PODCAST 21, 3-1, SHOW NOTES and COPYRIGHTS
Today we will be discussing and reading poems about God’s love for us and struggles we overcome knowing who Jesus is and what He has done for us.
The first poem is about a Bible verse that I am sure everyone listening is familiar with.
JOHN 3:16 (God’s Rhyme, pg. 106)
“For God so loved the world that He gave His
only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him
should not perish but have everlasting life.” (NIV)
God loved us,
He gave us,
His only Son,
For everyone,
Who believes
In His Son
Should not,
Will not,
Perish,
But have
Life
Everlasting.
What could be more poetic,
More comforting than this?
No words of yours or mine
Could convey love like His.
Gave His son,
Whoever believes,
Life everlasting,
There is nothing,
Not a thing,
Left to say.
Except,
Thank you Lord
For Your love.
Reflection:
So, one day I thought I could make God's love for us sound more poetic, make it sound more . . . whatever that it is in the Bible. I couldn't and happily admit it. The work of God in human hands . . . It should be left in God's hands.
© 2018 God Rhymes by Tim Carter
Read reflection on next poem first:
Reflection on What Can I Offer?
I had the thought of writing about what I have to offer to God for a few months. I’m sure that I heard it in a sermon. When I finally was able to write, I was in church. During the last song before the sermon we were asked to sit as we sang. At some point in the song the poem was there. I wrote on the bulletin and was finished just after the singing was over. When I typing it I did add “the void”. God’s rhyme, always there. Sometimes he just says follow my lead and write. There is a message in that.
WHAT CAN I OFFER? (God Still Rhymes, pg. 87)
What gift can I offer you?
All I have to offer is my sin.
And with your grace you accept them.
You take the weight of my sin
And lift it from my failing heart
That I may have new life
Breathed in to the soul of my heart.
Through your grace
You take from me
All that is wrong
And fill the emptiness,
The void with your song.
© 2018 God Still Rhymes by Tim Carter
In John’s Gospel, Chapter 11, Verses 38-54, are about Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. Let me read a few verses starting at verse 45 to lead into the next poem.
45 Therefore many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary, and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him. 46 But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. 47 Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin.“What are we accomplishing?” they asked. “Here is this man performing many signs. 48 If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our temple and our nation.”49 Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, spoke up, “You know nothing at all! 50 You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.”51 He did not say this on his own, but as high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation, 52 and not only for that nation but also for the scattered children of God, to bring them together and make them one. 53 So from that day on they plotted to take his life.54 Therefore Jesus no longer moved about publicly among the people of Judea. Instead he withdrew to a region near the wilderness, to a village called Ephraim, where he stayed with his disciples. (NIV)
Into this world you were born so that you might be scorned,
Never seeing your worth while on this earth,
Though they saw the torn veil, not knowing that you would prevail.
JOHN 11:45
Part I, the Poem
Jesus threatens the comfort of our lives
Just as he threatened the Pharisee’s lies.
For that he should die.
Did they, do we know why?
The Messiah, the Son of God.
For that and all he...
