2629AFC071726 – Now Hear This!  ← PODCAST LINK 😊

Read it online here↑↑↑, please. We now have a READER VIEW available, so share this link or this email often. And please, when you visit there, use one of the social media links at the bottom of the page to share this post.  
Do you know someone who enjoys Bible study, or who might like to read this? Ask them to email us or to subscribe on our blog-site.

Wisdom 12:13-16 – (GNT) [1] ¹³ All things are under your care, and there is no other god to whom you must justify your decisions. ¹⁴ No king or ruler on earth can accuse you of punishing those people unfairly. ¹⁵ You are righteous, and you rule everything righteously. You have never used your power to condemn a person who does not deserve to be punished. ¹⁶ Your strength is the source of justice. You can show mercy to everyone, because you are the Lord of all.

Psalm 86:5-6 –
⁵ For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving,
    abounding in steadfast love to all who call on you.
⁶ Give ear, O Lord, to my prayer;
    listen to my cry of supplication.

Romans 8:26-27 – ²⁶ Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. ²⁷ And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

Matthew 13:36-43 – ³⁶ Then he left the crowds and went into the house. And his disciples approached him, saying, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field.” ³⁷ He answered, “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man; ³⁸ the field is the world, and the good seed are the children of the kingdom; the weeds are the children of the evil one, ³⁹ and the enemy who sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. ⁴⁰ Just as the weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. ⁴¹ The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, ⁴² and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. ⁴³ Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Let anyone with ears [to hear] listen!

Aloha nui loa, ʻŌmea! Before we begin, I'd like to fill you in on an unusual week, and as I write this it’s 3:45 on Tuesday. Monday, about this same time, I went to pick up something at our mailbox which is about 0.1 mi from the house on a very busy road. The road on which we live is made of holes and dirt. It is a “private Road,” an unimproved road that is not maintained by anyone. The people who live along this road are supposed to do their own road maintenance. There are no streetlights, no curbs, no sewer lines (most of us have cesspools, and a few have septic tanks). Annie Rd connects to Kawaihau Rd, a very busy county road where the speed limit is 25 but nearly everyone goes 40. So, off to the mailbox in the car because Annie Rd is too dangerous for me to try to walk. A real fall-hazard. I cautiously moved the car to the edge of the intersection on the extreme right of the dirt and holes. As I went to press on the brake so I could put the car in park and go get my mail, the heel of my shoe got stuck in the floormat, and – as the car is still slowly moving – my foot caught both the brake and the accelerator. The more I tried to press the brake, the more I pressed the accelerator as well. I started to shoot out into the busy road. I tried to turn hard-right to get onto the shoulder, but I was already too far into the road and I clipped a construction worker’s pickup on his passenger door.

No one was hurt – thank God for that! – but the left front “fender-bumper panel” on our Hyundai Kona  got peeled back pretty badly. We spent all day Tuesday trying to get insurance info taken care of and making an appointment to assess the damage – not start the repair – and we have to wait 2 weeks for that. Meanwhile Sunday I had lost the nose pad off my glasses and took them with us to the eye doctor’s office. It was closed for lunch. We went for lunch, ran some other errands, and went back after lunch. Bummer. I had apparently left my glasses in their case on top of the car when I got back in after going inside to her office. And it’s only Tuesday. Enough of that. Let’s shine some Light on The Word for this weekend. Lots of Scripture up in our Key Verses there, right? Shall we give it a go then?

The intended message is that The Word is already in our ears. Many folks don’t know that. Some of us think we know that. Some of us know we know that but don’t hear the Word clearly anyway. It pretty much boils down to this:

That means “if you have the capacity to understand, pay close attention.” Those who read these posts often will be familiar with the idea “We forgot” will know that if we say “Some of us know we know that but don’t hear anyway,” we don’t hear because we forgot to listen. We certainly have the capacity to understand – to hear – and actually we also have the capacity to pay close attention so as to be able to apply what we hear and learn – unless we forget.   Most of us have no problem remembering that God knows, created, watches over, and Loves everything he has created; that includes us. That’s the distilled version of the passage from the book of Wisdom. God created everything to be Righteous and Good – including us. Then, like a week full of surprises, our personal choices declare our brokenness, and things go sideways.

When that happens, we can sometimes wonder why God has taken such a difficult stance with us. We prefer our lives to go along without any serious bumps in the road. Everyone knows that’s not the case. Some of us get nothing but rocky roads to travel while others of us seem to have nice, clean, open highways. We also know that it could well be that some of our actions result in some of our problems. However as we have seen in our key verse from the Book of Wisdom, God is in charge of everything and He is fair in everything. God is Love and we know that. We know that God is righteous, and he rules everything righteously. He has never used his power to condemn a person who does not deserve to be punished. His strength is the source of justice. He can show mercy to everyone, because HE is the Lord of all. As we’ve said here often, we get what we ask for, and our asking is in our acting – actions speak louder than words. We choose to disobey and suffer the consequences. We choose to obey and enjoy the consequences. It is God's Immutable Justice that gives us what we deserve and God's Incomparable Grace that gives us what we need. And that, Belovéd, is why we say

This is echoed in the Key Verses from Sunday’s Psalm:
Psalm 86:5-6 –
⁵ For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving,
    abounding in steadfast love to all who call on you.
⁶ Give ear, O Lord, to my prayer;
    listen to my cry of supplication. (← Music Link)

Whenever we begin to feel a little beat up, that’s when we are invited to go more deeply into prayer; but, oftentimes we don’t know what to say or to pray. We just know we feel terrible, and want someone to take the pain away. That is why we can take confidence in the words The Apostle Paul gave to us from Romans. He tells us the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. Adelphos, when we enter into that kind of prayer, then we truly are with, and in, the Lord for the Lord is with, and in, us. Having God in our hearts means nothing can be hidden from him for he searches every human heart. We recall what The Apostle Paul told us in 1 Corinthians 2:10-12 – ¹⁰ these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. ¹¹ For what human being knows what is truly human except the human spirit that is within? So also no one comprehends what is truly God’s except the Spirit of God. ¹² Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit that is from God, so that we may understand the gifts bestowed on us by God. 

Adelphos, those Gifts include more tools for our use than even the fanciest Swiss Army Knife! Everything in our lives is under God's careful watch. Little by little he guides, corrects, nudges, calls, commands, and carries us toward Home – sometimes dragging us, who are kicking and screaming, away from that fiery cliff that drops straight into Hell. No matter how much we protest, and fight back, and tell God “ NO!! I DO IT MYSELF, I don’t care about YOLO-F or Obedience!!” God never gives up on bringing us closer to him. Sure, I'll guess that he would much rather we chose humility and docility over pride and disobedience. Matter of fact, I think we would much rather behave that way – but (again) we forget, we shift our allegiance from God to whatever other gods we prefer today – and they might be different tomorrow. But they are false gods, they are idols, they are – in the words of the Old Testament – harlots drawing us away from Truth and Life.

If we have eyes to see and ears to hear, then we should carefully heed what Jesus has said. There is a time of Harvest coming and the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. ⁴⁰ Just as the weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. ⁴¹ The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, ⁴² and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. DO we see? DO we hear? ARE we listening? (← Music Link) We turn again to The Apostle Paul in Ephesians 5:15 (GNT) – ¹⁵ So be careful how you live. Don't live like ignorant people, but like wise people. Here the Greek word translated “like” is hōs. Another way to express it is “even as” – don’t live even as ignorant people, but even as wise people.

Now, a nod to our Pastor, Fr. EJ Resinto. In the Parable of the sower, most studies talk about the soil or the seed. He spoke to us about the sower, the one throwing the seed. It is thrown generously, widely, confidently because the sower wants the seed to be fruitful and give a good harvest. We are challenged, then, to sow the Seed of The Word. And so I wondered: Are we sowers? Are we growers? Are we reapers? Are we threshers? Are we millers? Are we bakers? Are we eaters? Are we watching and listening to what role God is calling us in life as he little by little nudges, edges, and (when needed) boots us away from Death and into Life? If F.A.I.T.H. is our sighting of the Light then we gotta listen, yeppers. Romans 10:17 – ¹⁷ So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the word of Christ.

To many people in today's world, the message, the life, the reality of Jesus is just another factoid, a myth, or just unimportant. "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is too good to be true." But, it is True-with-a-capital-T true. And it does matter whether or not that Truth is heard. Have you, have I, and WE been called to tell The Truth? That’s what I heard. Now, so have you, as the title says.

Whatever, whenever, wherever, whoever, however, if ever, forever —
at your service, Belovéd!
Please pray with us here at Share-a-Prayer.