Grains of Sand

Pixabay Some deny Him. Others ignore Him. A few despise Him. Many diminish Him. Even those who believe sometimes doubt Him. But think again! Moses’ wonderful song after the incident at the Red Sea says it all. This is our God! Then Moses and the Israelites sang this song to the Lord: “I will sing to the Lord,
    for he is highly exalted.
Both horse and driver
    he has hurled into the sea. 2 “The Lord is my strength and my defense;
    he has become my salvation.
 He is my God, and I will praise him,
    my father’s God, and I will exalt him.
 3 The Lord is a warrior;
   the Lord is his name.
 4 Pharaoh’s chariots and his army
    he has hurled into the sea.
 the best of Pharaoh’s officers
    are drowned in the Red Sea.
 5 The deep waters have covered them;
    they sank to the depths like a stone.
 6 Your right hand, Lord,
...

Reading: Jude “ To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy—to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forever more! Amen ” (vss. 24, 25, NIV) I think the first time I hear these verses was from the lips of one of our summer interns. He had preached what I suspect was his first sermon and was about to close the service. Looking back on the scene, I imagine that he was nervous; afraid that he would forget the words he’d so carefully memorized. Someone had told him that he needed to hold out one of his arms as though he were placing his hand on someone’s head in blessing. It looked awkward, though I’m sure the gesture became more familiar with time and practice. With a fierce look of concentration on his face, he pronounced this blessing from the book of Jude. Since then I’ve heard the words quoted many times. I’ve quote...

“ But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth ” –Acts 1:8, NIV. Have you ever counted the number of times you’ve heard, or read, a message on this verse? We know it by heart, along with its interpretation. We’ve even tried doing it, each of us in our own little spheres of influence. They tell me I used to be quite the little evangelist in the neighbourhood where I grew up. Frankly, I don’t remember preaching to my chums on the street, or playing “preacher” to my doll pack. I remember taking courses on personal evangelism. Methods, programs, plans popped off the printing presses with frightening regularity even in my early maturity. Every one was better than the other, guaranteed to bring in the lost by the boatload–or so it was claimed. I did door-to-door visitation over the summer of my first student ministry assignment. That was another one of the great “mus...

“ ‘Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the Lord Almighty ” —Zechariah 4:6. Some days it just isn’t worth getting out of bed. The overwhelming desire to cover up our heads with that sheet and shut out everything related to our world pushes us back into the security of that warm and comfortable spot that our bodies have carved out during the night. Unhappily, once the mind gets woken up sufficiently to prod memory, there’s nothing else to do but get out of bed and face the world. Jesus said that we’d have trouble in this world (John 16:33) but he followed that statement up with the wonderful promise that He had overcome the world. The tense is important. He didn’t say that he WOULD overcome the world, He said that He HAD overcome the world. Victory was not only assured but should already be considered a “done deal.” So when I get to the words of Zechariah, I remember Whose victory it is. It helps me get out of bed in the morning. If I face the world in my puny streng...

“ Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak ” —Isaiah 40:28, 29, NIV. If we read what precedes these verses we get the distinct impression that Isaiah is issuing a mild rebuke. Starting back at verse 12, the writer begins to describe the power of God, the One who makes everything and then holds it all together, the One whose wisdom and knowledge surpasses that of all the wise and educated men combined, the One who makes great nations look like nothing great at all. He invites his readers   to look around them and consider the One who made heaven and earth. God’s people were in for a rough time, and the prophet wants them to understand that just because it may seem as though God has walked away or has plugged His ears to their pleadings, it doesn’t mean that He has. He re...

“ Look to the Lord and his strength; seek his face always ” —1 Chronicles 16:11, NIV The Book of Psalms is perhaps the best-known and best-loved literature read by believers. But not all of David’s psalms—a considerable contribution to the book—are found in it. Here in Chronicles we find a wonderful psalm of praise that David wrote on the occasion of the return of the ark to its rightful home in Jerusalem. The whole psalm, all twenty-eight verses, is filled with admirable material that needs thinking about. But to today has been assigned this small fragment of David’s magnificent, God-inspired, poem. The verse directs us to look to the Lord when we so often look elsewhere. Our minds and hearts are so often captured by other things and other people. We look to ourselves. We dig deep within to find our inner strength, considerable at times, to deal with whatever challenges we are living through at the moment. We vaguely claim that this inner strength is God-given, as it is, but ...

Both yesterday and today, I encountered a couple of passages in my reading that ignited the flames of desire in me. Yesterday I read 2 Chronicles 4-6 and today I continued with chapters 7-9. All of these describe the celebrations and ceremonies that went on as King Solomon dedicated the temple he had built for the Lord. In yesterday's reading I came upon 2 Chronicles 5:13, 14. The musicians have launched themselves full-tilt into worship. As the singers raise their voices toward heaven, the writer records: " Then the temple of the Lord was filled with a cloud, and the priests could not perform their service because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the temple of God ." Then a little further on, after Solomon offers a wonderful prayer to God, the Scriptures record: " When Solomon finished praying, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the Lord filled the temple. The priests could not enter the te...