why?