1403AFC010714 – More of the Same

Read it online here, please.

Genesis 24:7, 12-15 – [Abraham told his servant,] “The Lord, the God of heaven, who took me from my father’s house and the land of my relatives, promised me with a solemn oath, ‘To your descendants I will give this land.’ He will send his angel before you so that you may find a wife for my son from there.”

The servant journeyed to Abraham’s homeland and waited for the angel of the Lord to help him.

 [The servant of Abraham] prayed, “O Lord, God of my master Abraham, guide me today. Be faithful to my master Abraham. Here I am, standing by the spring, and the daughters of the people who live in the town are coming out to draw water. I will say to a young woman, ‘Please lower your jar so I may drink.’ May the one you have chosen for your servant Isaac reply, ‘Drink, and I’ll give your camels water too.’ In this way I will know that you have been faithful to my master.” Before he had finished praying, there came Rebekah with her water jug on her shoulder. She was the daughter of Bethuel son of Milcah (Milcah was the wife of Abraham’s brother Nahor).

Bethuel – Man of God. Milcah – Queen. Nahor – “Snorting.” Laban – White; Appearing Pure

Before we begin analyzing this story, let me ask you Did you take time to read Acts 10 last week? I hope so! There are two extraordinary lessons in that passage, so I hope you took the time do read it. If you did not, try to fit it in this week, please.

And so, now more of the same. In this selection from Genesis, the story of Abraham continues. He is very old, Ishmael and Isaac are both grown men, and Abraham wants Isaac to marry. However, he does not want the young man to marry any of the local women, the Canaanite women. Instead he wants a girl from “back home.” It was the custom at that time to marry within one’s family; that was not considered immoral or surrounded by taboos as it is today. Abraham is even wealthier than he was when he arrived in Canaan, and he prepares a caravan of gifts to attract the woman God has chosen for Isaac. He sends his servant back to his homeland to find the right woman for Isaac. He tells the servant that a messenger of God – an angel – will help him find the right woman. When the servant reaches his destination, he asks for signs from God to help him identify that woman. The first young woman he notices fulfills all the signs, and – as the story continues – she goes with the servant to Abraham’s holdings in Canaan, marries Isaac, and becomes the mother of Esau and Jacob. Jacob eventually becomes Israel, the founder of the nation from which will come the Messiah.

Who was this captivating young woman? He name was Rebekah. She, too, was from a wealthy family, and her family were relatives of Abraham. The name Rebekah (even if it is spelled Rebecca) can mean “captivating.” It comes from an old Hebrew word, associated with hoofed animals, referring to a loop that was used to bind the animal’s feet to keep it from running away; it was held captive by the loop of rope. In this sense, her name indicates she was very attractive. From her actions in the process involved in bargaining with her brother, Laban, she was self-confident, intelligent, generous, hard-working, and adventuresome. Laban was eventually related to Abraham’s family in three different ways: His sister Rebekah married Isaac, and his two daughters, Leah and Rachel, both married Jacob. It turn out that Laban was Abraham’s great-nephew, Isaac’s cousin and brother-in-law, and Jacob’s uncle and father-in-law.

The first meeting with Rebekah was at a well, and her willingness to draw water from the well to share with a stranger is something of a foreshadowing of Jesus’ meeting with the Samaritan woman at the well. Rebekah is not afraid to help a stranger in need. As the story develops we see that she is generous and hardworking (can you imagine volunteering to water 10 camels with water from a well drawn up in a watering jug?). She was beautiful, a virgin, and modest in her behavior. (Genesis 24:16) After revealing the details of his mission, the servant of Abraham began his a fairly long negotiation – in which Rebekah actually had more choice over whom she would marry than Isaac did – Laban and his crew concluded this was the will of God and they agreed to hand over Rebekah to the servant. After a meal and a night’s rest they were ready to go back, but Milcah and Laban (Rebekah’s mother and brother) asked for more time – ten days – before Rebekah would leave. The servant said, “I need to leave now. It’s God’s way.” They decided to ask Rebekah, “Do you want to go with this man?” and she replied, “I want to go.” It was a long journey. When they reach the place where Isaac was living, Rebekah modestly covered her face with a veil and approached Isaac. From there, it was pretty much love at first sight.

Ah, Beloved, we would do well to learn from this family. Abraham wanted his son to find a reputable wife, one that was not immersed in the idolatry and sinfulness of his neighbors surround him in Canaan. He trusted that God would send an angel to help find that woman. In this instance, as with the angel discussed last week, it seems it is God himself who interacts with the participants in this story. It is an incident wherein God “goes ahead” of the traveler and prepares the circumstances for success – much the same as assisting the nation Israel in battle is in the days of David. In our present day, we know it can be difficult to forge relationships with reputable people. Each of us who are readers of these messages are like the characters in this story: We love God, we want to do the right thing, we are committed to family. And yet, we also know that we are decidedly a minority. There are just so many people who don’t care to even acknowledge God, much less love and serve him. Doing things that are sinful, and living in ways that are contrary to God’s commands is constantly promoted all around us. The entire concept of family has been transformed for many in ways that are vulgar perversions of what God ordained for family life. Rachel brought solace to Isaac whose mother, Sarah, had passed shortly before this story. They loved each other deeply and wanted to raise a large family; but alas, it appeared Rachel was barren. Isaac had learned from his father’s experience and, supported by Rebekah’s strong faith in God, they decided to patiently wait for God’s plan to be fulfilled. Rebekah did conceive – twins! She and Isaac were a praying family, and when difficulties arose, they turned to God for guidance.

How can we use this story of Isaac and Rebekah in our lives today? I see at least three things we can hold onto here. First, always put God’s will first. As Paul said in Colossians 3:23-34, “do it heartily, as to the Lord,” and things will be better for you in the long run. This is often difficult to do, because our own will counters nearly every attempt to put God first. Nonetheless, with prayer and patience, like that of Isaac and Rebekah, we can conform to God’s will for our lives. They were blessed with messages from angels, and we can find similar blessings by listening to all the clues God gives us about living an upright and holy life.

Second, we need to do the right thing. This is an extension of the first point. “What is ‘the right thing?'” The will of God. How do we know the will of God? By listening to him! Where? First in scripture, but also in our hearts and minds – he does speak to us there. We have the pleasure of knowing that God made an extraordinary journey to come and find us. He took on human form, lived among us, and died on a cross to restore us to himself. He lived without sin and gave himself as a ransom for us all. When we unselfishly give our lives – even parts of our lives – to God by serving others, we participate in that redemptive act by being recipients of the redemption and by sharing the graces of redemption with others.

Third, we are called daily to answer the question that was put to Rebekah: “Do you want to go with this man?” Well, do you? Rebekah made a very long strip to accept a station in life she had never seen or contemplated. She went, in faith believing, to marry a man whom she had never met. Although it was a long journey, perhaps it was pleasant nonetheless. Our journeys are also long, and some of us have very pleasant journeys. Others of us have very difficult journeys. But, if we are traveling with Jesus, we are putting God’s will first and we are doing the right thing. May God bless you on your journey as the Bride of Christ – the Church.

Whatever, whenever, wherever, whoever, however, if ever, forever — at your service, Beloved!

chick

Aloha Friday Messages by Charles O. Todd, III is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

1402AFC011014 – Angels Watching Over Me

Read it online here, please.

Genesis 16:7 – The angel of the LORD found Hagar near a spring in the desert; it was the spring that is beside the road to Shur.

Aloha nui loa, Beloved. Today I want to look at this first use of the word angel in the Bible. Here is the context for this passage:

Abram’s wife, Sarai (the name means “Princess”), had not born him a child – male or female – and that gnawed at her heart and her pride. She wanted a child to love and to care for, and she wanted her husband to have a child to carry on his bloodline. She also wanted to lose the stigma of being barren and replace it with the blessing of being fertile. She was bitterly disappointed that she could not bear a child. She knew that God had promised Abram (whose name means “Exalted Father”) that he would make Abram the father of a great nation; but, that was a long time ago in Sarai’s mind. She was impatient for that great nation to get started, so she took advantage of an ancient custom and offered her servant Hagar (name translated as “flight”) – a young female slave from Egypt –  to Abram so that Hagar could bear him a child and, in Sarai’s mind, help God fulfill his promise to Abram. Abram basically said, “Yes Dear,” and sure enough, Hagar conceived.

As soon a Hagar found out that she – a young, woman slave – was pregnant with Abram’s offspring, she started arrogantly mistreating Sarai, as if her mistress were her inferior. Sarai was infuriated because of Hagar’s haughty insults, and she complained to Abram. Abram’s response was, “Don’t look at me! This was your idea. Fix it yourself.” Sarai then began to be so abusive to Hagar, perhaps even more than she herself had been abused by Hagar, that Hagar decided to run away. She headed out into the desert alone – hurt, angry, and probably feeling a bit self-righteous. She got as far as an oasis called Shur along the way often taken by travelers to get to Egypt; she was running back to her relative at home and was apparently thinking she would give birth to her child among her own people instead of this aging couple who had no child of their own. Instead of their surrogate, she would be the beginning place of her own family.

Then something extraordinary happened. Hagar, an Egyptian slave on the run, was suddenly in the presence of an Angel (Messenger) of the LORD. This verse is the first occurrence of this word angel or of the title Messenger of the LORD. The context in this verse, considering the appearances El Shadday – Almighty God – had made to Abram in the previous chapters (12-15), indicates that this was not one of the created angels, but actually God – Jehovah himself – appearing in a discernible human form – there’s no clue as to whether or not the messenger had a physical presence, but there was certainly a visual presence. The messenger asked her whence she came and where she was going. He had been watching her. Hagar gave half an answer, “I’m running away from Sarai.” The messenger, Jehovah, told her she must go back to her Mistress and put up with her abuse. He further said that she was carrying a male child who would be the first in a multitude of descendents of Hagar and Abram. She was to name him Ishmael (translated “God will hear” in accordance with Hagar’s complaint), and he would be the father of many nations (all Arabian) peoples. He would “live in open hostility against all his relatives.” Hagar went back, made amends with Sarai and Abram, and when her son was born, Abram named him Ishmael. At the time, Abram was 86 years old.

Thirteen years later, El Shaddai again confronted Abram, this time to tell him that within a year, Sarai would bear him a male child who would be the child of the Covenant promised to him by God. He – God – changed Abram’s name to Abraham (“Father of a Multitude”) and Sarai’s name to Sarah (“Noblewoman”). The child’s name would be Isaac (“he laughs”) because both Sarah and Abraham laughed out loud (Abraham apparently ROTFLOL – see Genesis 17:17-19) Abraham fell face down and laughed as he said to himself, “Can a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Can Sarah give birth at ninety?” So Abraham said to God, “If only Ishmael could live in your favor!” He was still trying to “help” God keep his promises.

We’re going to look back at this story over a few (don’t know how many) installments for three reasons: [1] We’ll look further into angels/messengers (both “created” and Divine), [2] We will continue to look into Biblical names so see how the names are signposts of God’s plans, and [3] we’ll look for the back-stories that help us apply these Old Testament (and maybe some New Testament) stories to our stories of our own lives. Here’s a little example based on what happened to Hagar.

First, we know she was being watched because the messenger of God found her – tracked her down – near the well at Shur. God watches all his creation, and that includes all of us.

Next, Hagar had a plan for her life, but she wasn’t paying attention to God’s plan. God had promised Abram myriads upon myriads (close to a gazillion) offspring, but he had not authorized the plan Sarai and Abram concocted, yet he still intended to ensure the seed of Abram would always see greatness. He promised that Hagar’s child would also have gazillions of offspring, but that they would always be opposed to the offspring of Sarai and Abram.

Third, although God was saving the lives of Hagar and her unborn child, he also chastised her for running away. He wanted her to go back, face the music – so to speak – and to completely submit to her Master and Mistress, bear a child for them, and allow Abram to raise him as his son.

As we develop this series, we will look often into these concepts associates with angels, biblical names, and the stories behind them. For today, I ask you to go dig out your Bibl and read the tenth chapter of Acts. There are a couple of great lessons there, so if you have a bible with a commentary and notes, be sure to take a little time with those, too.

Just a note of thanks to all of you who continue to read these every week. Please recall that these are not mine, but His, and whenever you use them, you are experiencing Him seeking you out and finding you in the desert. Please continue your prayers for all our friends with cancer, addictions, seemingly-hopeless financial situations, and especially pray for the folks like me whose arrogance matches or exceed that of Hagar.

Whatever, whenever, wherever, whoever, however, if ever, forever — at your service, Beloved

See you next week?

Chick

1401AFC010314 – Epiphany!

Read it online here, please.

It is done. 2013 is finally over. Earlier this week we celebrated New Year’s Day; for Crucita and I – as we said earlier – this January 1 is also New Life Day. How does it feel to be retired? Dunno. Haven’t gotten enough direct evidence yet, but I am working on it; wait – not working on it, maybe more like trying it out. We’ve set some ambitious goals for the first year like cleaning up the house, clearing out the library, changing our diets to match our finances (thinner), and of course “more exercise.” I think my top priority for the first couple of weeks of the year will be to develop and maintain a better pattern of rest and sleep. In the past two years I have aged rapidly, and I am hoping these changes will lessen the angle of decline and spread out into a new, albeit lower, plateau of day-to-day puttering.

We took the house off the market Tuesday when our sales contract expired. I don’t know if we’ll put it back on later – perhaps in the Spring – but perhaps not. Of course, as we’ve often said, we take this as a door gently closed so that we can now focus our attention on what God needs from us here. There is still much work to be done for Him and for us. We need to whittle down the volume of our “worldly goods.” There is some work on the house that needs to be done (there’s always work to be done on a 60-year-old-house). The yard still produces an incredible amount of stuff that has to be trimmed, pruned, cut, whacked, dug up, watered, weeded, and done all over again. We’ve already cut back a bit – about half – on our Sunday ministry as Lectors, and we’re thinking that will give us the opportunity to go to other Masses, visit our parish’s Mission Churches more often, go to Mass with our Compadres and our goddaughter, and I will continue serving on the Pastoral Council. That will be more challenging soon because we’ll be “retiring” about half of the current members and bringing on their replacements. Also, with regret, we just learned that our current Parochial Vicar (“Assistant Pastor” Fr. Gerry) has been transferred to O‘ahu and will be leaving in a matter of days. I look forward to working with the Council! It is the kind of service for which I am best suited.

As 2014 begins, all of us are thinking about what 2013 was like, what we hope will be better in 2014, what we hope continues with us from 2013, and some of us will resolve to take a proactive role in some sort of self-improvement. For many of us, that resolve will fade in about 6 weeks, and our safe-and-familiar ruts will welcome us back. For others, each New Year brings a certain determination to live better, become wiser and smarter, and to do something new or better with our lives. My hope for all of you, Beloved, is that 2014 will be a year for you to know and grow in the Light and the Word. My prayer for you is that – in every day of your life in 2014 – you fill your heart with the Light and the Word. That is, has been, and will be the purpose of these Aloha Friday Messages, the Aloha-Friday.org website, the daily Intercessory Prayer List, and the MBN Member Prayer. I have a special request for you about the MBN Member prayer (attached to this mailing). Would you try to use it often in your own daily devotions or prayer time, please? One of the goals I set at the inception of the MBN was to “pray without ceasing” for each other. It’s just a short little prayer, maybe 30 seconds or less, but it is a prayer that covers all of us – and many, many more people – with the intentions of Light and Love and Life.

There is a deep spiritual reason for asking our El-Shaddai-Olam to grant all of us that trio of blessings on a daily basis. The reason is that it helps us to follow Christ’s command to “love one another as I have loved you,” and to “let your light shine before all.” Your day-to-day life is given to you so that you can show the world the Light and Life of the Word. We use a special word for that – MANIFEST: demonstrate, show forth, exhibit, make plain, or reveal. We are to let the Light and Life of the Word become so obvious in us that it allows others access to a Spiritual Epiphany so that they, too, know the Light and Life of the Word.

The Feast of Epiphany is a commemoration of the Epiphany – the showing forth, the revealing – of Christ to the World by recalling the visit of the Magi. Long story short, Jesus was revealed to the lowest and poorest (shepherds), the purest (Anna and Simeon), and the most clearly-defined outsiders (the Magi), before his own nation learned who he was. The “Three Kings” knew Jesus as THE King, the fulfillment of prophecy. The Shepherds were told “For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.” Anna and Simeon knew Jesus to be “a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.” Both of these prophets were walking in the Holy Spirit because “the Holy Spirit rested” on them.

Beloved, guess what? THE HOLY SPIRIT RESTS ON US, TOO! Not only can we recognize Christ when he is shown to us, others can recognize Christ in us when we show him to them. That is AWESOME!! And I mean “awesome” in the way that it should be defined – overwhelming, amazing, awe-inspiring, wonderful, evoking respect, reverence, esteem, worship, adoration, praise, glory, and veneration. In John 8:12, Jesus says, “I am the light of the World. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” He is the Light. But remember this: He also says in Matthew 5:14-16 “You are the light of the World … let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.” How can HE be the Light and WE be the Light? You know the answer; his is in us and we are in him and the Spirit rests on us in unity with God the Father.

Epiphany me!

Beloved, each of us has been given and carries with us the Gift of the Light and Life of the Word. Gifts are not gifts unless they are given by one and received by another. We have been given an Awesome Gift. For us, it is a gift greater than those Worldly gifts brought by the Magi because it is an everlasting Gift. We have this Gift to use for the manifestation of Christ through our lives, in our world, and to the World. You and I are called upon to be like Mary and Joseph, Anna and Simeon, shepherds and Magi. We are part of Christ’s Epiphany in the ordinary, everyday, simple little things we do if we “do small things with great love.” Do this one, simple, little thing: Pray the prayer often. It will bring blessings to so many people (especially you). I hope you will find that your empathy and compassion grow, that you feel closer to those who love you because you love them for loving you, and that The Light and Life of the Word become an Epiphany to all who walk in darkness.

God bless you in this year of 2014. May he bless you with an irresistible affinity for HIM and an irrepressible commitment to Love others as he has loved you. You are the light of the World, the salt of the earth, the hope of things to come. When I love you as HE loves you, his Love is multiplied. When you love him as I love you, his love is multiplied again. When you love me as he loves you, his love is multiplied. When we give all of that love back to El-Shaddai-Olam, his love is multiplied. When our Gift to him is all of that love we have multiplied, his Gift to us is the Light and Life of the Word.

Let us pray: Almighty Triune God, our El-Shaddai-Olam, our gift to you today is the love you gave us which we then multiplied in the love we give to others, the lovely and lovable people you gave to us to love. Our love for them and our love for you is our gift to you today. Grant that this gift may increase so that it will be more fitting tomorrow. Through Christ our Lord. Amen

Whatever, whenever, wherever, whoever, however, if ever, forever — at your service, Beloved.

chick

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Light Life Word

1351AFC122613 – Emmanuel

Read it online here, please.

Isaiah 7:14 – Therefore Adonai himself will give you people a sign: the young woman* will become pregnant, bear a son and name him ‘Immanu El [God is with us].

Jeremiah 23:23-24 –  Am I God only when near,” asks Adonai, “and not when far away? Can anyone hide in a place so secret that I won’t see him?” asks Adonai. Adonai says, “Do I not
fill heaven and earth?

Psalm 139:7-14 – 7. Where can I go from your spirit? From your presence, where can I flee? 8. If I ascend to the heavens, you are there; if I lie down in Sheol*, there you are. 9. If I take the wings of dawn and dwell beyond the sea, 10. Even there your hand guides me, your right hand holds me fast. 11. If I say, “Surely darkness shall hide me, and night shall be my light”— 12. Darkness is not dark for you, and night shines as the day. Darkness and light are but one. 13. You formed my inmost being; you knit me in my mother’s womb. 14. I praise you, because I am wonderfully made; wonderful are your works! My very self you know. * Sheol: Sheol is not the same as our modern conception of Hell. It is “the abode of the dead.” It signifies the place where spirits of the deceased were gathered together in a dusty, dark, and silent place. The dead go down into it, some by volition, others are compelled to go; a few are awakened and go up or are taken up from it. The dead continue the activities employing them in their earthly life, but only as “shades,” mere shadows of their physical form; they are the souls of the dead who merely exist without genuine consciousness or emotion.

Today we will look at the fourth “omni” word in our Advent series: Omnipresence. Some folks feel that it’s a bit of a stretch to find Biblical evidence of this theological term, but I think the quotes we have at the opening get to the core of the idea pretty well. The thing we have to be careful about with the term Omnipresence is turning it into a sort of pantheistic cosmology – a belief that God and the material world – indeed the entire universe – are one and the same thing, that God is present in everything in such a way that the Universe is God and God is the Universe. There is another philosophical viewpoint – more acceptable in my understanding called panentheism. While pantheism asserts that “Everything is God for God is Everything,” panentheism goes further to claim that God is greater than the universe; the universe exists within God, who divinely “transcends,” or “permeates” and is thus “in” the universe but not identical to it. I want you to be able to look back at this paragraph to understand why this omni word came last in the series.

When I think of these words we have studied – Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnibenevolent, an now Omnipresent – I think the aspect of God’s Omnipresence is the clearest demonstration of God’s Great Mercy. We started with Omnipotence; God alone has the power to forgive because only God’s perfect power makes Perfect Justice possible. Righteousness, Justice, Kindness, Mercy, and Faith are perfect only in God. We have these potentialities in our own beings because we are created in the image and likeness of God.

We next looked at Omniscience. God alone knows everything about us before, during, and after anything we say, think, or do. How? God is God, unless we deliberately and obstinately exclude God from our lives, thereby  actively excluding God’s magnanimous gifts and refusing to accept the majesty and glory so near to us that we have to work really hard not to see it.

Last week we examined Omnibenevolence, God’s Perfect Goodness. As with the preceding two omni words, the “omni” meaning is closer in connotation to “ALL” than to “infinite.” God is ALL GOOD. “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above,” as we read in James 1:17, so there wherever there is goodness, it comes from, with, through, and for God. This brings us to today’s Omni word, Omnipresence.

To me, this is the greatest, and at the same time simplest, proof of the Mercy of God. He makes himself known to every living soul in every place, at every time, within everything that is good. No matter where you look, there is evidence of the presence of God. I imagine that some of you, Beloved, are saying, “How can that be?! How can you tell us God is present in the violence of school shootings, the horrors of war, the destitution of famine, unprecedented geological and ecological destruction, and the ravaging distress of disease? How is that Mercy?!” He is indeed present – in us, in those who suffer, in those who sacrifice something of their own life to preserve the life of another. When we try to assign blame to God for these things, we totally miss the point. These disharmonies in our life can be restored to harmony when we learn to “act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with [your] God.” Micah 6:8

God is so immensely, interminably merciful that his Mercy is beyond our comprehension – as is everything else about God. He is so Merciful that he places himself in everything around us, infuses himself into every aspect of our being, and does these things in such ways that even the least-attentive observer of Creation can see God’s Omnipresence. It takes active exerted effort to fail to see that Omnipresence. He is so merciful that he makes his existence entirely visible through the whole span of creation’s time, space, and matter. He wants to make sure we don’t miss finding him because, “Once we know where he is we know who he is (The Almighty Ever-living God – El-Shaddai-Olam).” Almighty and Everlasting God! That is my God, not just because he is the only God, but because he has revealed himself by being Omnipresent! My God! That is so AWESOME! It is also so sweetly merciful.

I am reminded of a Daddy who keeps his children safe by making sure the house is sound and capable of protecting them. He clears pebbles, stones, twigs, discarded candy and gum, and any other obstacles or dangers from the sidewalk, the playground, or the back yard to protect them from possible injuries. He buckles them in when they ride in the car and then double-checks the latch to make sure it will hold. He sits up with them at night when they are sick or have a bad dream. He is also like a Mommy who gathers her child into her arms for every skinned knee or pinched finger. She prepares meals from formula or breast-milk, to pizza and pot-roast with such love that you can actually taste it in what she makes. She flies in the face of anyone who unjustly persecutes or blames her child, forcing them to back down. And when the child has children, those children share in the extended love of Gramma and Grampa whose love transcends all the love their children and grandchildren experience.

If you do that for hundreds of millions of cycles, you might pick up on the first three notes of the Eternal Symphony sung to God by the Angel of God and the Thee Holy Children in the Fiery Furnace and written down by the prophet, Daniel: “Bless the Lord, all you works of the Lord! Praise and exalt Him above all forever!” (See Daniel 3:51-90) This passage is considered apocryphal by most non-Catholic denominations, so I encourage you to read it at the link in the line above or at this link. The Daddy and Mommy conceive, protect, nourish, nurture, educate, cherish, love, correct, and bless their child to save the child from injury, loss, pain, and death. God does that completely for everyone all the time everywhere. He gave that kind of restorative caring a name: SALVATION.

God’s Omnipresence is the stem of the shamrock, the base of the tetrahedron, the Foundation of the Ages. Because he can be Everywhere All That Is Can Be, he is Omnipresent. Because he is Omnipresent, he can be Omnipotent for he is All Power That Is Everywhere for All Time. And again, because he is Omnipresent and Omnipotent, he can be Omniscient for he is All Wisdom, Knowledge, and Glory in All Places At All Times for All Causes. Finally, because he is Omnipresent, Omnipotent, and Omniscient, he can be and forever is Omnibenevolent because his Perfect Justice, Perfect Love, Perfect Righteousness, and Perfect Kindness are shown to us every moment of our lives every way we look, every time we hear, everywhere we live and move and have our being. “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?” (1 Corinthians 6:19). Yes, he even lives in you and me! If you know that, then you know him.

Beloved, he’s right in front of you, all around you, right beside you, right inside you. O come, O come Emanuel!” (special thanks to Mary Jane McBride who took me to a Christmas Novena in 1967 which ultimately led to my conversion) And this verse from one of my favorite contemporary hymns sums up the whole series:

The mystery of Your presence Lord,
No mortal tongue can tell;
Whom all the world cannot contain
Comes in our hearts to dwell.

From You Satisfy the Hungry Heart Composer: Robert Kreutz; Text Author: Omer Westendorf

Have a Blesséd and Holy Christmas! Whatever, whenever, wherever, whoever, however, if ever, forever — at your service, Beloved.

We pray that those who fear they cannot or should not be forgiven will find that your mercy exceeds all their fears and will therefore know your salvation.

chick

1349AFC120613 – Mercy: Part 2

Read it online here, please.

Proverbs 10:16 – The wages of the righteous is life, but the earnings of the wicked are sin and death.

Romans 6:23 – Sin pays its servants: the wage is death. But God gives to those who serve him: his free gift is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Isaiah 3:10-11 – Tell the righteous it will be well with them, for they will enjoy the fruit of their deeds.  Woe to the wicked! Disaster is upon them! They will be paid back for what their hands have done.

Last week we looked at how God’s Omnipotence means he alone possesses Perfect Justice, Perfect Love, Perfect Righteousness, Perfect Kindness, and all these perfections empower him to be grant us Perfect Mercy. These traits of God are also in us because we are created in His image, but in us these traits are corrupted, imperfect, and incomplete. God’s Mercy fills up those imperfections and by doing that He makes us whole; he justifies us – He makes us just and righteous – by truly and completely removing our sins. Through Christ the atonement – the compensation for our sin (death) – is cancelled. That’s right, cancelled. It is as if it were never there. How can this be? How can God say, “I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more.” (Isaiah 43:25)?  What we owe because of sin is paid off by Him on our behalf; we are redeemed, bought back, forgiven the price for our sin – death.

David also testifies to the magnitude of God’s Mercy and Grace in Psalm 130:7: Isra’el, put your hope in Adonai! For grace is found with Adonai, and with him is unlimited redemption. We are “bought back” because of God’s Grace. Now, in this passage the phrase “For grace is found with Adonai” gives us some extra insight into how and why God does this. The phrase literally means “In God is found Covenant Loyalty.” God is loyal (faithful, true, trustworthy, constant) to his promise; he will never break his word (see the discussion of intrinsic strength in last week’s message).  And then look at how that verse from Psalm 130 ends – “with him is unlimited redemption.”  It doesn’t matter what the price is for your salvation, God – through Christ has got it covered!

Repent and Believe …

He is there with his unlimited mercy before we sin. He is there with his unlimited redemption after we sin. He is overflowing with tender, loving compassion and sympathy for each of us. He knows every living soul. He knows the “good, the bad, and the ugly” about everyone. Even though we don’t deserve mercy, he makes it readily available in such abundance that we can never use it up. Although we are completely lacking in personal merits, he overlooks that and always tips the scales of justice in our favor. He forgives thousands of generations of sin because it pleases him to do so. Even people who are blatantly evil will be forgiven when they repent of their evil. Whether we sin willfully or unknowingly, in malicious rebellion or carelessness, he is immediately prepared to redeem us and make us righteous. No matter how many times we repent and then fail again, he forgives everything of which we repent, but never remembers how often that happens. Only he can do this because only he is Omniscient. He knows everything about me and yet he still loves me; sometime even I don’t love me, but his love never fails. HIS LOVE NEVER FAILS. That is because God knows every living soul more intimately than we know ourselves. That’s what David tells us in Psalm 139. I won’t reproduce the entire text here, but I will ask you to read all of it. I’ll get you started with the first 6 verses:

 O Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away. You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways.  Even before a word is on my tongue, O Lord, you know it completely. You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain it.

David often talks about meditating on God’s Law. In other words, he finds it more worthwhile to contemplate God’s words, works, and worth than to be troubled over worldly worries and woes. He knew what it meant to be dedicated – betrothed – to God. The result of that was that God saw in David a man whose heart was like His own heart. David understood how God could have intimate knowledge of him because he had intimate knowledge of God.

But wait a minute! Isn’t God’s knowledge and glory so far beyond us that we can’t possibly comprehend the magnitude of his might, power, and magnificence?  How can any earthling have an intimate knowledge of God? You and I know plenty of people – often in our own families – who firmly believe that God is so far away, so detached, so irrelevant and uncaring that there’s no point in getting to know him. After all, he is unknowable if indeed he’s so powerful. I have heard people say, “What’s the point of knowing God? If he knows everything about me, how come he hasn’t fixed all the things that are rotten in my life? Why does everything have to be on His terms?”

Because, silly rabbit, HE is GOD and you are not! You don’t even know how to save your own life, much less the life of every living soul in all of history.  Remember our four “omni” words? God is Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnipresent, and Omnibenevolent. There is only one way for God to be irrelevant and that is through active exclusion of God from our lives. When we deliberately turn our backs on God, when we declare him irrelevant instead of Omnipotent, pointless instead of Omniscient, “somewhere out there” instead of Omnipresent, and uncaring instead of Omnibenevolent, we are actively excluding God and refusing to accept the majesty and glory so near to us that we have to work really hard not to see it. God is Good, and he wants us to be Good in, with, and for him. He gives us a bazillion-gazillion chances to get it right, but we can never get it right if we actively resist and exclude him from our lives. God becomes interior to us, as he did to David and so many other millions and millions of saintly people through the ages, only when we obediently include him in our lives. Once we know him, we know where he is (everywhere in everything and everybody). Once we know where he is we know who he is (The Almighty Ever-living God – El-Shaddai-Olam). Once we know who he is, we know what he does – he loves us and redeems us with such generosity that it cannot even be described even in language that is so high that I cannot attain it.

There’s just no way that God can be extraneous or irrelevant unless we actively exclude him from our lives. You know, people who exclude God aren’t necessarily evil, but they are cooperating with evil. Here’s the thing though: God, and only God, can bring good out of disaster, righteousness out of evil, joy out of sorrow, and peace out of strife and distress. There areevil people, and there are evil acts, but when God is brought into the picture, good comes from that evil; that good will not come if we keep God out either through denying him or failing to repent of our part in the evil that persists. That is the way of Redemption. God reaches out to help us reunite with him and we let him do that. Redemption is a supreme act of Mercy because it restores us to our rightful place in the presence of God – eternal life with him.

Do you know someone who is actively excluding God from life, even perhaps people in authority who exclude God on your behalf but against your wishes? Pray for them – intercede on their behalf and offer prayers of repentance they refuse to offer. Know someone who is upset about or injured by a so-called “Act of God?” God is not the cause of those events. The Acts of God are what happens after disasters like that which happened in the Philippines, or the Aurora Movie Theater, or Hurricane Sandy. Acts of God are what happen whenever we obediently include him in everything we do. That is how God’s Mercy reaches those who need it most, through our Spiritual and Corporal Acts of Mercy. (For more information on the Acts of Mercy, see the Aloha Friday Messages from February 19 through April 4, 2010.)

How do we know God is, was, and always will be merciful? Because he is Omnipotent. How do we know we are eligible for and can obtain God’s mercy? Because he is Omniscient, and knows how to reach us if only we let him in.

Be good to one another this coming week, and keep an eye out for God’s Mercy in your life! Who is merciful to you and to whom are you merciful? Which ones should have been merciful and were not, and who should have received mercy but did not? Who will you Bless with God’s Merciful Love? Remember, “Tell the righteous it will be well with them, for they will enjoy the fruit of their deeds.”

Whatever, whenever, wherever, whoever, however, if ever, forever — at your service, Beloved

chick