Aloha Friday Message – March 23, 2012 – Fifth Friday in Lent

March 23, 2012

1212AFC032312 – Catholic Letter Series

Read it online here.

KJV 1 Peter 2:4 To whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious, 5 Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.

NIV 1 Peter 2:4 As you come to him, the living Stone– rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him– 5 you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

NAB 1 Peter 2:4 Come to him, a living stone, rejected by human beings but chosen and precious in the sight of God, 5 and, like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

Aloha nui loa, Beloved. Today we are going to look at a beautiful letter attributed to Peter, also called Cephas (KAY-phus) which means Rock in Aramaic and is also a Greek word for rock Κηφᾶς.

In this letter, Peter gives us many beautiful images, draws many examples from Old Testament writers, and presents a wide array of topics that address many aspect of life in the early Church. The one I chose for the open in this message is one of my very favorites. In this he makes a connection between Christ, “the stone which the builders rejected,” and believers who have become “living stones,” that is to say like Christ in that they are to be Holy, submissive to God, and to build a holy dwelling which will be a Holy Nation serving God. The word for “living” used here is ζῶντα zaonta {dzah’-on-tah} from za,w zao {dzah’-o}. za,w is the verb “to live,” and ζῶντα is “living.” But it carries a much deeper connotation that being “merely alive.” One example is in the term “living water.” This is water that has “vital power in itself and exerting the same upon the soul.” It is living that is fresh, strong, efficient, active, powerful, and efficacious. We come to Christ as living stones animated with the same capacity for holiness found in the Apostles because that holiness comes from and through Christ. What a mighty image that brings to mind!

Peter tells us Christ was “chosen by God and precious to him.” Christ, the Messiah is “called ‘elect,’ as appointed by God to the most exalted office conceivable.” And we are called to that same life as his servants. We are called the elect, the chosen because “Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes” (Ephesians 1:4) This word is ἐκλεκτός eklektos {ek-lek-tos’} and it denotes the best of its kind or class.

As living stones, we are to be built into a “spiritual house,” a family for generations, offering up ” spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” WOW! That is such a powerful statement, because it describes not only our calling, but also the fulfillment of that calling.

In 1 Peter 1:8-9 Peter tells us, “Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.” What is that inexpressible joy and how do we feel it? How do we recognize it? It is the power of his love as delivered to us in and through the Holy Spirit that makes our hearts and minds leap for joy as we raise hearts and hands and voices to praise god for his generous love, unfailing promise, and awesome presence in our lives.

In 1 Peter 2:9 Peter tells us the reason God has fashioned us a living stone. “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” God is Light. We are called to live in the Light, to let our Light shine, to be the Light shining in the darkness. 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.”

There are dozens of power-packed images like that in this single short letter. Scholars generally agree that it was written by Peter, with help from Silas (who may have been a “professional writer,” helping Peter achieve a very polished Greek text which might have been a bit out of Peter’s reach normally). The letter is addressed to churches planted by Paul and his fellow sojourners in Asia Minor: Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. That may have been the order in which a courier might have delivered the letter to those churches.

The letter mentions persecutions, suffering with Christ as we daily take up our cross, even dying under persecutions for the Gospel and for the joy we have of being so close to our Savior and God. I looked at several analyses of how this letter is put together, and here is a listing based on those reviews:

 

  1. 1 Peter 1:1–12: The JOY we have in knowing God loves us so much he provided a Perfect Sacrifice for our salvation – his only begotten son.
  2. 1 Peter 1:13–2:3: God’s love should inspire us to v-be some much like him that we strive mightily to be holy as he is holy.
  3. 1 Peter 2:4–12: Israel, the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, was the People God chose to be distinctly his own, the People of the First Covenant. Despite the many times they ignored that, God honored his promises, and not only made Abraham the father of many nations, he also us part of Abraham’s descendants through Jesus sacrificial suffering.
  4. 1 Peter 2:13-23: We can share in, identify with, and submit to persecution and suffering with Jesus and for the Gospel. Whenever we do so, we die a bit to ourselves and to the world, but we also glorify God.
  5. 1 Peter 2:24‐25: Jesus’ expiation (The complete reconciliation of God and humans brought about by the redemptive life and death of Jesus) of our sins is a powerful, awesome, incomprehensibly valuable gift – it is a gift given through the Grace of God, and that brings us back to the “Shepherd and Overseer” of our souls – our Creator, God. How can we begin to measure how grateful that can make us feel?!?
  6. 1 Peter 3:1‐7: God is community as the Trinity. He established family as a community through the sacrament of marriage. Husbands and wives can honor this sacred vocation by honoring one another, loving one another as God has loved them. Dishonoring one’s spouse is point-blank dishonoring God.
  7. 1 Peter 3:8‐22: This passage begins, ” Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing.” Peter goes on to say that under no circumstance or persecution and suffering should we seek to harm those who bring about that persecution and suffering. If we suffer for doing what is good, that is so much better than suffering for doing evil!
  8. 1 Peter 4:1‐11: The World wants us to be like them, and constantly entices us to live “in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry.” They make fun of us for being “religious nuts,” but when Judgment comes, they will have one hell of a time coming to them. As for us, we are to ” keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins (theirs and ours). Show hospitality to one another without grumbling. As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another. Jesus blood cleansed you of your sins – the ways you have hurt yourself, your community, and your God; is blood also cleansed the sins of those who hurt you, hurt your community, and offend our God. His sacrifice covers all completely, permanently, eternally.
  9. 1 Peter 4:12‐19: “No matter how you struggle or strive, you’ll never get out of this world alive.” And struggle and strive as we might, we will always be facing situations where our suffering persists. Rather than wail and gnash or teeth, we can rejoice because are blessed, in that suffering when “the Spirit of glory and of God rests” upon us. ” Therefore let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good.”
  10. 1 Peter 5:1‐6: When the World sees us acting this way – joyous in serving, joyous in suffering – they will want to know more about our joy and more about our shepherd. Those who are chosen for servant- leadership through the gifts of God will serve gladly, equitably, humbly – as did Christ. I probably will never be easy, but Peter tells us ” after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.”
  11. 1 Peter 5:7‐14: God will do all these powerful and wonderful things to and for us because of his intense, eternal, infallible LOVE. No matter what Satan tries to do to us to destroy our relationship with God, that relationship is always restored when we reconfirm our alliance with God and rejoice in the wonder of his uncompromising love and care.

Share-A-Prayer

M&PC wrote to tell us, “We are praying for whole world for peace, safety, and wellbeing everywhere.” What an excellent prayer intention. Maybe you can add it to your list of intentions. So many places around the world are experiencing terrible weather, terrible acts of evil, terrible acts of violence. Pray that Peace will rule the planet, and let it begin with you.

Please continue to pray for the family of Baby Cheyanne. She lost her battle with multiple health problems. It has been so difficult for Mom and Dad, and for the whole family. They know Cheyanne has found 100% healing in the Light of His Glory and Love. The loss of that sweet child, however, was a hard blow. Pray for them to return to the joy they anticipated the moment she was born.

Pray for those who suffer for their faith. You would think that “in this day and age” religious persecution – even to the point of martyrdom – would be nonexistent. But it is not.

Pray for everyone who suffers poverty, injustice, hunger, loss of work or loss of income; for those who suffer through illnesses like cancer, mental illness, chronic disease, acute or chronic pain; pray for those whose family are falling apart and for those whose families are just beginning or just beginning to heal.

Finally beloved, pray for one another. You know there is a Daily Intercessory Prayer List. Whenever you pray the MBN prayer, that short prayer includes all of the intentions in the Intercessory prayer list – over 100 now.

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

chick

Aloha Friday Message – HOSANNA! – Sixth Friday of Lent

April 15, 2011

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Happy Hosanna Friday, Beloved!

Today I am thinking about Jesus’ Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem. What a wonderful story is there. We’ve heard it before, maybe seen it enacted in a movie or a play, and we have a pretty good idea of the events. I want to look at some of the characters and symbols in this story. In Matthew it goes like this:

Matthew 21:1 When they drew near Jerusalem and came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, 2 saying to them, “Go into the village opposite you, and immediately you will find an ass tethered, and a colt with her. Untie them and bring them here to me. 3 And if anyone should say anything to you, reply, ‘The master has need of them.’ Then he will send them at once.” 4 This happened so that what had been spoken through the prophet might be fulfilled: 5 “Say to daughter Zion, ‘Behold, your king comes to you, meek and riding on an ass, and on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.'” 6 The disciples went and did as Jesus had ordered them.

7 They brought the ass and the colt and laid their cloaks over them, and he sat upon them. 8 The very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and strewed them on the road. 9 The crowds preceding him and those following kept crying out and saying: “Hosanna to the Son of David; blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord; hosanna in the highest.” 10 And when he entered Jerusalem the whole city was shaken and asked, “Who is this?” 11 And the crowds replied, “This is Jesus the prophet, from Nazareth in Galilee.”

And in Luke 19 we have these details:

29 As he drew near to Bethphage and Bethany at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples. 30 He said, “Go into the village opposite you, and as you enter it you will find a colt tethered on which no one has ever sat. Untie it and bring it here. 31 And if anyone should ask you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ you will answer, ‘The Master has need of it.'” 32 So those who had been sent went off and found everything just as he had told them. 33 And as they were untying the colt, its owners said to them, “Why are you untying this colt?” 34 They answered, “The Master has need of it.” 35 So they brought it to Jesus, threw their cloaks over the colt, and helped Jesus to mount. 36 As he rode along, the people were spreading their cloaks on the road; 37 and now as he was approaching the slope of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of his disciples began to praise God aloud with joy for all the mighty deeds they had seen. 38 They proclaimed: “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord. Peace in heaven and glory in the highest.” 39 Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.” 40 He said in reply, “I tell you, if they keep silent, the stones will cry out!”

In Zechariah 9:9 we read: Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. So the fact that Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey was, in part, a fulfillment of scripture. But there’s more. In Jesus day, and in many Eastern cultures, a donkey is seen as symbol of peace. A king who rides in on a donkey is coming peacefully. A king who rides in on a horse is coming in war. It is also significant that the colt Jesus’ disciples borrow is one that has never been ridden. Here the King of Peace is so gentle and so humble that even a young colt never before ridden submits to Jesus’ presence. Instead of bucking him off, the colt meekly carries a full-grown man. It is interesting to me that the disciples who went to fetch it did so without question, and then they put their own cloaks on the back of the colt to make a more comfortable seat. I think it might have also been more comfortable for the colt! And you know, I think that colt’s mama walked next to him on that journey. Read it again and see if you think so, too. But how did this come about?

How did the owner know it was OK to lend his animal to Jesus’ Disciples? The gospels don’t say, but as often as Jesus traveled through that area, he sure must have had more friends than just Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. Since this must have been shortly after Lazarus was raised, maybe the guy who owned the colt had told Jesus, “If you ever need anything at all just let me know. It’s yours!” Just speculating about that is kind of fun, but really, we don’t know exactly what happened in that part of the story.

Jesus was in Bethany, close to Bethphage (“Place of new – or unripe – figs”) somewhere perhaps around the Mount of Olives. He gets on the colt in Bethany – about 2 miles from Jerusalem, and heads into town. On the way people who have seen him, who know him – some intimately, some only be reputation – get excited about seeing him, and they begin to remember Zechariah 9:9. They start pulling down palm fronds and laying them on the path in front of him or waving them in the air. The palm was a symbol of victory – even Holy Victory. In addition people were laying their cloaks down in the road and letting the little donkey pass over them. A similar event is reported in 2 Kings 9. [They hurried and took their cloaks and spread them under him on the bare steps. Then they blew the trumpet and shouted, “Jehu is king!”] Elisha had just anointed Jehu (“Yahweh is He”) as King of Israel, and had ordered him to go avenge the murders committed by Jezebel’s forces when she had the prophets slaughtered. The king, Ahab, had permitted this, and Jehu was told to destroy Ahab as well.

Spreading cloaks or other object to “pave the way” was a common demonstration of respect for the dignity and power of a person – a King, a general, even a prophet. So now we have Jesus on a baby donkey (my mind keeps hearing the Christmas Carol “Little Donkey, Little Donkey, With a heavy load,”) and everyone is shouting and happy and cheering and dancing and running ahead and coming back and just going nuts over what Jesus is doing. He is finally defining himself as the Messiah, the Ruler of Israel, The Son of David! And, they surely thought he was about to kick the Romans out of town as the Rightful Ruler.

But, he was on a donkey, not a horse.

Can you imagine what’s going on in Jesus’ head? He’s going to Jerusalem in just six day to celebrate Passover for the last time. Then he will die a most horrible, terrifying, painful death. And he will be forsaken by his Father. On the way into town he looks out over Jerusalem and sheds tears because of what they have missed out on while he was with them, and then He just goes into town and busts up … Not the Romans! The Temple!!

Whoa! That was a surprise! And from there on, things sort of unfolded into The Last Supper, The Garden of Gethsemane, the pavement at Gabbatha, and finally Golgotha. In less than a week he went from “Hosanna” to “Crucify him!”

Now you know a little about the story. When you are holding your palm branches Sunday, think about that little donkey and what a privilege it was to carry Jesus. Beloved, you can carry him too; in your heart, not on your back. Spread out your best things for him and invite him to have a seat. Carry him wherever you go and once in a while, just for the sheer JOY of it, shout, I said SHOUT, “HOSANNA!!”

Share-A-Prayer

• A special request from WT to pray for J. Joseph who was admitted to the hospital in her continuing fight with cancer. Pray for hope, healing, and health.
• Our MBN friends I Haiti report that many of the children and the workers too are ill. Sounds like a virus is sweeping through their numbers. Pray for return to health, and that the many new infants they have with them can stay hydrated and be strong enough to recover.
• Thank you for your prayers over the past few weeks. Please go back and look at the prayer requests from the beginning of Lent. I believe as you take the time to look at them, God will move your heart to make a special effort to embrace one or more of those requests.
• Thanks for the family of EW for sharing the news that E had gone to meet his Lord. He was – and still is – a remarkable man. You might remember him here.
• Thanks also from KV who reports prayer has been working for her and she feels pretty darn good!

Thanks everyone. Next week the message will be about Good Friday – sort of. Please watch for it on a computer screen near you!

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

chick

Aloha Friday, August 10, 2004 – The Fruits of the Holy Spirit

August 10, 2004

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Aloha, dear friend! Another week comes to an end. For so many people, this has been a week of severe testing – Florida, Iraq and Afghanistan, Sudan and Indonesia. For some it has been a struggle in their own homes, and for others a deeper struggle in their own bodies, or their hearts and minds. How are we supposed to respond to all of this? It is, in all honesty, overwhelming.

These difficulties are so prevalent that we can sometimes feel – and see – hope is defeated. Not so. If you look at the terrible and difficult things that are happening in the world and in our lives, it sort of follow that old Pareto rule, that 80/20 thing. Pareto’s rule states that a small number of causes is responsible for a large percentage of the effect, in a ratio of about 20:80. Expressed in a management context, 20% of a person’s effort generates 80% of the person’s results. The corollary to this is that 20% of one’s results absorb 80% of one’s resources or efforts. And we could extrapolate that to say that 80% of the things that try our spirits are caused by 20% of the things that happen. Or maybe even that 20% of the things that we view as catastrophic are natural physical events – like volcanoes, tornadoes, hurricanes, lung cancer, plagues of locusts, and the like. The other 80% might be spiritual like war, terrorism, pornography, crack and speed, infidelity, hopelessness, depraved indifference to human life from the moment of conception to the moment of death, and so many other things that often make being alive more difficult than it should be for so many millions of people.

What can we do about all this? Perhaps we can choose to live a spiritual life at home, at work, at school, at play, and even (incredible!) at church. Here’s a little quote from NIV Bible:

Galatians 5:22-23
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

Well, at least there shouldn’t be. We find ourselves confronting those “unwritten laws” that say living a spiritual life is not acceptable; we are out of touch with reality if we believe such things really make a difference. In the world’s views, that is. In God’s view, these things ARE life. And they’re not so difficult to live with either. In a recent article that appeared in THE CATHOLIC HERALD the diocesan newspaper for the Diocese of Honolulu, Fr. William J. Byron, SJ, had this to say about these seven gifts of the spirit:

Love is service and sacrifice.
Joy is balance at the center of the soul.
Peace is good order.
Patience is the ability to endure whatever comes.
Kindness is attentive regard for the other.
Generosity is the habitual disposition to share.
Gentleness is courageous respect for other.
Self-control is a voluntary check on the appetite for success.

We are created in God’s image, and part of the heritage of that image is the gift of self-determination. If we choose to remember what these things actually mean, we can bring that choice, that spirituality into our lives, our world, our 80/20 mix. Here’s the thing: It’s also true that 80% of the good things in this world come from the 20% of our spiritual gifts we share with each other. Today I challenge you to go for 21%. Print out this note, or cut and paste Fr. Byron’s examples into another document you can print out and hang on your wall (I made a really pretty one with fancy lettering and images). It’s just a reminder, but it’s also just a way to change the world and maybe even the future population of heaven.

Love in Christ,

Chick

PS: Here’s a bonus just for you. http://m11.t3media.net/t/15274/8554348/694/0/

Aloha Friday Message – October 31, 2025 – At Peace in The Lord

October 31, 2025

2544AFC103125 – At Peace in The Lord  ← PODCAST LINK 😀

Normally the readings for this coming Sunday would be for the 31st Sunday (←Please review) in Ordinary Time. this Sunday, however, is November 2, 2025, and the 2nd of November is The Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed (All Souls Day). Today’s post will be based on those readings for that Commemoration.

Read it online here, please. Reading it online allows the email version to reach many more subscribers. Thank you! And remember, we now have a READER VIEW available, so share this link or this email often.
Do you know someone who enjoys Bible study, or who might like to read this? Please forward this to them and ask them also to share it to others.

Wisdom 3:6-7 – 6 like gold in the furnace he tried them,
and like a sacrificial burnt offering he accepted them.
7 In the time of their visitation they will shine forth,
and will run like sparks through the stubble. (NRSVCE)
5-6 Their sufferings were minor compared with the blessings they will receive. God has tested them, like gold in a furnace, and found them worthy to be with him. He has accepted them, just as he accepts the sacrifices which his worshipers burn on the altar.
7 When God comes to reward the righteous, they will blaze out against the wicked like fire in dry straw. [1] (GNT)

Romans 5:9-10 – 9 Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God. *n 10 For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life.

*n Ire, anger, indignation, vengeance; stretching out to grasp to deliver punishment; wrath as in justifiable abhorrence

Psalm 23:6 –
6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
    all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
    my whole life long.

John 6:40 – 40 “This is indeed the will of my Father, that all who see the Son and believe in him may have eternal life; and I will raise them up on the last day.”

Aloha nui loa, Adelphos! Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. This will be a different type of post. Something has happened to my right hand, and it’s very difficult for me to type. It could be a sprain, or a strain, or maybe some kind of carpal tunnel thing. So after praying about it, I’ve decided to make this just pretty much a music post. There will be several songs listed and hopefully you’ll enjoy having a little “hymn-sing.”

The whole point of this post was supposed to be “being at peace with the Lord.” In the Book of Wisdom quoted above, God has told us that we will be tested. What is the purpose of that test? The purpose is to purify the gold – and for us that’s purify the heart because that’s where the real treasure is in our lives. That purification is important because that is what will preserve us from the wrath of God. In your mind imagine God reaching out with his right hand toward all the souls gathered before him. He reaches to pick them up and gather them to himself. Then think of God reaching out with his left hand and gathering the souls before him, and then throwing them into the Eternal Fire. If you don’t think that’s going to happen, or that something like that is impossible, then you need to go back and read that passage about the sheep and the goats. (See Matthew 25:31-46 especially v. 33)

What we want is for our lives to be filled with peace as in Psalm 23 where David wrote “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell on the House of the Lord forever”. Now that’s what my plan is: follow the APP, and avoid the Trap!

And if we look at what Jesus said in the Gospel of John, then we know that we’re doing what God expected, we are following Jesus and he will raise us up on the last day.

Now if you’re wondering how I did this, I’m experimenting with voice to text! It is indeed a little easier than using my hands to type but considerably more frustrating because I’m not practiced at it. The next thing I’m going to do is give you several links to songs. Pick as many as you want. Play them all, or just play one that maybe you think you’d like to hear. Just know that I love you Adelphos, and hopefully things will go better next week. Peace be with you. Please pray for us, too. We’re being tested this week by a neighbor over a parking space. Lord have Mercy! 😀  

Here’s my “short list” ~~

Nearer My God To Thee

Abide With Me

IMMORTAL INVISIBLE (Try this. it makes a wonderful praise prayer!)

I Need Thee Every Hour

To God Be The Glory

More Love To Thee

For The Beauty Of The Earth

My Jesus I Love Thee

I should also tell you that today’s key in the key verse area was made through AI using CoPilot. There are twelve nibs – 5 on one side and 7 on the other – and those represent the 12 tribes of Israel, and also the 12 Apostles, and also the 12 gates into Heaven. At the top the bow (Handle) shows the gates of Heaven awaiting the key.

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

 Please pray with us here at Share-a-Prayer.

Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture passages are from the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Biblical languages inserts from Bible Hub (Bible Hub: Search, Read, Study the Bible in Many Languages) Visit at http://biblehub.com

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

[1] Passages marked (GNT): Good News Translation (GNT) are from the Good News Translation® (Today’s English Version, Second Edition)© 1992 American Bible Society. All rights reserved. For more information about GNT, visit www.bibles.com and www.gnt.bible.

Aloha Friday Message – October 24, 2025 – Praise, Humility, Faithfulness, and Service

October 24, 2025

2543AFC1012425 – Praise, Humility, Faithfulness, and Service ← PODCAST LINK 😀

Read it online here, please. Reading it online allows the email version to reach many more subscribers. Thank you! And remember, we now have a READER VIEW available, so share this link or this email often.
Do you know someone who enjoys Bible study, or who might like to read this? Please forward this to them and ask them also to share it to others.

Psalm 34:1 –
I will bless the Lord at all times;
 his praise shall continually be in my mouth. Praise

Luke 18:13 c – God. be merciful to me, a sinner. Humility

2 Timothy 4:7 c – I have kept the faith. Faithfulness

Sirach 35:14 – The one who serves God willingly is heard Service

Aloha nui loa, ʻŌmea! Praised be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places! Grace and Peace to each of you from God our Father and our Lord, Jesus the Christ, in the Power of the Holy Spirit. These four short phrases from the coming Sunday’s readings seemed to me to set an outline of “a great way to live” because it encompasses “a great way to pray.” The Gospel for the 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time is “The Parable of the Pharisee and the Publican.” The Pharisee, all full of himself, prays to be seen – not only is he putting on a show for his fellow Jews, but he is also literally “praying to be seen,” his prayer is that others will see him and recognize what a swell guy he is. All the while he is perfectly unaware, that God – Who sees everything, and everyone, all the time everywhere – can see what a fake he is. On a humility scale of 1 to 10, he’d score like a minus 2! Prayer requires humility. Without that prerequisite, it’s just empty words. (See Job 35:12-13)

On the other hand, standing well back from such a grand specimen of an earthling, there is the Publican, a tax collector, a collaborator with the enemy, Rome. His head is bowed and he is stooped over beating his chest and praying in humble honesty, “God be merciful to me, a sinner.” Jesus tells us in this parable that the prayer of the tax collector was favorably received and welcomed by God for the man’s justification. The Pharisee’s reward was as he prayed for – he was seen by others, and that’s all he gets. This story, and especially this image, always enters my mind and heart during Mass when we pray, “Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.” What an amazing prayer, and only one little part of The Perfect Prayer, the Mass!

We begin this post with the aspect of Worship that should be the beginning of all worship: PRAISE. In Judges 1:2 and Judges 20:18, we see God’s Will when the Israelites asked God which tribe should lead their forces against the enemies. God’s answer was “Let Judah go up first.” (← Check it out in those passages.). Many Bible scholars (and this passionate student of the Word) recognize that “Judah” means “Praise” { יְהוּדָה} so that the Scripture reads, “Let {Praise} go up first.” This is illustrated in The Lord’s Prayer, “Father in Heaven, your name is Holy.” We also recognize that Jesus’ name in Hebrew – Yeshua – means “Jehovah Saves,” or “God is Salvation.” Thus, by invoking the very name of Jesus, (↔ Music Link) we give praise to God. Jesus is “the refulgence (lustrous splendorous brilliancy) of God’s Glory, and so in praying or calling or speaking his name, we not only invoke God, but also we offer him Perfect Praise. Knowing, then, that God is God, we are not; knowing that Jesus is God and we are not; knowing that the Holy Spirit is God, and we cannot be; then we are disposed to approach in our prayers The Lord, the Giver of Life with at least wonder and awe, and hopefully with humility as well, and we could start with “The Jesus Prayer.”

Today, then, we will look in particular at one very special prayer. It is most often known as “The Jesus Prayer.” One common format is “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” There is a popular musical setting by Tom Booth The Jesus Song (↔ Music Link). I want to go back a bit and look at how this prayer is “put together.” This goes back to 2019, so you might remember it:
The Jesus Prayer combines three New Testament Scriptures: [1] The Messianic theological hymn of the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Philippians in Philippians 2:6–11 (See verse 11: “Jesus Christ is Lord”), the Annunciation as presented in Luke 1:31–35 (See verse 35: “Son of God”), and the Parable of the Pharisee and the Publican (Tax Collector) of Luke 18:9–14, in which the Pharisee demonstrates the improper way to pray (See verse 11: “God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.”), whereas the Publican prays correctly in humility (See verse 13: “God be merciful to me a sinner”). It takes humility to pray and humility comes to us by Grace and Grace is a gift from God, so when we pray we exercise (make use of) and Extra-Ordinary Gift from God – in short God prepares us to pray, and if we accept the Gift of Grace that elicits prayer, we respond to him by asking him to respond to us. God is always the initiator of every Grace because he is ALWAYS THE Giver of all Good Gifts. Many a day I think that Grace must be the goodest Gift God included in Creation. These two, Praise and Humility, make a good pair, yes? When I think about grace I consider it to be something like Justice tempered with Mercy that is gifted to all who will accept it. Who would not accept it? Persons like the Pharisee who cannot even fake humility in the presence of Almighty God.

It does indeed take humility to pray The Jesus Prayer. It takes nothing of conscience or spirit to recite this prayer. Recitation of prayers is a convenient trap for the devil to get into our heads and hearts. Now, let’s add to the list of “Praise and Humility” the concept of “FAITHFULNESS.” I have been prompted to dig into that a bit deeper. We all know what it means – or at least we all think that we do – and we also have a pretty good idea about what it should look like. Let’s begin with the Key Verse in 2 Timothy 4:7 c – I have kept the faith. In this The Apostle Paul attests to the example of his own life as evidence of believing in the Truth of the Gospel and living in accordance with that Truth despite having only incomplete knowledge and understanding of how that Truth is given to us through Grace so that we may claim it in fellowship with the Entirety of God in and through Christ Jesus. Now that’s a lot of words to say, “He walked the Talk.” Nonetheless, faithfulness is also one of those unfathomable Mysteries of God’s Perfect Integrity, Endless Mercy, Everlasting Love, And Eternal Salvation because of his Immutable Justice. (Wait for it!) It’s all in the APP, the Absolutely Perfect Plan. God, who is (as we have already seen) the initiator of all Good Gifts, is perpetually Faithful – so that we therefore have complete confidence that God will not ask us to do anything for him that he would not do for us. In fact, God always initiates and exemplifies everything we should do for him by doing all those things for us first. He keeps every promise he makes, so guess what? SO MUST WE. We cannot do that without praise, humility, Grace, faithfulness, and service.

We know that we can rely on God to receive our praise, to bless our genuine (not “Pharisaical”) humility, to encourage and bless our faithfulness, and in all of these Gifts he expects us to accept and use everything he gives us. Now, why would he do something like that? He would do it so that we will apply those gifts to our worship of him and to our faith and charity for others. Hmmm, what could we call that? it sounds a lot like the Fourth Pillar of Stewardship. What is the Fourth Pillar of Stewardship? The Four Pillars of Stewardship are HOSPITALITY, PRAYER, FORMATION, AND SERVICE. Sirach 35:14 – The one who serves God willingly is heard. Not only that but also John 13:34-35 – 34 I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”(↔ Music Link)

Would it be fair to assert that Love CAN be the cause of our willingness to render service – service to God and to each other? Does that make any sense? Let’s think for a moment about our loved ones – parents, siblings, spouses, offspring, friends, fellow pilgrims and sojourners. When we Love them, it seems only natural that we would serve them. How? As an example, should parents serve their children? Isn’t it supposed to be the other way around?

“To serve” has roots in being a slave to someone else, to be devoted to another person or idea, or institution such as a religion. For those among us who are parents, were you devoted to your children so that it was your honor to provide them with all that they needed to learn how to Love and Serve God and others in their sphere of influence? Nearly all of us grew up knowing and loving at least one parent or guardian, one person whose centrality in our lives made life at least bearable, if not downright delightful. In a reasonable and caring climate, we are inspired to serve them, to make them proud, to give them the satisfaction of knowing that “the best that I can do” was good enough to bring out the best in us?

So it must also be with our Creator, The Lord God. I usually expand that title to “The Lord, the Giver of Life.” He is Jehovah Sabaoth which is translated as “the Lord of Hosts.” That is often applied to the concept of God’s Armies, but really it means everything that God is and all of his Creation. We could translate it as God of All or God of Everything. He is Elyon El – Most-High God, Jehovah Jireh, the God who provides. He is El Shaddai – God Almighty. He is El Olam, God Everlasting. He is Abba, Dad (↔ Music Link). How can that be? It is because, in that as in everything else, God Our Father acts first, and every time he does that, we are called by HIM, to respond with Praise, Humility, Faithfulness, and Service (and much, much more as well!). This Good and Loving Father wants to help us learn to Love and Serve him, and our neighbors, by transforming us into the image of his Son. And what might that accomplish? Let’s look at what The Apostle Paul says in Colossians 1:15-17 – 15 He [Jesus] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; 16 for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. 17 He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

Here are a few other things to strengthen the case for the aspect of the APP:
Psalm 115:3 – 3 Our God is in the heavens; he does whatever he pleases.
Lamentations 3:37-39 – 37 Who can command and have it done, if the Lord has not ordained it? 38 Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that good and bad come? 39 Why should any who draw breath complain about the punishment of their sins?
You get the idea, I’m sure. Our God is Sovereign, and – “In the beginning” – we were to reign with hm. Through his Son, the Christ of God, he works to restore that relationship. (Here comes another redundancy.) More often than not, WE FORGET, and fight hard against his well-placed guardrails of Love often jumping over that “fence” only to fall from the cliff. In my experience its about half-and-half that he either catches us, or lets us bounce off the rocks to rock bottom. He even accepts our contrition when we say, “Sorry Dad. I forgot to Trust and Obey.”

Ahhh, Belovéd! What a GOOD God we have! In this Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time the Church offers four signposts along The Way to help us get up and get goin’. Let us respond in maturity of F.A.I.T.H. and show God our Praise, Humility, Faithfulness, and Service. That’s a good start. Perhaps a couple other prayerful questions could be addressed: To God we can ask, “How have you called me?” (↔ Music Link) and to one another we must ask, “Will you let me be your servant?” (↔ Music Link)

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


Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture passages are from the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Biblical languages inserts from Bible Hub (Bible Hub: Search, Read, Study the Bible in Many Languages) Visit at http://biblehub.com

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

Aloha Friday Message – October 17, 2025 – Hang in there Adelphos!

October 17, 2025

2542AFC101725 – Hang in there Adelphos!  ← PODCAST LINK 😀

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Exodus 17:11-12 – 11 Whenever Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed; and whenever he lowered his hand, Amalek prevailed. 12 But Moses’ hands grew weary; so they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on one side, and the other on the other side; so his hands were steady until the sun set.

Psalm121:3-4 –
May he not suffer your foot to slip;
may he slumber not who guards you:
indeed he neither slumbers nor sleeps,
the guardian of Israel.

2 Timothy 3:14-17 – 14 But as for you, continue in the truths that you were taught and firmly believe. You know who your teachers were, 15 and you remember that ever since you were a child, you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching the truth, rebuking error, correcting faults, and giving instruction for right living, 17 so that the person who serves God may be fully qualified and equipped to do every kind of good deed. 

Luke 18:7-8 – 7 And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? 8 I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

Aloha nui loa, ʻŌmea! This coming Sunday, all three readings point toward one specific characteristic of a well-lived Christian life: Perseverance. Moses obeys God by holding up his hands and staff as Israel battle against Amalek. The effort is supported by Aaron and Hur who help him keep his posture of perseverance. Amalek was the grandson of Esau and the namesake of the Amalekites, a nomadic people who were considered arch-enemies of ancient Israel. Their kingdom was not a single defined state, but a nomadic people inhabiting the Negev desert region south of Canaan and other surrounding areas. The Amalekites are known for being the first nation to attack the Israelites after their Exodus from Egypt, a hostile act that led to a divine curse and a command for their eventual destruction. The divine curse against Amalek stems from their unprovoked attack on the Israelites as they were escaping Egypt. In response to this “vicious and unnecessary attack,” God vowed to “wipe every Amalekite from the face of the earth” and commanded Israel to blot out their name forever.

The biblical account details Moses leading the Israelites in battle against the Amalekites, and God’s promise that he would completely blot out the memory of Amalek. God promised to make war on Amalek “from generation to generation”. The curse was a command to completely wipe out the Amalekites, which was later repeated by Saul, who was tasked with carrying out the destruction. Saul did not completely wipe out the Amalekites as God commanded; instead, he destroyed the weak but spared the Amalekite king, Agag, and the best of their livestock. This act of disobedience was a major failure that led to God rejecting Saul as king. While Saul’s army defeated the Amalekite forces, he did not follow God’s instruction to utterly destroy everything and everyone. The prophet Samuel rebuked Saul for his disobedience, famously stating that “to obey is better than sacrifice”. Samuel then personally executed Agag. 

In the second reading, the Apostle Paul counsels Timothy to persevere in his teaching and preaching – in living out his mission or spreading the Gospel – because he know that what he has learned is true and the people who taught him are trustworthy. In the Gospel from Luke, Jesus gives us a parable about a corrupt judge and a persistent widow who finally gives in and renders a just decision for a woman whose perseverance leave him little room to do anything else. Jesus tells us that God, who alone is the Just Judge, will surely grant justice for those who persevere in crying out to him. Recall that we have previously noted God’s Immutable Justice – what is right gets a blessing what is wrong gets a curse, what is good is our goal, what is evil is our peril.

In Ephesians 6:18, the Apostle Paul tells us further, “18 Pray in the Spirit at all times in every prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert and always persevere in supplication for all the saints.” And also, Philippians 1:6 – 6 I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ. That is the motivation, the reason, to persevere – “I know a Guy.” He follows that with 2 Timothy 1:12 c  I know the one in whom I have put my trust (↔ Music Link), and I am sure that he is able to guard until that day what I have entrusted to him. So, here is The Apostle Paul, in prison, expecting death any day, and still he perseveres because he has entrusted is soul to God in Christ Jesus who is Truth and Justice, and perseveres for All Ages in this World and The Next.

“Persevere” is one of those interesting sort of Olde Fashioned words that we occasionally hear, usually in the context of difficulties impeding our efforts. We have other ways to say the same thing – Stay the course, keep on track, persist always, keep going, never give in, don’t take no for an answer, stand your ground, go the distance, leave no stone unturned, eyes on the prize, (↔ Music Link), stick to your guns, and these days the ever-popular “hang in there.” All of these carry with them the implication that we will continue to pursue a goal or path under arduous circumstances regardless of any opposition, danger, difficulty, or doubt. For those who deem themselves “self-reliant,” this is a formidable challenge. For those who know the power of Scripture and prayer – especially prayer in and through Scripture – this is almost second-nature because we remember that God speaks to us through his word and listens to us through our prayers.

When we look at our lives – especially our prayer lives – do we see evidence of persevering faith? “If you were arrested for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?” Are we truly trying to live a righteous life where we “… do justice, and love kindness, and walk humbly with your God?” (See Micah 6:8 – again) Could it be that the biggest of all the tests of faith is whether or not we always believe God is listening, that we’re not just talking to the inside of our heads when we pray? Do we have the faith, the determination, the discernment, the patience and perseverance, and especially the humility to ask again? Can we, should we, will we persevere that faith until the very day when we meet the Lord? And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” How do you know, how do I know, how do we know we have faith? We must check our hearts for evidence of sin, and then take out the M.A.P. (↔ Click it)

Why is this important for Christians to remember? We’ve touched on this before in Mark 10:28-30 – 28 Peter began to say to him, “Look, we have left everything and followed you.” 29 Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news, 30 who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age—houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields, with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life.” Jesus told us in John 16:33 – 33 I have said this to you, so that in me you may have peace. In the world you face persecution. But take courage; I have conquered the world! In the Letter of James we read, “2 My brothers and sisters whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance; 4 and let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing. (See James 1:2-4)

James follows up in his letter on ethical conduct for Christians with this in James 5:7-11 – 7 Be patient, therefore, beloved, until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious crop from the earth, being patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains. 8 You also must be patient. Strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near. 9 Beloved, do not grumble against one another, so that you may not be judged. See, the Judge is standing at the doors! 10 As an example of suffering and patience, beloved, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. 11 Indeed we call blessed those who showed endurance. You have heard of the endurance of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful.

Let’s look at the three Key Verses presented above and see what they tell us. Let’s begin with the Gospel selection. That last sentence is kind of a shocker: “And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” We earthlings have a bad reputation for giving up hope when our expectations of deliverance are long delayed. It seems in God’s economy that his swift and complete action arrives just when we have foolishly given up hope. Jesus, while in the flesh, told us not even he knew when the day of deliverance or justice would come. Are we still waiting with perseverance? When the relief we seek finally does come, it seems almost too good to be true – after 70 years in Babylon, Israel suddenly learned they were going home! It was like a dream: Psalm 126:1-2 – 1 When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion we were like those who dream. 2 Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy; then it was said among the nations, “The Lord has done great things for them.” We know this is true and trustworthy because we have a record of all that in Scripture. It is Scripture that God uses to teach us, and Scripture is the best Authority because it is inspired by God.

The Apostle Paul clearly told Timothy, “All Scripture is inspired by God and is [also] useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right.” If we know the Truth, perseverance is easier to accomplish because we know we can trust it – we can use what we know to give us hope, strength, perseverance, quietness, and – above all – F.A.I.T.H. (Fully Aware I Trust Him). We see this expressed in Lamentations 3:22-26 – 22 The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; 23 they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. 24 “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.” 25 The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. “Quiet” is not an easily found commodity these days!

And what about Deuteronomy 8:3? 3 He humbled you by letting you hunger, then by feeding you with manna, with which neither you nor your ancestors were acquainted, in order to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord [by anything the Lord decrees]. And again in Psalm 119:9 (a memory verse from “long-time-ago”) – 9 How can young people keep their way pure? By guarding it according to your word. And Psalm 119:11 – 11 I treasure your word in my heart, so that I may not sin against you. All of these Timothy knew in his heart, and that gave him – and his flock – greater perseverance, enough perseverance to overcome evil and publicize the Gospel.

In our Key Verse excerpt from Exodus, we see one of the Heroic Men of the Old Testament, Moses, doing the hard work of persevering – and he accepted the help of his brethren Aaron and Hur. Oh, Belovéd, how often we fail at that small but important commitment to perseverance! So often we tell ourselves, our loved ones, and even our God like a two-year-old child, “NO! I do it myself!” Now there’s a case for God’s perseverance! It is indeed a good thing that “his mercy endures forever,” and that “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.” With that to hold onto, perseverance is basically a matter of remembering, and as Catholics, we’re pretty good at that.

“We Remember How You Loved Us.” (↔ Music Link) “Do this in memory of me.” “Remember your love and your faithfulness O God.” “Remember your Saints …”Remember your servants who have gone before us …” ” … and in communion with those whose memory we venerate, especially the glorious ever-Virgin Mary, Mother of our God and Lord, Jesus Christ.” We can choose to remember, to pray, to feed on The Word, to speak to and listen for God. We can recall how the many who have gone before us have cried out, “How long O Lord, how long?” (See for example Psalm 13) When it gets to be too difficult, which others of the earthlings around us will stand with us in prayer, or even at our bedside – or death bed as we wait? I know who I want at my side! “Come Holy Spirit (↔ Music Link). Walk with me on this long road to Home. With you at my side and Jesus in my heart, we’ll all get to Heaven as soon as we ought.”

To persevere is to bring to bear the power of Love. Even the greatest of sinners will find Peace and Perseverance in Christ Jesus. We’ll close with this testimony from the Apostle Paul in 1 Timothy 1:12-14 – 12 I am grateful to Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because he judged me faithful and appointed me to his service, 13 even though I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, 14 and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. As well as Psalm 46:10a – 10 “Be still, and know that I am God! I am exalted among the nations, I am exalted in the earth.” This we know because we know The Word and the Lord. What we know, we use to enrich our lives and the lives of others by testifying to the Truth no matter what. When Jesus does come, he will find Faith in those who persevered. Truth and Justice, we might say, are two sides of the same Eternal Balance pictured on our Key Verse Key. ʻŌmea, the fulcrum for that balance is Grace, and the stand supporting the balance is Mercy. The weight-pans illustrate God’s Immutable Justice.WE know our future hangs in the balance and so we must as well hang in there, Adelphos!  God’s Immutable Justice will prevail.

Whatever, whenever, wherever, whoever, however, if ever, forever —
at your service, Belovéd!
Please pray with us here at Share-a-Prayer.
You already know how, but just in case –

How: 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.

Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture passages are from the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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

Aloha Friday Message – October 10, 2025 – The Ol’ Switcheroo

October 10, 2025

2541AFC101025 – The Ol’ Switcheroo ← PODCAST LINK 😀    

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2 Kings 5:14 – 14 So he [Naaman] went down and immersed himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God; his flesh was restored like the flesh of a young boy, and he was clean.

2 Timothy 2:11-13 – 11 The saying is sure:
If we have died with him, we will also live with him;
12 if we endure, we will also reign with him;
if we deny him, he will also deny us;
13 if we are faithless, he remains faithful —
for he cannot deny himself.

Luke 17:15-19 – 15 Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. 16 He prostrated himself at Jesus’feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. 17 Then Jesus asked, “Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? 18 Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” 19 Then he said to him, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.”

May Peace always be with you and may God bless you, Belovéd! What a wonderful set of readings we have this weekend, and how timely they are for what’s going on in the world today! Let’s take a look at each of them and as we go through that, we can talk about what God did for us that some folks find surprising.

This is an artist’s idea of what Naaman (naamahn’) looked like. He was the commanding general for the King of Aram (present day Syria), and allegedly drew his bow on a dare, and the arrow he launched mortally wounded Ahab, King of Israel. Naaman was very popular in his nation, and had won many important victories for his King. He was also a character who was arrogant, vain, and pushy. He was famous, and liked it enough to dislike anyone who didn’t seem to recognize what a fine specimen of humanity he was. His life was filled with fame, and glory, and honors, and probably wealth as well. He did have one little problem with his health – a skin disease of some sort called at the time leprosy.

In Aram, people with leprosy were not socially ostracized as they were in Israel, but still it was considered an unpleasant disease in Aram. In a raid on Israelite forces, a young girl was captured and given to Naaman’s wife as a servant. The child told her mistress that if Naaman would go to the Israelite Prophet Elisha, he could be cured. Naaman spoke to his King about it, and the King wrote a letter of introduction and sent many fine gifts along with Naaman and his retinue. When they pulled up to Elisha’s abode, Naaman expected a grandiose welcome and flash-bang miracles – something befitting his fame and reputation. Instead Elisha sent out a servant named Gehazi (more about him shortly) who told the General, in effect, “Elisha says all you have to do it go down to the river Jordan and submerge yourself seven times and you will be cleansed.” Naaman was furious! He got snubbed by the greatest Prophet in Israel and was told he needed a bath in the Jordan. There were rivers in Aram that were just as wet and just as useful as the Jordan! His retinue eventually calmed him down and convinced him to at least try it. After the seventh dunk, Naaman’s skin was “like a little child’s.”

He pounded back to Elisha’s place and offered a tremendous reward. Elisha declined it and said, “It was God’s doing, not mine.” Naaman requested about 12 bushels (2 kor) of soil from Israel so he could set up an altar to Elisha’s God in Aram. At that time, most people believed that the gods of a particular region or nation could only be worshipped on that region’s soil. But here’s the ol’ switcheroo. Gehazi had a Greed Attack.

Gehazi was flabbergasted that Elisha had turned down the chance to get some sort of compensation for getting Naaman cured. When Naaman had gone just a short distance away, Gehazi took off running after him. Naaman ordered the chariot driver to stop, jumped down and ran toward Gehazi, “Is something wrong?” Naaman asked. “Ah, no, Great One! Sire, it’s just that two young Prophets have come to visit, and my master asks if you could donate two talents of silver and two changes of wardrobe for them.” Naaman gladly handed over the requested items and left. Gehazi went off and hid the ill-gotten gain and went back to the dwelling of Elisha who asked him, (paraphrasing here)
“Where have you been, and what did you do?”
“Oh, just out. Nothing special. Can I get you anything?”
“Oh! Gehazi! Don’t you know I followed you in spirit and saw the whole thing! You have stolen and you have lied. Because of this, Naaman’s leprosy will cling to you for the rest of your life!”
I’m sure you have heard this before: THERE ARE NO INCONSEQUENTIAL ACTS. Consider Naaman’s switcheroo. Quite the shocker, I’m sure.

Naaman originally was insulted. “Is that all there is to it? Baloney!” However, Elisha had told him, “Here’s the process. Do this and you’ll be fine.” Naaman wasn’t fine until he tried the process. That inclined him to trust the process. Most of us won’t trust the process until we try the APP. The Process – in the Beginning – is REPENT AND BELIEVE THE GOSPEL, BE BAPTIZED AND RECEIVE THE SPIRIT. The second part of that is dependent on the first part, and generally happens only once. The first part can – and probably should – happen every day. That’s the GRAND switcheroo! We, who are outcasts in sin become cleansed by Jesus’ one Word: Done!

That’s how God works – consistently. He told us, “I have an everlasting Love for you.” In that passage (See Jeremiah 31:3), the word for everlasting is olam as in El Shaddai-Olam, Almighty-Everliving God. Did you know God also has a YOLO-F? The difference between his and ours is that his has no beginning but ours does. Because of that everlasting Love, he is always faithful to his promises. Here, where we say “faithful,” the Hebrew word reads as goodness, kindness, lovingkindness; he is always right where we left him, waiting for us to come back so he can once again embrace and bless us. We need only repent and believe the Gospel. It’s just that simple, and there’s no “house limit” on how often that happens. Why is that?

Take a look at what The Apostle Paul said to Timothy. Everything Jesus did was exactly what his Father told him to do, and Jesus us taught his Disciples to do everything he told them, and they told us everything we needed to know so we could also do what he says (yes, present tense). We can live with and in him, and if we die with, for, and in him, we will live with him eternally. That’s The APP – again. Look closer at verse 13 up there: 13 if we are faithless, he remains faithful — for he cannot deny himself. Of course this is true and we know it. Can our fickle infidelity abolish God’s Everlasting Love – his faithfulness? (See Romans 3:3. Read in full now to get the context)

Thank God for allowing that dying with him by dying to self and living to Life with Christ brings us to the faithful Promise of God’s APP for Salvation. The Greek word for dying in this passage – apothnḗskō carries the connotation of an endpoint that brings a separation from “now” to “then” in the future.Whatever we were, are, have, or did, all of that dies when it dies with him, and none of it is raised up when it is raised with him. He already was lifted up for us. That, Belovéd, is the quintessence of Love. The way The Apostle Paul expresses it is as beautiful as a Love song, however, there is a severe warning in this passage that relates to God’s Immutable Justice. The Apostle Paul is cautioning Timothy – and the Church over which he presides – that when we are unfaithful, that is when we deny the Will and Word of God, God will remain faithful to his Nature and condemn those who persist in faithlessness, in rebellious unbelief. How’s that for a big ol’ switcheroo?!

Somewhere in the music section of my Memory Vault there’s a song lyric that goes something like “All I need is a love song and someone to sing to.” I think The Apostle Paul would phrase it like, “All I need is the Gospel and someone to witness to.” (↔ Music Link) Belovéd, the Gospel is a Love Song – the most beautiful Love Song ever conceived! “Oh, who’s the one that I’m in Love with only? It’s You, it’s You, It’s You!” No wonder St. Francis sang the Praises of God! (↔ Music Link)  And look at this: Hebrews 10:24-25 – 24 And let us consider how to provoke* one another to love and good deeds, 25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching. (*paroxusmos (par-ox-oos-mos’) – stimulate, incite, instigate so as to encourage, poke to elicit a reaction) Jesus certainly gave St Francis a poke  when he told him “Rebuild my Church.” The endpoint of that command is that the Church is required to meet together in community as God is In Community.

Even though he lived in crushing poverty, St Francis also lived in sparkling JOY. The Apostle Paul understood that JOY and expressed how it characterized every day despite the pain and hardship he endured constantly: Philippians 4:11-13 – 11 Not that I am referring to being in need; for I have learned to be content with whatever I have. 12 I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need. 13 I can do all things through him who strengthens me. That “all things” included praise and thanks because he knew the Works of God were Life and Light. The Apostle Paul and St Francis knew how and why to thank God. Some do not know that. Consider the story of the ten lepers. Unlike Naaman, most of them did not return to give thanks.

Those ten cried out to Jesus, “Jesus, Master! Have pity on us!” Jesus simply said to them, “Go show yourselves to the priests.” He knew the Priests would examine the men and see their disease was gone – as prescribed by Mosaic Law. Because they Trusted the APP – they trusted and obeyed – they were cured. Only one turned back to find and thank Jesus. Jesus commented on the irony of a single foreigner returning to give thanks and then told that man (who was kneeling at his feet and loudly praising God,) “Stand up and go; your faith has saved you.” Wow! Think back to that moment when God had blessed us beyond all expectations and try to recall if we went back to the Throne, got on our knees, and sang praises to God. Now we need to ask if perhaps we should be doing that more often because, you see, that is part of the Process of Praise, (↔ Learning Link), Adoration, and Thanksgiving, The one who returned trusted the process from beginning to end. The Apostle Paul and St Francis returned God’s faithfulness by living Psalm 26:3 – 3 for I have always been mindful of your unfailing love and have lived in reliance on your faithfulness. [1] Can I, can you, can we say the same; do we always, always remember his Faithfulness and Love? Take a look at Psalm 138:1-3. (↔ Learning Link) Would we consent to meet death as Christ did for the Love of “Our Father, who art in Heaven?” That’s what our Savior did.

A Savior will restore us into the presence of God. And why did God make such a beautifully Perfect Promise that required such a brilliant plan? His plan is Anchored in Love (← Check it out!) – love for all of his Creation – and he wants to restore the Love we had together with him before sin shattered that perfection. Belovéd, we are also part of that plan, that covenant of Love, and that means God has given us gifts to use to help complete that restoration of Perfect Love. If we want more,, will God give us more?

We can answer that with a YES if we Trust the APP. It’s not “one-and-done.” With God, it’s “One-and-what’s next?” When we confront evil, should we try to appease it, or shall we ask, “Is that all you’ve got?” Remember that Elisha gave no deference to fame or might. He followed The APP and gained for God Praise, Adoration, and Thanksgiving from a pagan. Jesus calls us. Will we go and be changed by the going? (↔ Music Link) Will we turn around and go back in joy for forgiveness or healing or blessing? Shall we turn around and go back in sorrow and penitence when forgiven? Will we witness to the World what it means to live with him, die with him, rise with him, know God with him, and Trust the APP in, with, for and until HIM?

I have one last passage that I will ask you to go read. It’s only four verses, but they pack Power in every word. Please use this link: John 17:20-23 – (↔ Click Link) Jesus is asking God to share his Glory in us. Please stop now and read that passage. Jesus is praying to his Father just a few hours before his betrayal, asking his Father to bring all of us to Oneness with the Trinity. This is another and very beautiful way to express YOLO-F. In my heart at this very moment, I am giving Praise, Adoration, and Thanksgiving that my YOLO-F includes you. Our God is SO GOOD! Will you walk this long stretch of the Road Home with all of us? I AM is calling us. Shall we go then? (↔ Music Link) It’s part of Trusting The Process, the Absolutely Perfect Plan, too.
So is this:

It’s ALL in the APP, even the Ol’ Switcheroo!

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

Please pray with us here at Share-a-Prayer.

Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture passages are from the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Biblical languages inserts from Bible Hub (Bible Hub: Search, Read, Study the Bible in Many Languages) Visit at http://biblehub.com

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

[1]  New International Version (NIV) Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide

Aloha Friday Message – October 3, 2025 – Show me whatchya got.

October 3, 2025

2540AFC100325 – Show me whatchya got.

Read it online here, please. Reading it online allows the email version to reach many more subscribers. Thank you! And remember, we now have a READER VIEW available, so share this link or this email often. Do you know someone who enjoys Bible study, or who might like to read this? Please forward this to them and ask them also to share it to others.

Habakkuk 2:4 (GNT) [1] – 4 And this is the message: “Those who are evil will not survive, but those who are righteous will live because they are faithful to God.”
(Use the link above to see the NABRE version)
Psalm 95:7c-8a – If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
2 Timothy 1:6-8 – 6 For this reason I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands; 7 for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.
8 Do not be ashamed, then, of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel, relying on the power of God
Luke 17:10 – 10 So you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, ‘We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!’”

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to set us free from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen. ʻŌmea, do you feel something like a pall of darkness falling over the World? Is there a thin but clinging film of anguish being inflicted upon us as if someone is “water-boarding” our minds and hearts which choose to serve God rather than the World? Not a day goes by without news of some desperate soul or insurgency group lashing out and bringing harm to others sometimes 1:1, and sometimes mass murders or regional conflicts. There are several wars going on, the most discussed are in Gaza and Ukraine, but there are wars in Myanmar, Somalia, Syria, Sudan (particularly Darfur Province), Nigeria, Ethiopia and more. Most are terrorist insurgencies. In many cases the insurgents are Muslim, and many of the deaths are also Muslims. Whatchya got there is a dire need for conversion to the One True God.

Most are not initiated by Christians but rather are initiated – in large part – against Christians, and more than a few are jurisdictional or even ethnic disputes. “Wars and rumors of wars” sounds pretty familiar right now. A very large portion of the areas currently under conflict are former colonial “possessions” taken over by two or more groups that are willing to kill and be killed to be the ones in charge. What they have for their perceived enemies is contemptuous disdain. Each side sees the other as inferior, corrupt, unenlightened, and without value. They want to be the ones elevated to superiority over everyone else because they see themselves as being superior. It brings to mind a very familiar passage –

Isaiah 14:13-14 –
13 You said in your heart,
  “I will ascend to heaven;
I will raise my throne
  above the stars of God;
I will sit on the mount of assembly
  on the heights of Zaphon;
14 I will ascend to the tops of the clouds,
  I will make myself like the Most High.”

Most of us will remember this as being descriptive of Satan’s fall from Heaven because he was aspiring to be “equal to or greater than” God. Well, he kind of got greatness – the greatest failure of wannabes. Only God is Good. Only God is Great. Only God rewards us for the greatness of our righteousness which makes us smallest in the World. We can trick ourselves into believing that we’re really on the right road to Righteousness – until some trivial thing makes us blurt some careless remark (like politicians often do, eh?), and then we see our Road to Righteousness (↔ Music Link) has a few potholes. Here’s what Jesus has said about those off-the-cuff remarks: Matthew 12:36-37 – 36 “I tell you, on the day of judgment you will have to give an account for every careless word you utter; 37 for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.” Smarty-pants putdowns are off-limits in the Kingdom of God. That’s no way to be great there or even in our own little worlds of fantasy. We want to be Great, but we need to be Small and servants to all. You know what comes next: It’s all in the Absolutely Perfect Plan. And with each whatchya got in that Plan, the whole thing culminates with YOLO-F! That is our favorite whatchya got!

People of faith in the One True God see, condemn, preach, teach, and act against evil. That’s what we’ve got – F.A.I.T.H. because we know God IS GOOD! There truly is no way we can understand how such evil can exist unless we have been touched by its effect on us or in us – whether evil threatens or damages us or whether we – in evil – threaten and damage others. Evil simply makes no sense to the upright of heart. Righteous people sin and seek forgiveness through submission to God and release from the wages of sin. Unrighteous people sin and seek personal glory and release from the torment of being unable or unwilling to submit to God. I can’t understand the multitude of people who cannot have a disagreement with someone else and then just walk away from that without killing their “enemy.” That’s a very sad and disturbing whatchya got.

And so we look back at our Key Verse from Habakkuk: “Those who are evil will not survive, but those who are righteous will live because they are faithful to God.” Look, “the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” WE know that! how come they don’t know that? Or maybe, surely, some of them know that but cannot accept it. Well, then, why is there evil? The classical answer is “When sin came into the World … ” My answer is usually, ”God knows, but he’s not telling.” We earthlings cannot answer that question adequately, but we can understand that [1] evil exists. [2] it is persistent, and [3] its growth is accelerating on a very steep upward curve (exponential or logarithmic, IDK). We don’t want to be dead to the Life-saving Gifts God has given us, so we see our Road to a Future in Heaven has to be that narrow little pencil line under all the rubbish and distractions of the Road to Perdition. Let’s hope and pray that’s not whatchya got.

To follow that straight and narrow road means we have to pay attention to what we’re doing as well as what we are not doing. It took me a very long while to realize that one of the things I should not be doing is carrying my burdens – including picking up others’ burdens. All of us are supposed to be wearing the Full Armor of God, and that’s all the burden we need because that is our defense. How do we know? Like we said last week, “The Bible tells us so.” Alright all you Senior Campers, what do we know about reading and/or hearing from the Bible? Indeed we know after years of being in the Word as well as of it, the Bible is the B.I.B.L.E., and it is also the easier way to hear God’s voice. What do we call it when we talk about the Bible? We call it “The Word of God,” so when we listen to the Word – whether with our ears or our minds, we are listening to God speak to us. So, is that whatchya got?

Pastors, lectors, proclaimers of the Word, this is the most important thing we can do when we pick up a passage to read aloud. God is using our vocal chords and lips to form his word into something that will enter the ears, minds, and hearts of the people who are listening. We’re not reading the news (despite calling it The Good News), we are reading what God himself has made known to the authors who dared to write down what GOD SAID. Therefore we are told, If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts. Now, how many times in a year do we chant that Psalm? Let’s just call it several and say “I can name that Psalm in 2 words!”(seriously, do we remember right this minute the number of that Psalm? FYI it’s #95) We must not only rely on the Holy Spirit to guide our proclamations of the Word but also rely on him to open the ears and hearts of those who hear us. That is our Gift from God – the Ministry of the Word which we have received through the laying on of hands and commissioning by an ordained member of the clergy. Pretty cool job, if that’s whatchya got. But we also know that being the ones doing the listening (whoever has ears, let them hear) is also a pretty cool job.

Many times when I hear people say, ”I just can’t _____,” I ask them “What’s stopping you?” After I ask that question five (yes always 5) times, we usually arrive at “the real problem or answer” and then can begin setting objectives and goals to eradicate that obstacle. When we do that, the past doesn’t’ look like a mountain of sharp-edged boulders, but rather a long hallway of doors. It’s certainly not a “walk in the park because – as Jesus himself told us in his Word – there will be great joys, with persecutions. We might look back and see that long hallway of potentially rewarding doors, but we also still have bruised knees and roughened hands from those boulders. Whatchya gotta do is put in the work to get the reward, run the race to get the crown, carry the Cross to get the Easter that is the last door on the Right – the Day of Reward. We cannot be afraid of that rocky climb to Calvary. It’s the Home Stretch! Our lives right now may or may not seem like a piece of pie (I’m not that fond of cake any more), but that very last whatchya got is a real doozey! The Apostle Paul has just the right words for it, and then we’ll open the Word for a lesson from The Apostle Peter.

Repeating our Epistle Key Verse: 6 For this reason I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands; 7 for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.
8 Do not be ashamed, then, of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel, relying on the power of God
 

And then … Romans 6:15-18 – 15 What then? Should we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! 16 Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? 17 But thanks be to God that you, having once been slaves of sin, have become obedient from the heart to the form of teaching to which you were entrusted, 18 and that you, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.

Absolutely nothing is more important than sharing whatever the Holy Spirit speaks into us by the Word of God. The Apostle Paul’s scarred body was his testimony, his martyring, that asserted he was Jesus’ follower, Jesus’ servant , and the word used in Greek is δοῦλος (doulos) {doo’-los} which mean slave. And he, too, did only what was expected of him despite all he endured – including death by beheading – it was still “just enough.” And in closing we will listen to The Apostle Peter as he shows us what happens to those who are led astray by “all the evil spirits who prowl about the World, seeking the ruin of souls.” (See The Prayer to St Michael).

2 Peter 2:15-21 – 15 They have left the straight road and have gone astray, following the road of Balaam son of Bosor, who loved the wages of doing wrong, 16 but was rebuked for his own transgression; a speechless donkey spoke with a human voice and restrained the prophet’s madness.

17 These are waterless springs and mists driven by a storm; for them the deepest darkness has been reserved. 18 For they speak bombastic nonsense, and with licentious desires of the flesh they entice people who have just escaped from those who live in error. 19 They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption; for people are slaves to whatever masters them. 20 For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overpowered, the last state has become worse for them than the first. 21 For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than, after knowing it, to turn back from the holy commandment that was passed on to them.

Do you have your answer yet? Can you show me whatchya got? I’ll show you yours if you show me mine.

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

Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture passages are from the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Biblical languages inserts from Bible Hub (Bible Hub: Search, Read, Study the Bible in Many Languages) Visit at http://biblehub.com

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

Aloha Friday Message – September 26, 2025 – The Proof in Truth

September 26, 2025

2539AFC092625 – The Proof in Truth  ← PODCAST LINK 😀

Read it online here, please. Reading it online allows the email version to reach many more subscribers. Thank you! And remember, we now have a READER VIEW available, so share this link or this email often.
Do you know someone who enjoys Bible study, or who might like to read this? Please forward this to them and ask them also to share it to others. That’s in the APP, you know.

Luke 16:31 (GNT) [1] – 31 “But Abraham said, ‘If they will not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone were to rise from death.’”

Amos 6:1 a 3-4 (GNT) [2] – 1 How terrible it will be for you that have such an easy life in Zion  3 You refuse to admit that a day of disaster is coming, but what you do only brings that day closer. 4 How terrible it will be for you that stretch out on your luxurious couches, feasting on veal and lamb!

Psalm 146:9 –
9 The Lord watches over the strangers;
    he upholds the orphan and the widow,
    but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.

1 Timothy 6:11-12 (GNT) [3] – 11 But you, man of God, avoid all these things. Strive for righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, and gentleness. 12 Run your best in the race of faith, and win eternal life for yourself; for it was to this life that God called you when you firmly professed your faith before many witnesses.

I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him. Before I begin, I must forewarn you that I will be citing some “rough language” in this post. I do that because it will be necessary for the content that follows and surrounds it. Strapped in and helmets and goggles on! Here we GO!

“What the Hell was that all about?”
“Oh, yeah? Well you can go to Hell!”
“That was a Hell of a shot, Bro!”
“Oh, what the Hell. Sure. I’ll have some ice cream, too. After all yolo.”
“Hell will freeze over before you can try that with me.”
“He hasn’t got a snowball’s chance in Hell to win that election.”
“For a fire is kindled in mine anger,
and shall burn unto the lowest hell,
and shall consume the earth with her increase,
and set on fire the foundations of the mountains.” (Deuteronomy 32:22 (AKJV) [4]

Let death seize upon them,
and let them go down quick into hell:
for wickedness is in their dwellings, and among them. (Psalm 55:15) (AKJV)

You snakes, you brood of vipers! How can you escape being sentenced to hell? (Matthew 23:33)

Now, have we had enough of that? “We sure as Hell have!” And that is the point. There is Proof of the Truth. Do we believe in Heaven? If so, we must also believe in Hell. do we believe in God? If so, we must also believe in Satan. Do we get God-given pleasures from Life? If so, then we must also hope to get greater pleasures after death if we are righteous. Do we get Worldly pleasures from Life? If so, then we have our reward, for as we Live for the World, so also shall we die for the World. Have we ever heard someone ask, ”What would it mean to you to win this competition?” and the respondent replied, “It would mean the World to me!” Is that in this World or the Next? Many Bible scholars assert that Jesus talked about Hell more than any other person in the Bible. Jesus used multiple terms to designate Hell such as Hades, Gehenna, utter darkness, and fiery furnace. Check this out:

Matthew 13:40–42 – 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. And how about this one? Matthew 24:40-41 – 40 Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. 41 Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left. Back in 2023 in Get Right and Get Left, I offered the speculation that the wicked would be gathered up FIRST like weeds and cast into the fire and the righteous would be left behind to enjoy the New Heavens and the New Earth. Think back on the times we hear Jesus talking about what will happen to the righteous and unrighteous. The goats leave and the sheep stay. The weeds are gathered and burned, and the wheat stays. Unrepentant sinners are cast out while repentant sinners are given the white robes of eternal Life. “There are no inconsequential acts.” Some consequences are Good. Some consequences are seriously severe. Those intensely severe consequences are most often the ones that actuate the just Wrath of God.

Being assigned to Hell for an unrighteous style of living isn’t merely the “natural consequence” of YOLO-F in the wrong lane of the highway. It is far worse than that. That’s like a euphemistic PC phrase to cover up what it will be like to expose our Eternal Life to the Just and Divine Wrath of God. In 2018 we saw these references:

John 15:6 – 6 Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.

2 Peter 2:4 – … God did not spare the angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell* and committed them to chains of deepest darkness to be kept until the judgment
*ταρταρόω (tartaroó) {tar-tar-o’-o} Use of this word by the Apostle Peter is similar to Christ’s use of the word Gehenna. It represents eternal punishment for the worst of the worst – the wickedest of demons and people.

Romans 11:22 – 22 Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness toward you, provided you continue in his kindness; otherwise you also will be cut off.

Matthew 26:28 – 28 for this is my blood of the [new] covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.

John 3:17 – 17 Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

Adelphos, we use the word “Hell” as if it is just a word, like snow, or hello, or sandwich. It is regarded as just the name of something intangible, even perhaps primitive and artificial, a  construct of ancient superstitions. We must not think of Heaven and Hell as a theological duality where one is equally powerful to the other. Hell is the consequence of rebellion against God. Hell is the reality of the Divine and Just Wrath of God Almighty who is El Shaddai-Olam, God of Hosts (remember that “Hosts” in this context is not only the Army of Gods Warrior Angels, but also all of Creation).

Wrath, Fury, Rage – how would we describe what must be the antithesis of the Divine and Merciful Eternal Rest and Reward? Some people call the day all of that will happen “Judgment Day.” I usually call it “The Day of Reward.” Every soul that has ever lived will be gathered up before God. Jesus will be the Shepherd who sorts the sheep from the goats. His judgment will be the final affirmation of each soul’s Particular Judgment. We know that our particular – individual and personal – Reward will occur immediately at the moment of our last wisp of life, and that particular judgment will be the permanent state of our soul until the Day of Final Reward when the dead shall be raised and each will receive a body suited to the Life it will live in eternity. Some will receive a reward at the Heavenly Banquet. Some will receive a reward in Gehenna. There can be no slight change in location either way.

I plead most urgently, then, that all of us respect the Truth which is the Proof of God’s Immutable Justice. Hell is not just a part of our slang vocabulary; it is real, and it is filling up fast. Our Lady of Fatima has told us that more souls are going towards Hell than towards Heaven. If you don’t believe in what the Mother of God has said, then believe the B.I.B.L.E. which is indeed the inerrant and authoritative Word of God. And if it is all that is acceptable and literally True, then believe that God himself has uttered Hell and will justly give Hell to everyone who chooses it by their actions and dispositions in their corporal, Worldly Lives.

That’s a Hell of an outcome, but it is the Proof in Truth that God gets to settle things his way. God continually beseeches us to relinquish our enmity to him and to accept his Gift of Salvation.  He has not said he will simply snuff out and nullify the existence of the souls that deserved his Wrath. He has not said that on The Day of Reward he will give everyone opportunities to repent and “come into the blessedness of the Mansions in The Sky.” He has said we can choose Heaven or Hell, Eternal Life or Eternal Death during our Earthly existence, and there are no do-overs. This Sunday’s Gospel is the parable about Lazarus and the Rich Man. In that parable, Abraham said to the tormented soul of the Rich (but unrighteous!) man, “My child, remember that you received what was good during your lifetime while Lazarus likewise received what was bad; but now he is comforted here, whereas you are tormented.” Hell is a reality and must be taken seriously; it should not be normalized into our speech as something imaginary. Regrettably, very many souls will realize that Truth when they get their own direct proof on the Day of Reward.

God’s Day of Reward works like this:
What we do says what we are.
ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS.

Since Hell is “a real thing,” then let’s avoid it in every thought, word or deed? Deal? Deal!

How to avoid that destination? Ah, Belovéd the Bible tells us! (↔ Music Link) Be good to your enemies, obey God in all things, believe – I mean really BELIEVE – in Jesus. We are sinners. Jesus was sinless. Remember this one? 2 Corinthians 5:21 – 21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. God caused – allowed, ordained, required – Jesus to take on the entire weight and accountability for every sin of every person in every time across the entire world. Jesus became the Perfect Sin Offering, The Lamb Without Blemish. Thus, BY Grace WE can be returned to our state of righteousness before, and in, God as at Eden before the Serpent. The choice is ours: freedom or bondage, life or death, Heaven or Hell. We don’t “catch Hell” like a bad cold, a disease that is temporary. WE earn it by pretending God’s Holy Wrath is as imaginary as Hell itself, and then living as if we have not had Proof of the Truth.

I must tell you bluntly, that’s a really stupid thing to do!

That is why we must remember these wise words from The Apostle Paul: Romans 5:8-11 – 8 But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. 9 Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God. 10 For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life. 11 But more than that, we even boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
 but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin. Psalm 146:9 d  and You refuse to admit that a day of disaster is coming, but what you do only brings that day closer. Amos 6:3

Now, we know we live in a wicked world. We know we’re broken people because of sin. We know we have a duty to evangelize, to be “fishers of men” and to bring others into our fellowship. NONETHELESS, HOW MUCH MORE must we be vigilant and diligent about our Adelphos within the Church if they will not be convinced even if someone were to rise from death. That is the Truth and the Proof of and in the One God who made Heaven and Earth –  including you and me – because of this:

CCC §1022 Each man receives his eternal retribution in his immortal soul at the very moment of his death, in a particular judgment that refers his life to Christ: either entrance into the blessedness of Heaven – through a purification or immediately – or immediate and everlasting damnation.
At the evening of life, we shall be judged on our Love.

Belovéd, let us Love one another – or adelphos and our enemies (those who are enemies of God). OK, this is already too long, so I am going to ask that we do a little homework together. Please CAREFULLY  read aloud 1 John 4:8-16. There is the Proof in Truth that “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.” (See Matthew 24:35)

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

Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture passages are from the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Biblical languages inserts from Bible Hub (Bible Hub: Search, Read, Study the Bible in Many Languages) Visit at http://biblehub.com


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

[1] Passages marked (GNT): Good News Translation (GNT) are from the Good News Translation® (Today’s English Version, Second Edition)© 1992 American Bible Society. All rights reserved. For more information about GNT, visit www.bibles.com and www.gnt.bible.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Authorized (King James) Version (AKJV) KJV reproduced by permission of Cambridge University Press, the Crown’s patentee in the UK. The Authorized (King James) Version of the Bible (‘the KJV’), the rights in which are vested in the Crown in the United Kingdom, is reproduced here by permission of the Crown’s patentee, Cambridge University Press. The Cambridge KJV text including paragraphing, is reproduced here by permission of Cambridge University Press. Used by permission.

Aloha Friday Message – September 19, 2025 – An Anchor in The Storm

September 19, 2025

2538AFC091925 – An Anchor in The Storm

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Amos 8:7 –
7 The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob:
Surely I will never forget any of their deeds.

Psalm 113:7-8 –
7 He raises the poor from the dust,
    and lifts the needy from the ash heap,
8 to make them sit with princes,
    with the princes of his people.

1 Timothy 2:8 – 8 I desire, then, that in every place the men should pray, lifting up holy hands without anger or argument

Luke 16:11 (GNT) [1]  11 If, then, you have not been faithful in handling worldly wealth, how can you be trusted with true wealth?

Aloha nui loa, ʻŌmea! May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. ʻŌmea, some of what we will cover today will relate to what some folks call “Current Events.” Who among us is not heavier in heart after all the chaos we have witnessed in the past days and weeks? I have reflected on the assassination of Charlie Kirk and, in doing so, my memory bank brought up some additional Bible verses that relate to the Key Verses chosen for today. I will just list them for now. You probably will remember some of them, and you will also probably see how and why they fit in with today’s theme.

From 2135AFC082721 – The Beast Under the Bed –

Isaiah 5:20-21 – 20 Ah, you who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! 21 Ah, you who are wise in your own eyes, and shrewd in your own sight!

Wisdom 2:23-24 – 23 for God created us for incorruption, and made us in the image of his own eternity, 24 but through the devil’s envy death entered the world, and those who belong to his company experience it.

John 8:44 – 44 You are from your father the devil, and you choose to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

2 Corinthians 11:3 – 3 But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by its cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ.

That first one from Isaiah just kept tolling in my head like a cathedral bell. Isn’t that what happened there in Utah? Someone was calling evil good and good evil? Consider these –
Here are some of the alleged quotes from various correspondences and interviews.

  • “I had the opportunity to take out Charlie Kirk and I’m going to take it.” 
  • “I had enough of his hatred. Some hate can’t be negotiated out.”
  • Another source (which I cannot independently verify) CLAIMED Kirk was “too divisive.”

Is Tyler Robinson “a monster” for committing this murder. Doubtless someone will come up with that; it was a monstrous crime anyway. What I have not heard in any broadcast so far is whether or not his family was “a church-going family.” Allegedly his father’s views are fundamentally different from Tyler’s view, and Tyler was allegedly “radicalized” in online fantasy applications where one can satisfy a taste for “harmless violence” by participating in, chatting about, and embellishing scenarios focused on warlike battles. His move toward more “liberal-oriented” politics and what was/is basically an immoral World view was exacerbated by his relationship with his alleged boyfriend who was transitioning to being a chemically-induced woman.

So, there we have homosexual conduct, gender dysphoria leading to an incomplete attempt to a gravely disordered need for sexual self-gratification – all things which Kirk spoke against. Tyler took that personally as a matter of personal pride and judgment. We who know God know that judgment is his, not ours. We also know that knowing that does not universally prevent us from being judgmental. Tyler’s judgment was that Charlie was a bigot. Charlie’s response was that persons living a lifestyle like Tyler’s were living outside of God’s Law, and he was inviting them to abandon that and come into obedience.

It is my firm belief that our Key Verse from Amos – even though it is a condemnation of the selfish sinfulness of Israel – can be applied to both men in this tragic segment of history: Surely I will never forget any of their deeds. Charlie lived his life as a witness by testifying (μαρτυρέω – mar-too-reh’-o like “martyr”) about the Gospel and how it must be part of our daily lives. His nonprofit organization Turning Point (← Information) states their mission is to identify, educate, train, and organize students to promote the principles of fiscal responsibility, free markets, and limited government. This is done mostly on high school and college campuses – places where the ideologies opposed by conservative Christian values often find nurturing, and sometimes even forcible indoctrination. Charlie challenged that every day. And every day we, too, must fight against it  particularly when these values are lived-by in the activities and attitudes of someone claiming to be an adelphos – a brother or sister in Christ.

This is also our calling – to be witnesses for Jesus in our day-to-day lives. Sounds easy, but it’s not. It is our responsibility to assist God – in the name of Jesus, who –
7 […] raises the poor from the dust,
    and lifts the needy from the ash heap,
8 to make them sit with princes,
    with the princes of his people. One of the most important characteristics of that responsibility is to provide knowledge, to present proofs against errors, to admonish the sinner, instruct the ignorant, counsel the doubtful, comfort the sorrowful, bear wrongs patiently, forgive all injuries, and pray for the living and the dead. Those word in Italics might (should!) sound familiar. Those are the Spiritual Works of Mercy. I’m going to list them again vertically  and with more traditional wording so we can just take a moment to ponder them.


1. Admonish sinners,
2. Instruct the uninformed,
3. Counsel the doubtful,
4. Comfort the afflicted,
5. To bear wrongs patiently,
6. Forgive offenses willingly,
7. Pray for the living and the dead.

That’s quite a checklist there, isn’t it? Someday, perhaps, we could do an Aloha Friday Message Series on the Acts (Works) of Mercy both Corporal and Spiritual! Mercy is the way of Peace. Now if you’ve been with these posts for a while you probably know Micah 6:8
8 He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
    and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
    and to walk humbly with your God?

We must be just, merciful and kind, and humble – those are four different things that bring about the same result: Peace – BUT only in the way the Lord requires. In recent times it seems the way to settle a dispute is to pick up a gun and kill someone – or even many someones! Even as I am working on this on Wednesday, September 17, 2025, the airwaves and Internet are filled with news about five Law Enforcement Officers who have been shot – 3 killed and 2 critically injured as of the most recent report. I can see, and say, now that it is important to be divisive if we are going to live our lives as efficacious Christians. Jesus himself told us
Luke 12:51-53 – 51 Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! 52 From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; 53 they will be divided:

father against son
    and son against father,
mother against daughter
    and daughter against mother,
mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law
    and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.” (See Micah 7:1-7)

The Word of God – Jesus’ Gospel – is intrinsically oppositional because it must separate those who will obey his commands from those who reject those commands. There is an irreconcilable contradiction between the Word and the World. Darkness does not commingle with Light, Evil does not fellowship with Sanctity, and we Adelphos who are Believers must not be yoked to persons who are Unbelievers. Nonetheless, we must still evangelize – both directly like Charlie did, or indirectly as is often (probably mistakenly) attributed to St. Francis of Assisi. We could learn a bit more from 1 Peter 3:1-17 (make time to read this over the next couple of days) and 2 Timothy 4:1-5 (← Please … stop and read this NOW). In these things we must discern that is we who truly are different. We are children of Light, living in Light that knows no darkness. (As long as you have your Bible handy, look up 1 John 1:5 – or just do what I do – follow the link 😉 .

Finally, what does all of this have to do with our Gospel Key Verse? This passage from Luke is in the Parable of the Unfaithful Steward. Jesus tells us about a guy who was ripping off his boss, and the boss found out about it so he demanded a full audit of the Steward’s activities. The crooked steward was too scrawny and lazy to get a job (like in his imagination, digging ditches), so instead he called in a few of his boss’s creditors and “fixed” their debt so that they would be beholding to him and might take him in after he was discharged. We know how that went because Jesus says the boss credited him with at least being resourceful. He still got fired, and the boss was still out of some money, but the steward was now someone else’s problem. It’s more than likely that the bum pulled the same stunt on the folks who took care of him afterwards. Like Forrest Gump might say, “Evil is as Evil does.” In this World, we have a choice between Right and Wrong, Good and Evil. One is Wealth – most likely on Earth as well as in Heaven – and the other is the loss of everything except eternal life (YOLO-F).

Forget about 50 shades of gray! There is not even one scintilla of gray here! If our lives are dedicated to good, then in this world the good we do does indeed live after us as our legacy and the inheritance of every additional Life our Good Works touch. We can see how the APP affects our Lives, in part, by how our Lives affect the lives of others. There are corporal and spiritual blessings – our beatitudes for service – in this World when and only when we use our corporal and spiritual blessings to bless God and to bless others. We must accept division, separation, confliction, exclusion, and persecution from the World if we wish to enjoy harmony, unity, compatibility, inclusivity, and equity in the Church. Because why? Because the Church must be separate from the World. Because why? Because that is the meaning and purpose of the Absolutely Perfect Plan.

We are entrusted with Truth. We don’t have “the Whole Truth and Nothing But the Truth” because we’re still in this World. In the World, we can use the Truth to find others who walk in The Light of Truth and to carry out another First-Order Task given to us as The Great Commission –
19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (See Matthew 28:19-20)

That’s what Charlie did. His YOLO-F is paying big dividends outside of this World. Tyler’s YOLO-F is still up for grabs – literally. Charlie was thinking on what is above, not what is below (it would be worth our time to review Colossians 3:1-5). Be like Charlie. Tyler was thinking about anything-but what is above. Don’t be like Tyler. At our Key Verses today I have the image of a 4-branch anchor. Again, because why? “There’s a battle outside and it’s ragin’. It will soon shake your windows and rattle your walls, for the times they are a-changin.” (↔ Music Link) There is a battle outside of the Church – in some cases perhaps even inside the church – the battle, the storm, the birth pangs, the World – is worsening in intensity. We are Standin’ in the Need of Prayer (↔ Music Link), and failing that, we are in need of more witnesses to stand and proclaim “this far and no more.” That cannot be done as vengeance. It must not be done as retribution. Remembering we must obey and follow his Commands we turn to
Luke 6:27-28 – 27 But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. and also
Matthew 5:44-45 – 44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous as well as
Romans 12:14 – 14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. That is our Anchor of Hope in the storm. Hebrews 6:19 a – 19 We have this hope, a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul . The anchor I’ve shown you is something like a Cross. That is where our lives are headed – The Cross and then The Glory. An anchor without a chain or rope is pretty useless if you want to keep the boat – our life – from drifting away. What is it that connects our Anchor to our lives?

Every link we make with the Word of God.

There are more than a few of those links from his Word here. Be like Charlie and get Linked-Up with the Anchor of our Souls. That’s Grace. Embrace it. (←Video Link)

[1] Passages marked (GNT): Good News Translation (GNT) are from the Good News Translation® (Today’s English Version, Second Edition)© 1992 American Bible Society. All rights reserved. For more information about GNT, visit www.bibles.com and www.gnt.bible.

Aloha Friday Message – September 12, 2025 – New and improved

September 12, 2025

2537AFC091225 – New and improved ← PODCAST LINK 😀

Read it online here, please. Reading it online allows the email version to reach many more subscribers. Thank you! And remember, we now have a READER VIEW available, so share this link or this email often.
Do you know someone who enjoys Bible study, or who might like to read this? Please forward this to them and ask them also to share it to others.

Numbers 21:8-9 – 8 And the Lord said to Moses, “Make a poisonous[a] serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live.” 9 So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live.

Psalm 78:38 –
38 Yet he, being compassionate,
    forgave their iniquity,
    and did not destroy them;
often he restrained his anger,
    and did not stir up all his wrath.

Philippians 2:9-11 –
9 Therefore God also highly exalted him
    and gave him the name
    that is above every name,
10 so that at the name of Jesus
    every knee should bend,
    in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue should confess
    that Jesus Christ is Lord,
    to the glory of God the Father.

John 3:13-15 – 13 No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. 14 And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

Aloha nui loa, ʻŌmea! Grace and Peace to each of you from God our Father and our Lord, Jesus the Christ, in the Power of the Holy Spirit. This Sunday we will be celebrating a Solemnity – The Exaltation of the Holy Cross – instead of The 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time. Since the Feast is on a fixed day, the 14th of September, whenever that date falls on a Sunday, that is the Mass that is celebrated. Now, why is the Cross exalted on this particular day? For that answer we have to return to some Christian personalities, but in history outside the Bible.

Constantine the Great, whose conversion to Christianity marked a major change in the tolerance and treatment of Christians throughout the Roman Empire, in 326 AD appointed his wife, St. Helen (St. Helena in some histories), to go to the Holy Land to search for the True Cross, the cross on which Jesus died, and also other Christian relics. Guided by Bishop of Jerusalem, Saint Macarius, the location of Golgotha was determined to be buried under the debris from the temple to Venus. Excavations there found buried three crosses. A woman with a fatal illness was brought forward to touch each cross. She touched two of them with no change in her condition. When she touched the third, she was miraculously cured. This was the indication that the True Cross had been found. St. Helena thereafter directed the construction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.  

Persian forces led by Khosrau II captured Jerusalem in 614 AD, and the Relic of the True Cross was captured and removed to Ctesiphon, the capitol of the Sasanian Persian Empire. Fourteen years later, the Byzantine Emperor Haraclius defeated the Sasanians and returned the True Cross to its rightful place in Jerusalem on September 14, 629 AD. The day is memorialized in the Solemnity of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. Now we know. The restoration of the True Cross to its proper place was a great sign of hope for the Byzantine Empire, a new and improved sense of triumph.

That information will help us to understand why the Church has chosen the readings referred to in our Key Verses. The “anchor-piece” of this collection is the account of the Fiery Serpents and the bronze or copper representation of those serpents the Lord instructed Moses to construct. God had told him to put the device on a pole and place it where people could come and look at it. Now, this would have taken some time to prepare; it was not something that would have been readily at hand. We note that they were called saraph serpents – so named because of the fiery burn of their bite and the fiery fevers suffered from that poison. (In case you wondered Seraphim comes from that same Hebrew word שָׂרָף [saw-rawf’]. They were called Seraphim because of their appearance as fiery six-winged creatures who served as the highest of the choirs of Angels, constantly ministering to God and preserving order in all things.) The serpent on the pole was a symbolical creature (from their copper color) representing the serpents that were causing so much havoc among the Israelites. “Hey Chick, what about the commandment not to have any graven image?”

Good question trooper. The commandment against graven images was not to worship any handmade “gods,” not a rule to make no images whatsoever. Consider the seraphim with their wings extended over the Mercy Seat on the Ark of the Covenant. The idea of the seraph on a pole was to [1] help the people understand that redemption from their troubles was not “instant, [2] that what they were required to do was follow a command from God (which sort of obedience they were failing spectacularly in at the time), and [3] not as an act of worship, but as an act of faith they would have to get themselves to a place where they could see the “serpent on a pole” and look at it as God had commanded. As you can see in the image in the paragraph, Jesus referred to this symbolical device in this Gospel Key Verse for today. There is a significant difference in the outcome between these two images. For the Israelites in the desert being afflicted by the desert seraphs, seeing the serpent lifted up on the pole and believing God’s promise connected to that act meant they would live a new and improved life. We also are afflicted by the burning pains of sin and when we – in the Power of Faith – look upon the Son of God lifted up on the Cross, we can trust that God intends that just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. Now then, talk about new and improved! I don’t think there can be anything better then that! (Here it comes again.) You guessed correctly. It’s all part of God’s Absolutely Perfect Plan to prove that You Only Live Once – and It’s Forever!

Now, isn’t it a good thing that
he, being compassionate,
    forgave their iniquity,
    and did not destroy them;
often he restrained his anger,
    and did not stir up all his wrath.?
There could be no new and improved life of any kind – mortal or immortal – unless we had access to, and could depend on, the Perfect Integrity, Endless Mercy, Everlasting Love, And Eternal Salvation from God through the Christ of God, Jesus. As we mentioned recently, all of that is delivered in Love to us as an effect of God’s Immutable Justice.

It was that Immutable Justice which motivated Jesus in the way The Apostle Paul describes in our Key Verse from the epistles: Christ Jesus, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. It is HIS death that ends Death, HIS death that restores Life, HIS death the draws in those who are obedient enough to Love him and Love him enough to be Obedient. “They will look upon him whom they have pierced,” (See Psalm 22:16–17, Zechariah 12:10, John 19:31-37, and Revelation 1:7) and “at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” This echoes Isaiah 45:23 –

23 By myself I have sworn,
    from my mouth has gone forth in righteousness
    a word that shall not return:
“To me every knee shall bow,
    every tongue shall swear.”

The most vile creature on the planet is the one that bites us and forces its poison – sin – into our lives. The most Glorious creature on the planet is The One to whom we can look – in F.A.I.T.H. believing – to cleanse us from all the poisons inside us and give us a Life that is truly New and Improved, (one more time for the Peanut Gallery) because WHY would anyone want anything less? King Josiah wanted more for his people. When Hilkiah, the High Priest at the time of Josiah, went to the Temple to find out what things of value were inside, he found a book. He gave the book to the Nation’s Secretary, Shaphan. Shaphan read the book and took it to Josiah and read it aloud to the King. When Josiah hear the Words of The Law, he remembered! He tore his clothes, an act of humbling himself, and wept. He sent a delegation to the prophetess Huldah to enquire as to what they should do. Huldah told them that because Josiah had humbled himself, he would not live to see the final fall of Jerusalem. He who had looked to the Lord and remembered his Justice would live on a little longer. That was God’s Gift of Love because of Josiah’s obedience in remembering that God is Love. I love you, adelphos, but praise and bless the Lord God Almighty, Jesus Loves us even more!

There is an epilogue, of sorts, to this account of the desert seraphs and the Serpent on a Pole. Around 600 years after The Exodus from Egypt and the event of the Desert Seraphs, during the reign of King Josiah in Judah, guess what Israel and Judah did. Yup! They FORGOT! They got so wrapped up in copying their idolatrous neighbors that they forgot there even was a Law they were supposed to follow. The kings Ahaz and Manasseh (and for only 2 years, Amon) led their kingdoms into dark, evil, deeply-sinful acts. One of the worst was the cult of Nehustan נְחֻשְׁתָּן {nekh-oosh-tawn‘}. A rough interpretation of Nehustan is “thing of brass.” Rather than continue to understand and appreciate the fact that the Copper (Bronze) Serpent was a gift from their ancestors that help them to learn Obedience, they made it an object of worship – a graven image to be idolized – as part of they quickening decline into deeper disobedience and greater sin. As we ourselves so often do, they forgot (again!) and it cost them. King Josiah sought out that idol Nehushtan and utterly destroyed it because he loved his people and because he loved God. We can learn an important lesson from this narrative: Don’t forget! BUT, if we do, we have the Power of Metanoia, the power to turn around and repent, to seek forgiveness, and to return to Love as New and Improved Believers in the Eternal Word of God. Amen?

Don’t forget Philippians 4:8. Amen!

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

 Please pray with us here at Share-a-Prayer.

Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture passages are from the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Biblical languages inserts from Bible Hub (Bible Hub: Search, Read, Study the Bible in Many Languages) Visit at http://biblehub.com

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

Aloha Friday Message – September 5, 2025 – Who’s on first?

September 5, 2025

2536AFC090525 – Who’s on first? ← PODCAST LINK 😀

Read it online here, please. Reading it online allows the email version to reach many more subscribers. Thank you! And remember, we now have a READER VIEW available, so share this link or this email often.
Do you know someone who enjoys Bible study, or who might like to read this? Please forward this to them and ask them also to share it to others.

Luke 14:33 – 33 So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.

Philemon 17 – 17 So [therefore] if you consider me your partner, welcome him as you would welcome me.

Psalm 90:12 –
12 So [therefore] teach us to count our days
    that we may gain a wise heart.

Wisdom 9:15 – (GNT) [1] 15 [therefore] because our mortal bodies weigh our souls down. The body is a temporary structure made of earth, a burden to the active mind.

Aloha nui loa, ʻŌmea! May Peace always be with you and may God bless you, Belovéd! I feel badly about not delivering on my proposal to include biblical names in these posts, so – as we did last week – we will start with a look at a pair of sisters mentioned in the New Testament in Acts 24:24-27, 25:1-27.

The sisters’ names are Bernice and Drusilla. Here’s the back-story from Acts 24:1-23: The Apostle Paul is in prison in Caesarea having been accused as “a pestilent fellow, an agitator among all the Jews throughout the world, and a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes.” See verse 5, where a lawyer named Tertullus, cites the accusations against him. The Apostle Paul waited patiently, perhaps smiling at the oily tone of the lawyer, and then told the presider, the Governor Felix, “This fellow has nothing on me.”. His wife was also present. Her name was Drusilla. She and her sister, Bernice, were the great granddaughters of Herod the Great – the same Herod who ordered every male child under the age of two to be slaughtered in the hope that he would thereby eliminate the child Jesus. Herod was the kind of guy that always had to be Number 1 for everyone – and if he wasn’t your #1, he’d kill you.

The father of Bernice and Drusilla was Herod Agrippa I – the Herodian ruler that murdered the Apostle James and imprisoned The Apostle Peter. We are told that he declined to honor God and an Angel of the Lord struck him down so that he died from being “eaten by worms for five days.” So, now, Bernice was married to Felix who kept interviewing The Apostle Paul in the hope that he would be offered a bribe to let The Apostle Paul off. This went on for two years, and then Felix was replaced by a guy named Porcius Festus. Felix kept The Apostle Paul in prison hoping to please the Jews who kept accusing him of being and enemy of theirs because of his teachings about The Way. Festus tried to adjudicate the case but neither side convinced him, and he had decided to send The Apostle Paul to Rome (we recall he is still a Roman citizen).

About that time, King Agrippa II and his sister, Bernice – Drusilla’s older sister who was the wife of Felix, arrived for a visit and took an interest in the proceedings. None of these people could find any reason for The Apostle Paul to be in chains much less any crime worth a death sentence. The sisters were as immoral as their ancestors and relatives. Each married or acted as a lover to more than one man, always seeking greater power, always wanting to be what we today would call “The First Lady of Jerusalem.” None of them was ever satisfied with their position in life. None of them lived a life that demonstrated any reverence for God. They apparently never even considered giving God Preeminence in all things.

Returning now to our Key Verses, we can start with the Gospel selection. We can imagine that when Jesus’ Disciples heard that sentence, they were shocked and dismayed. “So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.” Having a wealth of possessions was a sign of God’s favor in Jesus’ time. People who were poor or diseased were considered as punished by God for their sins or even the sins of their ancestors. To voluntarily give up one’s possessions and take up that stigma of low-class citizens was radically different from everything they had been taught. We can understand this better by looking at the original Greek to see what’s going on. The word used to express “give up” is apotassó (ah-po-TAS-so). This verb has a literal or denotative meaning of “to bid farewell (either when departing or sending away). It also has connotative meanings “to renounce, to set aside, to say goodbye.” Jesus is telling his Disciples that they must count the cost of discipleship; nothing else – no something, no person, no place, no idea, or ideal can be more important than being a Disciple. Giving less than all our best will get us the opportunity to hear from Jesus, “Depart from me you evildoers! I do not know you!”

We might try to understand it like this: our lives are like a tower of shelves. The upper shelves are where we keep our greatest treasures. Who among us always has God – our El Shaddai-Olam, THE Eternal Triune God – on the First Shelf? In our individualist society, we’re taught to “look out for number one.” That’s really GREAT advice – if we know who Number One is. Last week I gave examples of several things we can do that disclose our real priorities, and usually those priorities are self-centered – they feature us on the First Shelf. “Who’s on first?” ME! Me, myself, and I. That’s why I picked that Key Verse from Philemon.

Instead of The Apostle Paul saying that to Philemon, what if that were Jesus speaking to us about the Holy Spirit or God the Father? “So [therefore] if you consider me your partner, welcome him as you would welcome me.” Incidentally, I added the word [therefore] because usually in the New Testament that is a connotative meaning for “so.” Do we consider Jesus to be our Partner? Do we welcome the Holy Spirit or Our Father in Heaven into our lives as easily as we accept Jesus? Is the entire Holy Trinity on First? If not, then we really don’t know God, do we? Right now, I’m probably thinking what y’all are thinking: “This is a difficult question because it does not have an easy answer!” Nonetheless, we all aspire to “get it right.” There just isn’t any room for a wrong answer. Forget about how many Angels can dance on the end of a pin and ask, “How long can I stay on-point for God?” How many days do we have to try to keep God on First?

For some of us, not as many as we think. For others of us, more than we’d care to know. It seems we’re never really satisfied with how much Life we have – or don’t have. We’re always wondering if that or that or us or them or he or she or whatever will finally satisfy us. We just want that taste of The Good Life. “Taste and See” (↔ Music Link) the Goodness of the Lord.” We know that’s The Good Life! Fickle little creatures of habit we are to decide we must choose something that is “other-than.” That hymn is based on Verse 8 of Psalms 34. Whenever we are having a difficult time choosing The Good Life, or whenever we realize we have failed to choose it, this Psalm 34 is like a balm for our wounded soul –
4 I sought the Lord, and he answered me,
    and delivered me from all my fears.

AND

7 The angel of the Lord encamps
    around those who fear him, and delivers them.

AND

11 Come, O children, listen to me;
    I will teach you the fear of the Lord.
12 Which of you desires life,
    and covets many days to enjoy good?
13 Keep your tongue from evil,
    and your lips from speaking deceit.
14 Depart from evil, and do good;
    seek peace, and pursue it.

Once we learn how sweet The Good Life is, we return to the Lord and our Key Verse from the Psalms reminds us, 12 So [therefore] teach us to count our days [aright]
    that we may gain a wise heart.
and, Belovéd, here is Wisdom : Every Day with Jesus is Sweeter Than The Day before. (↔ Music Link)

It turns out that most of the time we make the same mistake: we try to glom onto something/someone that will add goodness to our lives when what we really need to do is let go of all the useless, heavy, stumble-bumming possessions that weigh us down. We forget (again!) that Jesus is a Wonderful Savior (↔ Music Link) I heard this recently: “If ya can’t take it There, do ya really need to take it here?” Now, try to think of the One Thing we can take with us There. I vote for “The Joy of our Salvation,” and that is ours because He lives (↔ Music Link) So let me ask, “Do we think of Jesus as someone in the Bible as history, or like that song up there, is he alive in our hearts If we have that, we have all that we need, and really, would we ever want anything less? BUT, as always (here it comes again!) – WE FORGET! And, whenever we forget, our Almighty Triune God, El Shaddai-Olam is no longer on First and  [therefore]because our mortal bodies weigh our souls down. The body is a temporary structure made of earth, a burden to the active mind. As we’ve said a couple of times recently, we’re always tied to the mud, both coming and going, and as long as we’re trying to take care of our #1 mud, we’re gonna stay stuck. It seems there is only one way to avoid that: Give Primacy and Preeminence to God in all things at all times in all ways and all places so that God is all in all. Now, that’s something to sing about so I have a song (↔ Music Link) that Jesus gave me!

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


Please pray with us here at Share-a-Prayer.

Who’s on first skit. ← Worth a few laughs. This is the original Abbot and Costello Skit “Who’s on First.”

Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture passages are from the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Biblical languages inserts from Bible Hub (Bible Hub: Search, Read, Study the Bible in Many Languages) Visit at http://biblehub.com


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

[1] Passages marked (GNT): Good News Translation (GNT) are from the Good News Translation® (Today’s English Version, Second Edition)© 1992 American Bible Society. All rights reserved. For more information about GNT, visit www.bibles.com and www.gnt.bible.

Aloha Friday Message – August 29, 2025 – You’ll get yours

August 29, 2025

2535AFC082925 –  You’ll get yours. ← PODCAST LINK 😀

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Sirach 3:18-19* –
18 The greater you are, the more you must humble yourself;
    so you will find favor in the sight of the Lord.
19  Many are lofty and renowned, but to the humble he reveals his secrets.
* V. 19 does not appear in all manuscripts but is included in some

Luke 14:11, 13-14 – 11 For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted. 13 But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. 14 And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.

Aloha nui loa, ʻŌmea! If you did not get last week’s email, I apologize for the inconvenience. I’m still getting “bounce-backs” from MicroSoft stating “We noticed some unusual activity on your account.” I’m resorting to sending only the first line or so of the post in the emailed version in the hope that the decreased density will not trigger that response. In addition, the Todd Team is still recuperating from a bout with COVID-19 this past week, so my “powers are somewhat under a cloud” as Mark Twain once quipped.

I want to begin this one with one of the Bible Character stories I promised but failed to deliver. This one fits into today’s theme. We can take a look at why Joshua never conquered the Philistines. Who were they anyway, and why did they never get wiped out like other nations in Canaan? The very basis of that story comes down to a single word very often associated with Israel: disobedience. God charged Israel to completely destroy the nations of Canaan and all their religious shrines, altars, sacred poles and sacred groves, and all the idols they worshipped. Israel was ordered to utterly destroy all those nations and not to leave alive anything that breathes (See Deuteronomy 20:16). They failed to do that. Instead, they took wives from the women left as survivors. They began using the idols and evil practices of the nations which were to be utterly destroyed. They ultimately made an idol of the Ark of the Covenant, worshiping the Ark itself instead of the One, True God who ruled them there. The Ark was captured by the Philistines when Hophni and Phineas, the sons of the High Priest at Shiloh – Eli – who was also among the Judges (military leaders) of Israel, committed grave sins in the Temple and in their duties as Levites. When they were killed in battle, Eli fell over backwards in his chair and broke his neck and died. They all got their abrupt and final reward because of the evil they committed or allowed.

Because of Israel’s disobedience, God left the Philistines and several other nations in Canaan to “be a thorn in the side of the Israelites.” God also decreed that these nations, and the Philistines in particular, would be a source of training in battle and war tactics for the younger generation which had not fought through the taking of the Promised Land. God removed those enemies from the Promise, again because of Israel’s own disobedience, evil, and decadence. What was promised in Covenant as victory became repeated ignominious defeat as punishment for breaking and blatantly dishonoring God by abandoning their obligations in the Covenant. In this God shows that he gives what he promises. Obedience brings blessing and prosperity. Disobedience brings calamity. In harmony with today’s topic, they got theirs – they got what they asked for not so much with their words but absolutely by there actions. Their direct and persistent disobedience became the recurring downfall of the nation over millennia. Israel’s failure to fully trust in God led to their fear of other nations which had mastered the fabrication of iron chariots which Israel could not withstand. Instead of relying on God to fight for them, they wimped out and compromised with their enemies.

One might wonder if today Israel is obeying God, and whether or not there is still any covenant to be obeyed. They certainly have enough enemies in this current day, and those enemies are in the same geographical regions at centuries upon centuries ago. Many of the names from those eras are with us today: Ashdod, Ashkelon, Ekron, Gath, and Gaza. Modern statements about the region point out that today’s Palestinians are not descendants of the Philistines. The Philistines were conquered, divided, deported to Babylon, Egypt, and Assyria. The ethnic identity of “Philistine” disappeared by the 5th century BC. They got theirs because of their continued dedication to grotesquely evil religious practices and were ultimately conquered by Nebuchadnezzar II. We might phrase it in today’s jargon as “they thought they were too big to fail,” but God did not find that attitude acceptable, and so they failed completely.

Belovéd, when we behave like we are too big to fail, do we not also get chaos and disruption to be ours? Conversely, and most importantly, when we live a life of humble service to God and neighbor, we see clearly how our lives are blessed. Too many of us live as if we have only our knowledge of “the Historical Jesus,” when we ought to know – and live in the reality of it – that Jesus is alive, the Lord of all the living, “the Firstfruits of those who have died.” (See 1 Corinthians 15:20) In our Key Verses from Sirach, there is clearly stated Wisdom that is the key to unlock the richness of Providence in our lives. God always gives everyone all Good Gifts. No one is exempt from God’s blessings except those who refuse to accept them. How do we refuse to accept God’s Gifts? What can we do that turns a Bundle of Blessings into a heap of pain? That happens when we forget. (There it is again, that propensity to disregard what we’ve been taught is Right). We forget that God does not change. He said so himself in Malachi 3:5-6 – 5 Then I will draw near to you for judgment; I will be swift to bear witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired workers in their wages, the widow and the orphan, against those who thrust aside the alien, and do not fear me, says the Lord of hosts.

6 For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, have not perished.

Today we do not have Prophets like Malachi who address us saying “Thus says the Lord, your God!” But we have many people – as God himself decreed – who speak from within God’s voice. Not often do we hear, “Thus says the Lord God,” but we do often hear things like, “God is expecting us to understand that …” These modern-day prophets speak out to us about the same things the Apostle Paul warned about: Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers – every kind of wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice, envy, vaunted pride, murder, strife, deceit, all forms of sexual dysfunctionality and abnormal practices including same-sex fornication, prostitution, and even bestiality; witchcraft, astrology, faithless and untrustworthy, practicing craftiness, they are gossips, slanderers, God-haters who are insolent, haughty, gluttonous, boastful, inventors of evil, filled with foul language, rebellious toward parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, and ruthless. They know God’s decree, that those who practice such things deserve to die – yet they not only do them but even applaud others who practice them. (See Romans 1 and 1 Corinthians 5) To that list we must shamefully add murders of millions of innocents – babies, elders, political enemies, ethnic pogroms, and intentional destruction and failure of stewardship for our only home, Earth.

Adelphos, we all know without even a second’s thought that these are evil acts and intentions, that these are evil times, and that evil people are in every strata and vertical stay of everything. There is nothing any person can say or do that cannot be mocked or even destroyed, and there are few things that any person can do or say that have permanence in our interactions with others – including with our God. We state, and believe we are truthful, that we Love God with our total being, and we Love our neighbors as ourselves. We work hard, we profess, to be “in the world but not of the world,” but still break the Sabbath at Wal-Mart or A&W, or Micky D’s. We go 7 mph over the speed limit because we believe the police won’t stop us for speeding, then we go even faster when we’re certain there are no police around. We “slip” and use God’s name to curse someone, or don’t disclose we received more change back than we should have when we pay for lunch. Now, I harp on this one a lot because it is so common: We skip church because the Packers are playing (or whatever sport and team is an idol for us). Friends, neighbors, even our own children live lives of fornication “shacking up” and just boyfriend-girlfriend couples who also go ahead and produce children outside the blessings of Holy Matrimony. And “same-sex ‘marriages’” have become an acceptable model for the modern family.

Yes, I agree, most of these are things over which we have little or no control, but they are also things that are displeasing to God and a violation of his Law. We can at least “Lift up our drooping hands” (See Hebrews 12:12-17 to look for “repentance” right away!) and SPEAK OUT against these evils. Remember, we have often noted that “The Ten Commandments” is not a list of suggestions from which we can pick and choose. It is One Law, and infractions of any kind against any part of that One Law is an infraction against the Whole Law, and an affront to God. Therefore, we can thank God that he is known by his Perfect Integrity, Endless Mercy, Everlasting Love, And Eternal Salvation. Our lives would be unlivable without those beatitudes surrounding us. Wherever God’s commands are blatantly transgressed in personal exaltation, everyone – everyone – falls under judgement. But for The Believer, a different reality arises.

For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted. Those who senselessly violate God’s One Law – and all the requirements that go with it – exalt their prowess in the World and basically dare God to cut them down. What they do not believe and cannot admit is Jesus’ promise for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous. We’re back to YOLO-F again here, because along with the Resurrection of the righteous there will also be the Resurrection of the unrighteous.” Let’s look back again to the conquest of Canaan. God gave the Kingdoms of Canaan 400 years to repent before he brought the Hebrews out of Egypt, specifically the Amorites, because “the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.” On the occasion of the Covenant with Abram, God said, “To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, 19 the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, 20 the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, 21 the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.” (See Genesis 15:18-21) Now, what sort of sins would take 400 years to repent? Much of the above list: Incest, adultery, idolatry, worship of and consorting with demons, ritual prostitution, child sacrifice by burning alive in worship of Molech, homosexual acts, divination, sorcery, violence against other nations including refusal to allow Israel to enter the land and attacking them instead.

Remember the Psalmist wrote Your decrees are wonderful; therefore my soul keeps them  (See Psalm 119:129-130) – unless I foolishly try to characterize God as a liar, as The Apostle John told us. If it is the Light that makes moving forward safely in every circumstance, then why not walk in the light? (↔ Music Link) Jesus certainly knows where we are, where we’re going, and does everything he can to make sure we arrive at the Place he has prepared for us. Every single soul who has ever walked the Earth has full access to the saving Grace of Salvation. Untold numbers ignore that, oppose that, or – worse – are indifferent to that. The result is that they themselves vote themselves out of the Family of God. They vote with their feet by walking away from the Light. God will, and does, allow us to be stupid, disobedient, and rebellious while patiently waiting for us to wake up and do the right thing. He also wants us to speak up when we see the wrong thing, despite what ha-Satan, the Accuser, throws at us.

The thing is, there are endless, and I mean endless, opportunities to “settle with your accuser” (i.e., kick Satan in the butt ) before that last moment of Earthly life. After that moment, there are no do-overs. What’s done is done, and what we’ve won, we’ve won. God gives us the biggest and best opportunities to get it right and make a final smart move when he calls us by name, points to his son and says, “This is Jesus.” (↔ Music Link) Of course, Belovéd, we have that opportunity to see Jesus “every moment of every day“. (↔ Music Link) We also know that at any moment we can leave this Earth. Are we ready today, right now, for that irrevocable outcome at the end of our lives which is based on all our choices? Our making sure each of us is indeed fully and righteously prepared for that moment is the smartest move of all. How do we know? Try this: John 14:23 – 23 Jesus answered him, “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. Loving Jesus is a really smart move.

Remember, we are held accountable when the people we should have warned die unrepentant. A great example of a bad example is the Wisest Man in the World, Solomon. God allowed Solomon to keep on defying him in the hope that – like his father, David – he would repent. Every time Solomon took in another princess from another forbidden country or another concubine from another forbidden family, he was apparently thinking he was making another smart move to preserve his wealth, honor, and security. Actually it was just the opposite. He only impoverished himself and his people, he lost all honor from God and men, and enemies sprouted up all around and within Israel. Time was running out for Solomon to repent. There is no word in Scripture that he ever got to that stage. He may have died unrepentant, and that was definitely not another smart move. He took his chances and he got his reward. We’ll get ours, too, and that is all the more reason to speak out against what we know is wrong and to defend and to respect what is Right. Solomon failed at that. DON’T BE LIKE SOLOMON. To those four marvelous attributes of God I listed again earlier in this post, we can also add “Immutable Justice,” because it is an inexorable attribute of his Divinely Absolute Nature. In all things at all times in all ways and places, God’s Immutable Justice metes out whatever we ask of him by our obedience, or lack thereof, including his Mercy or his Retribution. Many are lofty and renowned, but to the humble he reveals his secrets. The Secret of Mercy is Obedience, and the secret of Obedience is Love. Yep. Love of God and neighbor is the secret we must know when getting ours – a Blesséd life for all of our YOLO-F.

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

Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture passages are from the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Biblical languages inserts from Bible Hub (Bible Hub: Search, Read, Study the Bible in Many Languages) Visit at http://biblehub.com Creative Commons License Aloha Friday Messages by Charles O. Todd, III is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

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