A Tree Replanted in Eden

Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked

or stand in the way of the sinners, or sit in the seat of mockers.

But his delight is in the law of the LORD

and on his law he meditates day and night.

He is like a tree planted by streams of water,

which yields its fruit in season

and whose leaf does not wither.

Whatever he does prospers.

Not so the wicked!

They are like chaff that the wind blows away.

Therefore the wicked shall not stand in the judgment,

 nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.

For the LORD watches over the way of the righteous,

but the way of the wicked will perish.

-- Psalm 1 (NIV)

Here is Psalm 1 from The Message:

How well God must like you--you don't hang out at Sin Saloon,

you don't slink along Dead-End Road,

you don't go to Smart-Mouth College.

Instead, you thrill to God's Word,

you chew on scripture day and night.

You're a tree replanted in Eden, bearing fresh fruit every month,

never dropping a leaf, always in blossom.

You're not at all like the wicked, who are mere windblown dust--

without defense in court, unfit company for innocent people.

God charts the road you take.

The road they take is Skid Row.

Now we can look at Revelation 22 to see the future --

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life,

as clear as crustal,

flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city.

 On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit,

yielding its fruit every month.

And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.

What do I Need to Get Through This Day?

For to You, O Lord, I lift up my soul. 

For You, Lord, are good, and ready to forgive, 

 abundant in mercy to all those who call upon You.

Psalm 86:4-5

Father,  what more do I need to get through this day! NOTHING!

Just knowing You are good, forgiving and merciful gives me the power to move forward with confidence and joy.

Nothing can separate me from Your love. 

I am one of those who call upon You.

I have so many regrets for my sins, but You constantly remind me of Your forgiveness.

Fill me with Your mercy now so that it will overflow from me into the lives of the other people I encounter today.

Help me to be to them as You have been to me.

In Christ's name I pray.

Amen.

The Revival in Wales

 

I am doing some research on a famous revival -- the revival in Wales 1904-5 -- dozens of books written about it, seminary classes devoted to teaching about it -- church history texts with many chapters written about it --  probably the most famous revival since Pentecost!

Likely started in a youth group -- over one hundred thousand people came to salvation in Christ in less than a year and peoples' lives dramatically changed forever!

As a result? Almost-empty bars were closed for lack of business!  Judges and attorneys reported that many courts were closed because of lack of law suits -- jails were emptied...general lack of criminal activity....and miners had to re-train their mules! 

Seriously! It was reported that most mules had been trained to respond to vulgar  commands and cursing! Repentant miners didn't want to use that language anymore and so the mules had  to be re-trained. Articles in newspapers gave helpful hints on how to re-train those 'stubborn" animals - really! The mules, and mulers, had to learn a new vocabulary!

We could probably use some new vocabulary these days! Let's pray for revival, but not just for the mulers!

We used to sing this revival hymn -- "I will pour water on him who is thirsty.  I will pour floods upon the dry ground - open your heart for the gift I am bringing -- While you are seeking Me I will be found!"

We are certainly dry and thirsty for Truth and Goodness these days!

A prayer for revival today: "Lord, please pour out Your living water upon us and through us. Let us be fountains everywhere we go. May Your light and joy that shines within us overflow and slip over into everyone we have contact with today! Revive us, O Lord!"

Scraps

Remnants and Scraps....

Remnants was a word my mother often used. To her, a remnant was a scrap or piece of cloth left over after the rest of the cloth had been used. Any small pieces left over after she made a dress or a shirt was to her, a remnant. It might be very small, if so she would save it to use in making a quilt. There were stacks of these small pieces, almost like yellow sticky memoes, all around her sewing area.

She was astonished, later in life, when she heard women talked about buying remnants from a fabric store to use in their quilts -- that was "cheating" to her. It wasn't really a quilt unless you used the left over scraps from something you had made yourself. How could any serious quilter use "new" scraps!

After she finished her quilts she could point to a colorful design and say, "That's the skirt I made for you when you were in junior high!" Or, "That was left over from the dress I made for Easter that year -- you remember, I wore that beautiful blue hat with it!" (My mother was a great one for wearing hats! The hat she was referring to was a blue "pillbox" hat - the kind we used to call
"Jackie Kennedy" hats.)

She showed me how flexible she was when, in 1986, she presented me with a quilt honoring the 150th birthday of Texas. It was all red, white and blue, with large stars and solid stripes to separate the sections. It was her own design.

We were both so proud of it -- and she admitted, without embarrassment, that she had had to buy the "remnants," or "scraps" from the fabric store to make it for me!

Well, it is not very often that we see fabric stores any more.....and few women wear hats....
Though Art's sister, Phyllis, who is visiting with us now with her husband Bob, and I went shopping this week and we both bought beautifully designed small white hats --with veils -- sort of "mini" hats that we can wear to church. So we are trying to revive the custom in some small way. And I hear that Patsy Parkey wore a large wonderful hat on Easter, but I didn't see it. Ruby wears hats, and sometimes Patrice.

Back to scraps....I have been thinking about remnants lately.

When Elijah moaned to God:

"I have been very zealous for the LORD God Almighty. The Israelites have broken
down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only
one left, and now they are trying to kill me too."

God answered:

Yet I reserve seven thousand in Israel--all whose knees have not bowed down to
Baal...

A remnant. And we are also a remnant.

From the time of Noah, the Bible tells us that the human race has been very sinful, but there has also been a righteous minority that God preserves.

Maybe it was a small group, as in Noah's time, when it was only 8 people. Maybe seven thousand. Many larger today in numbers. But God has not ever allowed His testimony to be completed purged.

The nation of Israel was never, as a whole, faithful to God. Only small families and groups remained true to Him. Isaiah mentions a "righteous remnant' dozens of times. Zephaniah predicted a time when "the remnant of Israel will not do unrighteousness, and speak no lies nor shall a deceitful tongue be found in their mouth" (Zephaniah 3:13).

The early Christians saw themselves as a remnant. And the early pilgrims coming to the new world often called themselves a remnant. In fact, the pilgrims on the Mayflower referred to themselves as Noah's family and the Mayflower as the ark.

Early founding fathers, Samuel Adams and others, referred to the righteous remnant God had taken from the old corrupt countries of Europe, rescued them, and brought them into a new world to begin a purer and holier society. Starting from scratch, as Noah did.

But when they used "remnant" it was not in reference to "scraps" and "left overs" -- it was
holy righteous people -- a people of value -- a people treasured by God. Not scraps, but jewels.

Today any small surviving group of people can be called a remnant. I guess that means us, too!
(And I guess women wearing hats are sort of a remnant, too! ...
Although wearing a hat does not make us a 'righteous remnant.')

Where is God when it hurts? Where are we? Notes from Philip Yancey

Where is God when it hurts? Where are we when it hurts? 

(40 days after Christ's resurrection, He ascended from earth back to His eternal heavenly glory...)

Dealing with Christ's Ascension back to His Glory....

Jesus knew that the world He left behind would include the poor, the hungry, the prisoners, the sick. The decrepit state of the world did not surprise Him.

He made plans to cope with it: a long-range plan and a short-range plan.

The long-range plan involves His return, in power and great glory, to straighten out planet earth.

The short-range plan means turning it over to the ones [us] who will ultimately usher in the liberation of the cosmos.

He ascended so we could take His place.

"Where is God when it hurts?" I have often asked. The answer is another question, "Where is the church when it hurts?"

That last question, of course, is the problem of history in a nutshell, and also the reason why I say the Ascension represents my greatest struggle of faith.

When Jesus departed, he left the keys of the kingdom in our fumbling hands.

The problem showed itself early on.

Commenting on the church in Corinth, Frederick Buechner writes, "They were in fact Christ's body, as Paul wrote to them here in one of his most enduring metaphors--Christ's eyes, ears, hands--but the way they were carrying on, that could only leave Christ bloodshot, ass-eared, all thumbs, to carry on God's work in a fallen world."

I could fill several pages with such colorful quotations, all of which underscore the risk involved in entrusting God's own reputation to the likes of us.


Unlike Jesus, we do not perfectly express the Word. We speak in garbled syntax, stuttering, mixing languages together, putting accent marks in wrong places.

When the world looks for Christ, it sees, like the cave-dwellers in Plato's allegory, only shadows created by the light, not the light itself.

Why don't we look more like the church Jesus described? Why does the body of Christ so faintly resemble Him?

If Jesus could foresee such disasters as the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Christian slave trade, apartheid, why did He ascend in the first place?

I cannot provide a confident answer to such questions, for I am part of the problem. Examined closely, my query takes on a distressingly personal cast: Why do I so poorly resemble Him?

How can one sinful man, myself, be accepted as a child of God? One miracle makes possible the other.

I remind myself that the apostle Paul's soaring words about the Bride of Christ and the temple of God were addressed to groups of hideously flawed individuals in places like Corinth.

"We have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us," wrote Paul, in one of the most accurate statements ever penned.

-- From The Jesus I Never Knew, by Philip Yancey.

[Note: You can read Paul's two letters to the flawed church in Corinth in the New Testament of your Bible - the letters are titled, not surprisingly, 1 and 2 Corinthians. For other examples, you can look around you at some of us other flawed sons and daughters of God!]