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Aloha Friday Message – October 18, 2024 – Second to All

October 18, 2024

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Mark 10:43-45 – ⁴³But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, ⁴⁴and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. ⁴⁵For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”

Hebrews 4:14 – (GNT)[1] ¹⁴Since, then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession.

Psalms 33:18-19 –
¹⁸Truly the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him,
on those who hope in his steadfast love,
¹⁹to deliver their soul from death,
and to keep them alive in famine.

Isaiah 53:11 – (GNT)¹¹¹After a life of suffering, he will again have joy;
    he will know that he did not suffer in vain.
My devoted servant, with whom I am pleased,
    will bear the punishment of many
    and for his sake I will forgive them.

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. On this, the 28^th Sunday in Ordinary Time, we continue with our preparation for the Feast of Christ the King on Sunday November 24^th, 2024. The following Sunday with be the First Sunday of Advent. The elections will be over, we hope, Christmas will be “just around the corner, and before we really even catch our collective breath, it will be 2025. Thank goodness it isn’t the year 2525 (↔ Music Link) – although I confess what’s happening this year makes it sound like 2525, and all the really scary years that follow in that song. It was a remarkable “one-hit-wonder” for 6 weeks during the summer back in 1969. It covers 10,000 years of changes. Many of those changes, I believe, have arrived well ahead of the dates assigned in those lyrics.

Even more apparent and more-easily recognized, is the tsunami of evil that is no longer coming toward us. It has washed over us and swept away nearly all that was and is good while leaving only wreck and ruin behind. The cancel culture of death mongers gobble in whatever power they can find – Power of Evil as well As Power of Good – and mash it all together so that one cannot tell which is which. Everything is as mire. Whenever we dip out hands into it, we flutter our hands and try to fling the filth away. Nonetheless, we are soiled by everything we touch and we cannot avoid touching it because it swamps all that we have and all that we are.

Almost.

The earthling who fears the Lord, the earthling who pursues justice, ministers with mercy, and serves because of humble obedience, that earthling sheds corruption like a rock sheds water. That earthling diligently prays for his needs so as to fill the needs of others. Answers to her/his prayers are evident to everyone. Their lives are filled with happiness because they know and love the Lord and demonstrate that by knowing and loving his commandments and every word that comes from the mouth of God. God is like a Father to them and they are his joyous children who revel in his compassion and marvel at his just ways. All their works are committed in harmony with the unity of God’s creation, and the song of that harmony is heard in their voices. They know and understand that we must:

“Always seek, expect to receive, and accept

the greater gift — the opportunity to give.”

(A repeat from Terrific Tuesday, if you were there.) There is a remarkable Power that fills –indeed rules – the lives of all those who “Trust in the Lord and do Good.” It is, however, not the power of authority or might. It is the Power found only in those who have the Spirit of Service within them. We call them Service Leaders.

Service Leaders are few and far between, it seems; but still, we know they are among us by the Good that they bring to Earth. Maybe it’s just because I’m old and foggy, but I cannot think of a single thing that is an act of Goodness, truly and Act of Charity, that does not result from the desire to serve someone. Servant Leaders know, without a doubt, that DEI stands for Divine Eternal Integrity. That is what I call The Most Elemental Quality of God. From the Beginning we have been told “The Lord our God is One.” There is no greater integration than to be fundamentally, profoundly, exceptionally, exclusively ONE. Yet we hold fast to the Trinitarian dogma of God IN THREE PERSONS. Because God is GOD, there is none greater in existence. And yet we are told, “whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant,and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.” Well, then, is God our servant, the slave of all?

Note that the passage says among you. Therefore it applies to all earthlings, i.e., all living flesh that is human. Jesus was fully human and fully Divine. As a human, he was indeed the Servant of all and yet he was at the same time Master of all. Our title says, “Second to All.” To whom was Jesus Second? I submit the answer is The Father. Consider Matthew 24:36 – “But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” And who searches and knows the ways of The Father? Why, Wisdom, of course! Take a quick detour here and look at Proverbs 8:22-31. Go ahead. It takes less than 60 seconds.

Isn’t that beautiful? I find it just remarkable that the first thing, the first aspect of Fundamental Existence – Divine Eternal Integrity – is Wisdom! And God, in his Wisdom, made his Creation on a hierarchy of service: God above all and all in service to him and to their neighbors. This is why he says, “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul. and all your mind, and you must Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love. What is its purpose? Why did God create us with the capacity for Love?

We have that capability of Loving – I’m talking ἀγάπη, agapē – here; Divine Everlasting Love (as in Perfect Integrity, Endless Mercy, Everlasting Love, And Eternal Salvation) through Christ, our Lord. The purpose of Love is to serve The Other. As we see in Jesus’ explication of The Law in Matthew 22:37, we must allow Christ’s Law of Love to be the foundation of all our relationships. That’s the meaning of God’s Creation – relationships. He has a relationship with us: Creator. We have a relationship with him: Creation. We have his Spirit of Life in us, and we are us because God made his earthlings to be “fruitful, and multiply, and subdue the Earth.” “Subdue” in this command of God does not mean to overwhelm, to crush, to suppress, or to subjugate, vanquish, destroy, or to reduce his Earth. God intends for us to tame the Earth, and to use the creatures which he created for our well-being with dignity and restraint. We are given the Gift of Stewardship of all that he created for us here on Earth.

What a tremendously generous Gift that is! It gives us the opportunity to serve him by serving each other. One does not have to be Ordained as a Pastor, or Priest, or to submit to a life of poverty, chastity, and obedience to be a Minister to the Lord! “All” we have to do is love and obey him, and in the same manner love and responsibly preserve all else he has created. Easy to say; very tough to do! Unless we know the greatest Minister of all Eternity.

The Apostle Paul tells us in the Key Verse above that we have a Great High Priest – a Minister above all others – who has passed through Heaven to be with us to serve us by revealing to us all that God expects – and in addition, he tells us how to do what God requires by doing it himself. God himself came to serve us by teaching us how to serve God. Take a moment and let that sink in.

GOD HIMSELF CAME TO SERVE US BY TEACHING US

HOW TO SERVE GOD.

In my experience, that tops the list of Servant Leadership. God blessed us – made us happy and joyful – by being one of us! What a Blessing! He did that so he could teach us how to bless each other by following him (↔ Music Link). You see, Jesus paid it all (↔ Music Link), and all we have to do to be his followers is to accept that Gift of Beatitude – his own Blessedness. He serves the Father by serving as the Atoning Sacrifice for our sins. for our sake he took on the just judgment against us thereby freeing us of sin and reconciling us with God. It is our responsibility, our sacred duty, to sacrifice our lives to bring justice and obedience to whomsoever has rejected God’s Gift of ἀγάπη, “For [even] the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.” As we’ve stated here before, that word many means multitudes, in great numbers – pollōn in this passage. The meaning is plain and frank. Many will benefit because of what he did.

Reflect again on what he did: came not to be served but to serve. If I, if you, if we want the Discipleship of service, we must bear in mind Jesus’ command in John 12:26 – ²⁶Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor. Jesus himself said that even he came to serve. Who? His Father. How? By serving for us in our place at judgment. By voluntarily, willingly accepting the consequences of our sin, he wiped away our guilt so that we receive Pardon – the freely-granted Grace of the forgiveness of our sins by nullifying the requisite punishment, and Forgiveness – the completion of redemption and removal of all limits to reconciliation between the offended and the offender. That, my dear friends is a REALLY BIG DEAL! It’s also a really good deal. We have an example in our Key Verse from the Psalm, reporduced for you below:
Psalms 33:18-19 –
¹⁸Truly the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him,
on those who hope in his steadfast love, (checed)
¹⁹to deliver their soul from death,
and to keep them alive in famine.

God sees everything we do, knows everything we think, hears everything we say, and when all of that is performed as a commitment to serving him, then we are the beneficiaries of his beneficence – his steadfast love, his mercy and kindness, that Everlasting Love we so desperately need – then he delivers us from death. Here we also understand that it is not just physical famine and death – a scourge seen often across the Earth – but also spiritual famine. This is the famine, the hunger and thirst after righteousness, that he promises to all who are nourished by his Word and his Promises through his Endless Mercy. All of this vast overabundance, more than we can ever fathom, is ours for the mere pittance of trust and obedience, for in these small things of service (all of me in trade for ALL of HIM) there is the promise and capacity for eternal reunion with him where he is, has been, and will be. Something much greater than “a pearl of great price” is ours in exchange for loving God and neighbor enough to be their servant.

Everyone who enters into and keeps that covenant relationship with her/his creator will enter into everlasting Love, Peace, and Joy. This is only possible because of God’s promise that he gives us in his devoted Servant of whom he says with whom I am pleased, will bear the punishment of many and for his sake I will forgive them. Jesus did indeed lead a life of suffering. Every hour of every day he resolutely, willingly walked toward the immense suffering at the Cross. Along the way he had no home, no possessions, no desire to do anything other than to serve his Father. Let us pray to God that we will have no desire to anything other that the serve the Father and his Son while diligently serving one another.

You’ve heard this before, but 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

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

Posted in Aloha Friday Messages

Aloha Friday Message – October 11, 2024 – The Wise Warrior

October 11, 2024

2441AFC101124 – The Wise Warrior ← 😊 PODCAST LINK

Wisdom 7:7 – ⁷Therefore I prayed, and understanding was given me; I called on God, and the spirit of wisdom came to me.

Psalm 90:12 – ²So teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart.

Hebrews 4:12-13 – ¹²Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. ¹³And before him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account.

Mark 10:23, 26-27 – ²³Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” ²⁶They were greatly astounded and said to one another, “Then who can be saved?” ²⁷Jesus looked at them and said, “For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.”

Aloha nui loa, ʻŌmea! May the Lord of hosts preserve us in these perilous days! Please continue (and intensify) your prayers for the people being affected by hurricane Milton and other natural phenomena these days. There is much talk about “weaponizing” the weather. It’s hard to believe, harder still to discern the motivations. I invite you to look at some information about that here (↔ Click Link) because it may – or may not – be part of the war into which we have been launched – multiple millennia before now. I’m not talking about Ukraine, or Gaza, or Afghanistan. I’m talking about inside our hearts, and minds, and especially in our spirits. In this war, some see that there is little to gain and much to lose.

That is true if we have a great heap of stuff that we have acquired to comfort us, or collected just because we could, even if it was not much comfort at all. The Key Verse from the Gospel of Mark is part of the story often called “The Rich Young Ruler.” Let’s recall the scene: a wealthy young man wants to know what he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus lectures him about calling him Good, and then asks if he’s been obedient to the Law. The young man affirms that he has been faithful to the entire Law. At that point, we have a very unusual statement in the Gospels. It reads, in verse 21 – ²¹Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” This is the only passage in the Bible that states Jesus looked with love on someone. Why did he do that? There are many guesses as to why. Mine is that Jesus saw how earnestly the man wanted to do the right thing, but Jesus knew in advance that he could not give up his rich lifestyle. Many of us are in the same situation. That’s part of the warfare – even the newly-coined Lawfare – that the Accuser uses against us. It’s like what Yoda told Luke Skywalker – “Luke, empty your mind.” Luke, be stupid. “You must unlearn what you have learned.” Be blind and stupid. Not necessary if you know the Word instead of the Force!

Poor Luke Skywalker! He had much to lose and much to gain – according to the story. If he could not master geoengineering by manipulation of the laws of physics, then the battle could be lost. He had to assume a new identity to do that. Belovéd, I submit we face somewhat of the same challenge. We must be willing to unlearn the ways of the World and submit to the ways of God. This, however, is the loss of knowledge that leads to being stupid. This is that One Way Only that leads to Wisdom. We can see that what Luke was attempting as a Jedi was to turn on something inside himself to make it possible to control a portion of the universe within his sphere of influence.

What God asks us to do is to turn OFF something inside us that makes it possible for us to be controlled by things inside our sphere of influence – in other words, we learn to resist the World and depend on God. That is Wisdom. Looking inside ourselves to find ourselves can be pretty disappointing because it might just turn out that all we find there is “just me.”

Introspection is good, but for those who advocate for intense introspection as the way to know and understand God, I suggest we have more to do. I concur that we do well to look inside our lives to find what God is doing, but also believe that we need to look beyond our inner-beings so we can see our connections with the God who is one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all. (See Ephesians 6:4-6) We have seen previously that reverencing and loving God is the beginning of Wisdom. We’ve said repeatedly that God is Love, so one who is wise will be the one who loves God. “You, O Lord, are my God, and I am your humble servant which is my reasonable service of worship.” That is wisdom. Now, Servants of God, where and how must we serve?

In the War, of course, and our Service will require us to Witness. We do that by getting into our Armor (↔ Click Link) and following our leader (↔ Click Link) and taking along our sharpened Sword (↔ Click Link). Sword? YES! The Sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God.

What? Don’t we know the word of God? Look what God himself says: Jeremiah 23:29 – “Is not My word like fire,” declares the LORD, “and like a hammer that smashes a rock?” And if we refuse to fight, refuse to believe God is with us? Jeremiah 17:10 – I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings. Please think back to our discussions about prophesying – speaking the Word of God. That is how we use this Sword of the Spirit: We speak it and – better still – we live it. Moses opined that he wished all of God’s children would be Prophets. What would that be like? Check this out: 1 Corinthians 14:24-25 – ²⁴But if all prophesy, an unbeliever or outsider who enters is reproved by all and called to account by all. ²⁵After the secrets of the unbeliever’s heart are disclosed, that person will bow down before God and worship him, declaring, “God is really among you.” (↔ Music Link) Try to imagine how that would feel to the Accuser! OUCH is an understatement!

Scroll up a paragraph or two and reread Jeremiah’s prophecy. Here’s how Jesus followed up on that: John 12:48-49 – ⁴⁸The one who rejects me and does not receive my word has a judge; on the last day the word that I have spoken will serve as judge, ⁴⁹for I have not spoken on my own, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment about what to say and what to speak. We can’t just phone it in. We have to be out there on the field of battle (↔ Music Link), fully armed, and we sure better sharpen our Sword because that’s how we resist the Devil – with a good sharp poke in the keister I’d say. This is WAR! JEHOVAH SABAOTH – the Lord God of Hosts – is our commanding General. We must be prepared to follow his orders as given to us through his Son and the Son’s Brigade Commanders, our Church leaders: James 4:7 – ⁷Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. That happens because The Word is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. That’s what the Accuser wants to destroy so that he can have us forever body, soul, and spirit. Let’s be sure to sharpen our Swords! Study, practice, learn, memorize, drill, train in the Sword of the Spirit, the Word of God! Onward to Victory!

Uh, oh. Wait. We’re going to fight? Like really be at War? Where, when, … how?!? Could we, like, um … DIE? If it comes to that, yes. We can expect at least persecutions. (See Mark 10:28-30) It is wise to be prepared for that eventuality. That’s why, with the Psalmist, we pray Teach us how short our life is, so that we may become wise. Therefore, Soldiers of El Elyon – God Most High – stand up, suit up, and wise up. One of the greatest Soldiers in God’s army is (not was) The Apostle Paul; and what wise thing did he tell us?

Let me quote it for us again: Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And before him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account. Roman legionaries in the Apostle Paul’s day carried a short two-edged sword called a gladius. That’s the Latin word for it.

The Greek word is machaira. This means a short, sharply pointed sword which was “two edged” – dístomos in Greek – having “two mouths.” The nickname for that blade was “drinker of blood.” It was a very effective weapon because not only could it slash and cut like a single-edge blade, but also it could stab and slice thereby inflicting greater harm. It was indeed a superlative weapon – AND SO IS THE SWORD OF THE SPIRIT, THE WORD OF GOD! Check it out adelphos! It’s in the armor God issued to you when you were sworn in at your Baptism.

The Rich Young Ruler was unwise to walk away. How many of us know a family member, a friend, or even a houseless stranger that has walked away from THE Heavenly YOLO-F that is in God’s Absolutely Perfect Plan? What would – should – we say if our “reasonable service of worship” included fighting off the Accuser so that person could take a victory lap with us at the End of Days? We hear it all the time: “Life is short.” True. But, it’s just long enough that we can use that life to make a difference, long enough to carry our own cross and help an adelphos with hers/his. After all, isn’t that a Christian’s Prime Directive – “Take up your Cross and Follow Me?” Are we going to obey orders or not? He’s gone to War. Have we?

When we want to follow him, we want to go as he went: We must always be prepared to accept whatever is on our Way of the Cross – pain and suffering, shame and sorrow, even death – and to be eager to endure it, to meet it with an earnest Joy, even to rejoice we are counted worthy for this. Remember, Jesus did this of his own will, so are you, am I, are we willingly shouldering our cross without complaint, histrionics, or thoughts of some saving intervention? There is only one path to Golgotha, only one Way to go; it is the way HE went. It is the Way of Love. Only Love can conquer sin and death – the same sin and death that came upon all of us when first we deemed equality with God something to be grasped at. How often do we do that in our daily lives as we curse our neighbors, threaten our enemies, or cherish our little (or large) vices in the depths of our hearts, suppressing our conscience so that we fail to see our intentional sin?

We are commanded to love our neighbors, bless our enemies, and disdain our sins. That is our cross to bear; to always be faithful to the mission of giving up our lives to God in order to save them because of his Love. “Life is our greatest treasure because it is given to us expressly for the purpose of losing it, and how well we do that makes all the difference.” It’s our life to lose, our cross to bear. It’s not a cross to wear. That’s why we must be Wise Warriors, fully armed in body, mind, and spirit to follow Jehovah Sabaoth, El Shaddai-Olam, Jehovah Gibbor Milchamah. Look, the other guys are on the losing side, but we still don’t cut them any slack. We are in it to win it! Some will believe it is an impossible battle, but as Gabriel and Jesus said, “For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.” We are Wise Warriors. The Lord God is our King who leads us in battle. Blesséd be the name of the Lord who makes our Victory possible because – by serving him – we are wise.!

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

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

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

Posted in Aloha Friday Messages

Aloha Friday Message – October 4, 2024 – Bless God for One and Another

October 4, 2024

2440AFC100121 – Bless God for One and Another – ← 😊 PODCAST LINK

Originally posted under Aloha Friday Messages at https://aloha-friday.org – The Moon Beam Network. Edited for historicity at 1840 and 2140.

1 John 4:12 – ¹²No one has ever seen God; if we Love one another, God lives in us, and his Love is perfected in us.

Mark 10:6-9 – ⁶But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ⁷‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, ⁸and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. ⁹Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

Genesis 2:24 – ²⁴Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.

Aloha nui loa, ʻŌmea! The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with all of you. The liturgy this weekend in many churches will focus on marriage and the pledges given to God and to each other by men and women who share the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony. That is a topic I would Love to write about because it is such a perfect exemplar of the wisdom of God’s Creation and God’s Plan. The readings on October 6, 2024 come from Genesis 2:18-24, Psalm 128, Hebrews 2:9-11, and Mark 10:2-16. All of these passages make references to the blessings inherent in a happy and consecrated relationship between a man and a woman. It is just one of the countless means God blesses us in ways that show us – by example – how his universe and his law work together to make our lives replete with blessings. I will share with you an example of how a man and a woman living a life consecrated to God can begin. This is a lyric I wrote for my late-sister Merilee’s wedding many years ago.

MY LOVE, MY JOY

My Love. My joy
I will want you all my life
Close to me
And yet, still free.
We shall be
One My Love

Together we will reach for stars
And always find them near.
With Jesus as our constant friend
We’ll have nothing to fear.

When times get rough,
Or things go bad,
We’ll stand together
Hand in hand

My Love. My Joy.
This will be our first of days.
My Love. My Joy.
With this ring I do thee wed.

Just to refresh our memories, let’s look at how God gifted Adam with a corresponding earthling: Genesis 2:21-25 – ²¹So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man*, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. ²²And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman** and brought her to the man. ²³Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called Woman, for out of Man this one was taken.” ²⁴Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh. ²⁵And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed.
* אּישׁ (ish) {eesh} – man, husband
** נָשִׁים (ishshah) {ish-shaw’} – woman, wife

In the passage above, we have a description of how God brought about this marvelous duality of beings. Eve was created from the flesh and bone of Adam. You might call it mythology, but I call it Common Sense. Here’s why:

God had created animals out of the clay even as Adam was created, and Adam gave them names (↔ Music Link). When God saw that none of those were suitable for a companion and helpmeet for the man, he took part of the man and made of that a partner for him. Adam liked the change! He took one look at Eve and said, “at last!” I have a suitable companion. That joy in seeing Eve was a blessing for God. It made God happy to see Adam happy, and I dare say Eve was happy to see Adam as well. She was, quite literally, “made for him.” Talk about Love at first sight! But, as we well know, later those two came to a rough patch in the road. Maybe it had something to do with the quality of materials used to create them?

Man comes from dirt, and – as I have often said here – that pretty well defines his character – dirt. Woman comes from dirt that had been improved by making it a living being; woman was created from the flesh of the man. Woman, it could be said, was created from better ingredients, not just dirt, but improved dirt. I might be borrowing from Papa John’s Pizza a little – “Better Ingredients. Better People.” Men – who come from dirt, remember – have a hard time accepting that “first” is not directly-equal to “better.” I am reminded of “The Diaries of Adam and Eve” as translated by Mark Twain:

Adam: “Dear Diary. This new creature with the long hair is a good deal in the way. It is always hanging around and following me about. I don’t like this: I am not used to company. I wish it would stay with the other animals. (To himself) Cloudy today, wind in the east, think we shall have rain. We? Where did I get that word? I remember now, the other creature uses it.”

When a married couple learns that the pronoun “WE” is the appropriate pronoun for a couple, that is when God is also praised, because that is when God’s intentions for Man and Woman come together. They are “one flesh” and – in many ways it seems – also one soul if everything is working well. I cordially invite you to look back with me to February 14, 2011 for a special message about how that works for Crucita and me! We have celebrated that Wedding Day for over 55.45 years – 2,894 weeks – and there is still Love (↔ Music Link)

Please take a look at the key next to today’s Key Verses. You see the three rings? That’s what a consecrated marriage is all about – the three of us opening doors to ever-greater blessings. Wait, why is it three? Well, there’s you and there’s me and Jesus makes three. In our courting days, Crucita and I came to complete and irrevocable agreement on living a Christ-centered marriage. It’s always “we three.” Once Crucita was explaining that to a child and he replied, “It must be crowded in bed that way.” Well, no, it’s not crowded because we all share equally. Note that in the key, the circles are of equal size. There’s a better way to understand that. Do you remember Venn Diagrams? Take a look at this one:

The heart of a consecrated marriage – the place where Love lives eternally – is right there in the middle of that. Each contributor has room to express self, and also shares equally with self and other. When all-self and all-other share equally, all is well because all is Blessed. Sometimes some folks have a hard time believing that a married life, a consecrated married life, is a blesséd life. That’s the imperfection of humanity expressing itself and sort of smudging up the edges and intersections of those circles. God knows what it is supposed to look like though, and he sends us directions for corrections. That’s one way God blesses us. It’s also one way we bless God.

We see these words “bless the Lord” in scripture so many times, especially in the Psalms (see Psalms 16, 68, 104, and 134 for samples). When I think of a blessing, I usually think of a gift, a really nice gift, which God has given me. “Bless us, O Lord, and these thy gifts ….” He blesses me constantly with food, shelter, Love, friendships, knowledge, skills, abilities, feelings, beautiful surroundings, temporal comforts, and (best of all) Salvation. Anything I have, I have only because it came from him so anything I return to him was already his in the first place. How is that a blessing? How can someone who is clearly insignificant give a gift that makes the Infinite greater? Or maybe I just don’t understand what “bless” means.

Here I go again, looking at the real words used in the real Bible so I can understand the real meaning. The word used in verses 1 and 2 is the Hebrew word “barak” which means “bless.” It looks like this: ברך barak {baw-rak’}. Among the synonyms are bless, salute, blessing, praise, kneel down, congratulate, give thanks, and to be adored. Now, that makes more sense! If I add all of that together, I come up with “worship” or “honor” or “reverence.” I am not trying to confer my favor on God; I am offering him my recognition of his omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence, and Omnibenevolence. I am acknowledging he is God and I am not. I am extolling, praising, (↔ Music Link) exalting, applauding, revering, lauding, and glorifying God. And there’s another one of those words! Glorify God. God is the absolutely-ultimate Glory. So that makes me wonder …

Q: What can my puny existence add to his Glory?
A: Nothing.
Q: What does God need from me?
A: Nothing.
Q: Then what can I give to God?
A: Everything!

Huh?

Q: If he’s got everything and he created everything and he is everything and he’s in everything, and everything I have comes from him … how can I give him everything?!?
A: By praising, extolling, exalting, applauding, revering, lauding, glorifying, and thanking God. That is how we bless God.

There is also the idea throughout the Bible that blessed and happy are the same thing. “Blessed are the poor in spirit …, blessed are those who mourn…, blessed are the meek…, blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness….” We know those blessings mean “happy are those who….” So I believe we can also bless God in the sense that we make him happy. He does everything he can to make us happy, so we surely can think of some things we can do to make him happy. In fact, we have a whole Book called the B.I.B.L.E. which is full of ways to make him happy. One of the best ways he recommends is to make him happy by loving each other because he Loves us and because we Love him. Love. My Love. That is something I can give to God that is mine to give even though I received it first from him (please follow this link to 1 John 4:19 to see what I mean). And it’s just what he wants, too. Note I did not say it’s just what he needs; he doesn’t need anything from me; but, he will accept my Love. He will accept your Love. Most remarkable of all, he accepts and participates in the consecrated Love in Holy Matrimony.

And do you know what else? He will accept our Love! When you and I take the Love he has given us, break it up, multiply it, and share it with each other … we can give that multiplied Love to him too. When we bless the Lord, it is because we have understood that we are blessed by him. When we understand that blessing, we understand better how to recognize the blessings he keeps heaping into our lives. We feel grateful, so grateful that we bless him for his goodness.

Adam and Eve were Consecrated by God to God For God. Validly married couples share that blesséd state; it is what God intended from the get-go.

God created man for God, not as God, but for God. God created Woman for man and only for man – not for woman, not for beast, not for abuse or neglect – for man; and in and with man, Woman is created for God. They are consecrated by God to God for God and for each other. Sin has corrupted that Consecration, but sin has not eliminated that Consecration. Earthlings have tried mightily for all of recorded time to get around the idea (and ideal) of that Consecration, and they’ve made quite a mess of Life because of those efforts; BUT we have not eliminated the holiness of being created to serve God together as one flesh – as one entity if you will. In our sinful stubbornness, we’ve tried thousands of ways to wiggle out of that – everything from divorce, to prostitution, to domestic violence, to gender confusion, to character assassination. All of those things are wrong because they contravene the Holy Consecration of Man and Woman to God. We have made prodigious efforts to essentially slap God in the face for daring to create us as complementary, harmonizing, paired beings. We have demanded that God “stay out of our business” so we can redefine his Gift of Consecration according to our own poor judgment. What foolishness that is! (See Isaiah 45:9 and Romans 9:21) Throughout our history we have contrived to make society primarily patriarchal – with a few exceptions of matriarchal structuring. Whichever we choose, we have nearly always forgotten that LEADERSHIP IS NOT OWNERSHIP. (Please reread Ephesians 5:22-33 as a reminder of how God intends Matrimony to be lived.)

Men and women who attempt to replace individual perceptions of self with anything other than what God created us to be forcefully disrupt the essence of human nature. Husbands and fathers who neglect their children and abuse their spouses, wives and mothers who neglect their children and abuse their spouses, men and women who manipulate and abuse each other to satisfy carnal cravings – all of these are contrary to the Creator’s intentions for the descendants of אּישׁ and נָשִׁים. Pause and reflect for a moment on this quote from Matthew Henry (1662-1714):

“Eve was not taken out of Adam’s head to top him, neither out of his feet to be trampled on by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected by him, and near his heart to be Loved by him.”

God did not, has not, will not Consecrate or condone any other Matrimony. Earthlings have attempted to change the definition of Matrimony and marriage as a marriage solemnized as a civil contract without religious ceremony between any two human beings regardless of gender. Some have also decided that it’s pointless to even consider marriage when cohabitation – regardless of gender or number – brings psychosocial satisfaction and acceptance to participants. Let me state as plainly as possible: THIS IS WRONG and must be condemned as must all other aberrations of relationships between men and women be condemned. It is equally wrong to say, “it’s none of my/your business.” If that’s not acceptable, we’ll have plenty of time between now and the Resurrection to complain about it to God – you see, he makes the rules; we don’t! Non-Matrimonial cohabitation is no more than unjust lust, not Love.

Bless the Lord (↔ Music Link), O our souls, and all that is within us bless his Holy Name. He has done Great Things – for all of us! That is the Prayer of Gratitude from the heart of a consecrated marriage. How blessed are we who have been gifted in such a Divine way!! My Love. My Joy. We shall be ONE My Love!

Belovéd if we Love one another, God lives in us, and his Love is perfected in us. Praise and thank God if you Love one and another as one.

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

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

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

Posted in Aloha Friday Messages, God's Absolutely Perfect Plan, History, Links, MUSIC!, Permalink, Podcast, Prayer Requests, Something Old
Tags: Biblical Languages, For sharing, Multiple Scripture references on topic, Music, Prayer Request, Stories

Aloha Friday Message – September 27, 2024 – Do you see what I see?

September 27, 2024

2439AFC092724 – Do you see what I see?

Numbers 11:29 ^b – Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit on them!

Psalm 19:12 – (GNT) [1]
¹²None of us can see our own errors;
deliver me, Lord, from hidden faults!

James 5:5-6 (GNT) ¹ ⁵Your life here on earth has been full of luxury and pleasure. You have made yourselves fat for the day of slaughter. ⁶You have condemned and murdered innocent people, and they do not resist you.

Mark 9:42 – (GNT) ¹ ⁴²“If anyone should cause one of these little ones to lose faith in me, it would be better for that person to have a large millstone tied around the neck and be thrown into the sea.

E pili mau na pomaika‘i ia ‘oe a me ke akua ho’omaika‘i ‘oe, ʻŌmea! (May blessing always be with you and may God bless you, Beloved!) Here we go again with another topic related to discernment and choosing. How? Let’s get right into this and see!

Do you see the Light coming through the keyhole up there? It makes me wonder. There must be something wonderful behind that door; or, is it just the lock that’s glowing? The light is getting past the key, so it must be coming from the other side of the door. What will happen when the key is turned, and which direction will unlock the door? Do we know if the door is locked or unlocked now? How could we find out? Well, the most obvious answer is to turn the key, but in this image we cannot see a handle or doorknob. The way to test the result of turning the key would be to choose a direction – clockwise or counterclockwise – and pull on the handle. Which direction would you choose? I’d go with counterclockwise. But, what if someone came along and said, “I can tell you which way to turn the key, and what’s on the other side of the door.”? Should we believe that? Suppose everyone we know at work and in our neighborhood told us the same thing. If they all know, why do I not know? What do they see that I cannot see, and how are they seeing it while I am not? The answer is in the sentence we haven’t heard yet. It begins with, “Thus says the Lord, God of Hosts.”

That’s how Prophecy is supposed to begin. Remember, Prophecy is speaking what God commands. If the claim to know about the key, the door, and the what’s-next is just from some random passerby, it would be pretty risky to act on that implied promise. But if that information is given in the form of Prophecy, then it would be pretty risky not to act on that information. And if everyone I know and even some I don’t know are all saying the same thing in the same form, it would be supremely foolish to ignore it. The Key Verse from Numbers is at the point where God is still showing his people the Power of his Deliverance. In this narrative, there are a couple of fellows who go to Moses to tattle on two of the elders who are not part of the assembly, and the Holy Spirit has fallen upon them so that they too are prophesying like the other 70. In the view of those tattlers, Moses is being slighted by the two elders they have cited. I don’t think they saw the whole picture, but Moses opened their eyes.

Moses’ response is a statement we can, and should, make a continuous prayer: Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit on them! What would we see if that happened? Would everyone around us “suddenly” be completely obedient to God, offering up praise and thanksgiving in recognition of his Majesty and Might? I’ll tell you what – I’m with Moses on that! Can you imagine how wonderful it would be if we – and everyone else around us – “suddenly” began to praise, honor, love, and obey God as he expects us to? That would be Heaven on Earth – LITERALLY! Remember that phrase in The Lord’s Prayer – “Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven” – yeah, that. Do we ever pray that so that we believe , even know that it is happening right NOW? What would we see if we have Faith enough to actually believe God would be doing that for and with us right this very minute?

Well, Belovéd, one thing we might be able to see is that we don’t see so well. None of us can see our own errors, but we’re pretty good

at seeing what others are doing, and condemning them for their failures of praising, trusting, loving, and obeying God. With the Psalmist, let us pray deliver me, Lord, from hidden faults! We keep those locked up somewhere, somewhere we believe God won’t see them. Do you think it’s possible that on the other side of that door is the vault where we keep our dark little secrets? Maybe not, because there is light coming from inside that locked-away space.

Maybe that’s the Light of the Holy Spirit cleaning up our hearts so that they are fit tabernacles for the King of kings. We won’t be able to see unless we can open that door. You know, someone might be knocking there. In this image, the door-handle and the lock – if there is one – are hidden from view; but, there is a peek-hole where we could check to see who’s that a-knockin’ at my door. We might look through that and recognize someone who looks familiar … but wait – there are no nail-prints in those hands. Could this really be someone impersonating that man we claim to know so well. What if it’s not HIM? Why would someone else want me to open the door so I can see him? Or worse, so he can see me?!?!

What would Jesus see if he opened that door? What if he turned the key? He’d know for sure which way to turn it, right? – because after all he is God and therefore omniscient. But, that means he’d already know what’s inside, and he still wants to come in. What sort of mess would he find if he came in? And wait a minute! If he’s knocking on the outside of the door, that means the lock we see in the Key Verse image is on the inside of the door! The radiance coming through the keyhole is coming toward the outside of the door! Yes, certainly, throw open that door, and be prepared to cringe when we hear him echo the words of James’ letter: Your life here on earth has been full of luxury and pleasure. You have made yourselves fat for the day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered innocent people, and they do not resist you.

Those words cut me to the quick. Last week we looked at what Jesus has said about those off-the-cuff remarks, the little put-downs, and even curses we mutter against ourselves or others: 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; ³⁷for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.” That’s the sort of stuff we keep locked up where “God won’t notice these.” ← Famous last words – and words of condemnation if we hang onto them, coveting the power we feel when we use those put-downs. And that’s only the small-kine stuff! We’re more willing, it seems, to confess to lying, or to ignoring God, or to cheating on our taxes or loved ones. Those are the things that really count. We can trace them to the Ten Commandments.

Little things like flipping off and shouting deletable expletives at a driver who startled us? Why, God doesn’t care about that sort of talk – HA! Jesus says he does, and that scares me; how about you? If Jesus really did open the door and come into your place or mine, would he appreciate how lavishly we have redecorated the heart that his Father gave us? Or might he say, as he said to the man who asked what he must do “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money^] to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” (See Matthew 19:21) Who among us could “suddenly” do that? And why does Jesus say “If you wish to be perfect”? Only God is perfect.

The word used here for “perfect” is teleios. We have heard about this previously in studying then Jesus proclaimed “It is finished.” In Greek, this is Τετέλεσται, (Tetélestai) {teh-TEH-les-tie}. Some translations read, “It is consummated,” which is another appropriate translation of the word Τετέλεσται. This expression comes from a Greek word τελέω teléō {tel-eh’-o}, which also means consummation, or to complete a process all the way through the final step which means everything that needed to be done has been done. Every step was made in the right order, in the right way, at the right time, with the right result. It is the flawless completion of maturation. It is a fully-completed, made-to-order, exactly-right process concluded properly and correctly in every possible way. Whatever can or needs to come next can succeed because the perfect preparation for it has been completed. In the Bible’s account, the “rich young man” had asked Jesus, “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?” Jesus essentially told him “Grow up and then follow me.” Many are the days when we should hear – and heed – that command! As we often hear, “ignorance is no excuse.” Around this place we say, “Ignorance is curable. Stupidity is fatal.” Someone who commits sin may be ignorant of the consequences, as in those casual, off-the-cuff remarks we described. Stupidity is getting someone else to do the same or worse.

We are told – quite plainly in fact – that when we cause someone else to stumble, that is, to get tripped into sin – it would be better for us if we were to be cast into the sea with a millstone around our neck. There it is as appearing in the Gospel according to Luke.
We can also find it in Matthew 18:6, and Luke 17:2. The word here translated as “stumble” is a Greek word which is the root of our modern word “scandalize” and in this context it is comparable to setting a trap for someone to “trip them up,” and make them doubt what they have held as Faith. It is setting an example which generates distrust of someone who is Trustworthy in all things and therefore should be obeyed, not disrespected through disobedience. If we consider this image to the right, the “bait” is the temptation to draw someone into the trap. The box is what closes the deal because the bait is so

attractive, the box and the stick are overlooked. The name of the stick in Greek is skandalon. It is the device that makes the bait appear to be safe. The trap is closed when the skandalon is pulled away – the prey is “scandalized” by being caught in the trap. The same kind of narrative goes with falling into a pit like we often see in adventure movies. What Jesus is telling us, then, is if we’re the ones who dug the pit or set up the snare which cut off a person from her/his faith, then a suitable punishment would be this:

And so, Belovéd, I ask again, “Do you see what I see?” Do we together see that what we might think is only “slightly offensive” to another is actually quite offensive to God? Together do we see that Christ’s Law of Love explicitly condemns being careless about what we do or say because it might cause someone else to commit an offense? “… I have greatly sinned, in my thoughts, and in my words, in what I have done, and what I have failed to do.” Do we all see that God takes it seriously when we say those things, even if we don’t take them seriously?

“Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors,” (Matthew 6:12); or “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” (Matthew 6:12-15) – those are REAL PRAYERS, and God hears them every time we say them even if we don’t PRAY them! Remember, we “will have to give an account for every careless word you utter.” Do we see that prayer that is empty of Love, speech that is empty of Love, deeds that are empty of Love are all parts of our lives for which “on the day of judgment [we] will have to give an account”? Do we see that Jesus is the Greatest Prophet and that he spoke about Hell mor than any other subject in his lessons? Here is one example: Mark 9:43 – ⁴³If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life maimed than to have two hands and to go to Hell, * to the unquenchable fire. * Greek geenna – Gehenna, a place of final judgment for the ungodly, also called Hades, and Hell. do we see that as a possibility for some (most?) of the people around us? Do you see what I see, the utter indifference to the Absolutely Perfect Plan?

I see things that frighten me. I see young people choosing whatever is stupid because they ignore the cure for their ignorance. I see leaders of nations choosing to lead their citizens deeper, and deeper into the idolatry of selfishness. I see parents passing their children over for death because it is convenient. I see the leaders of religious groups abusing their devotees, oppressing their followers, and claiming it is the will of their gods. I see wars and rumors of wars, nation against nation, children against parents and parents against children. I see signs that are cringe-worthy. I see this image of the cliffs of Hell. I hope that, at the worst, I may see a millstone in my future rather than Gehenna’s front porch. Do you see what I see?

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

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

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

Posted in Aloha Friday Messages, History, Links, MUSIC!, Permalink, Podcast, Prayer Requests, Reptentance, Series
Tags: Art, Biblical Languages, For sharing, Multiple Scripture references on topic, Music, Prayer Request, Scripture study, Something New

Aloha Friday Message – September 20, 2024 – Greatness isn’t so great.

September 20, 2024

2438AFC092024 – Greatness isn’t so great. ← 😊 PODCAST LINK

Wisdom 2:20 – ²⁰Let us condemn him to a shameful death,
for, according to what he says, he will be protected.”

Psalms 54:6 –
⁶With a freewill offering I will sacrifice to you;
I will give thanks to your name, O Lord, for it is good.

James 4:2-3 – ²You want something and do not have it; so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts. You do not have, because you do not ask. ³You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures.

Mark 9:35 – ³⁵He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.”

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. Last week was Friday the 13^th, but it seems that the superstition about that day is happening four days late. Just about every tool I use for writing these posts seems to be “on the fritz.” You may not even be able to see the post online at alohafriday.org. it’s that bad since they automatically updated it without my consent. If any of you use the Bible-passage links I set for you, you may find that these are working differently from what I usually send. The Bible-Hub website returns a “Timed Out” error whenever I try to enter a passage for retrieval. Our MBN webpage fails to bring up archives from the righthand column – if I choose something like September 2015, I get a blank page with no posts showing for that month or any month. That’s kinda slowing me down. Being unable to do what I usually do isn’t so great. I don’t like it, but it hasn’t stopped me either – so, let’s get into what I can do with these Key Verses. And thanks for sticking with me thus far. That computer genius from Kukui-IT straighten it out.

This week we’re going to take them “in order” as we usually do. We start with the Book of Wisdom. If you do not have a Catholic Bible on hand, you won’t find this passage in a non-Catholic Bible. The Book of Wisdom is one of the seven books not included in a non-Catholic Bible. If the link isn’t working, you may not be able to see other translations of the passage. I chose only the last verse of what we will hear Sunday. It’s based on Wisdom 2:12-20 (←that link will work) but only a few of the verses are excerpted for the Lectionary. When we hear it, we know it is prophetically describing the arrest and Passion of Jesus. It describes an ambush for the righteous one because his righteousness is annoying. He sees the antagonists as transgressors against the law and considers them debased. He claims to have knowledge of God, a child of the Lord, someone who is different. The unrighteous will conspire against him and seek to embarrass him by submitting him to torture and shameful death. “We’ll see if God really will save him.” We know that all through Scripture, God blesses the righteous. As in Psalm 146 God protects the weak and disadvantaged, but the way of the wicked he thwarts, he brings them to ruin. In the passage from Wisdom, the Foe conspires to bring righteousness to ruin and sully the ascribed Greatness of the Righteous One. Righteousness is a nuisance for them, and in their view, there is nothing great about being a nuisance.

We’ve stated that in this passage The Righteous One described applies to Jesus. Just what does it mean to be “righteous” in the eyes of the Lord? It means we follow God, we praise him, we obey him, we trust him, we worship him, we thank him and we honor him with our gifts (all of which come from him) – we consistently choose (there’s that word again!) to do what is just and right (Lest we forget: Micah 6:8). We are reminded of Psalm 18:20 –
²⁰The Lord rewarded me according to my righteousness;
according to the cleanness of my hands he recompensed me. Or Proverbs 11:18 –
¹⁸The wicked earn no real gain,
but those who sow righteousness get a true reward.

We also have Wisdom 5:13-15 –
¹³So we also, as soon as we were born, ceased to be,
and we had no sign of virtue to show,
but were consumed in our wickedness.”
¹⁴Because the hope of the ungodly is like thistle-down carried by the wind,
and like a light frost driven away by a storm;
it is dispersed like smoke before the wind,
and it passes like the remembrance of a guest who stays but a day.
¹⁵But the righteous live forever,
and their reward is with the Lord;
the Most High takes care of them.

We see that righteousness is always rewarded and wickedness is always chastened. And so we know that while righteousness and its rewards are Great, THE CONVERSE IS ALSO TRUE. The Lord rewards us according to our unrighteousness. This is especially true when we fail to imitate Christ. Those rewards are great, but not in any positive or desirable way. We still fall for the hype about Worldly things and trade our Heavenly Treasures for mire and brimstone (yep, I meant mire because we get mired down in our bad choices). Here’s what many of us forget all too often:

Righteousness is among the Gifts from God. Righteousness is good, (See James 1:17) and it comes from God, so if it is a Gift, we must choose to accept it, and having accepted it, we must choose to use it the way HE expects us to use it. How can righteousness be Great if it is abused? And, if we somehow manage to live righteously, that’s Great but does that make us Great? Of course not, because even the righteous among earthlings are still sinners. Only One is Righteous, so only One is Great. Only through him, and with him, and in him can we experience what it is like to know what is Great. If we understand the greatness of that Righteousness, we can choose to be thankful, to willingly lay down our lives as a “living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God” (See Romans 12:1).

Offering God our lives is something I strongly encourage. Everyone should be willing and able to make a Daily Offering. In the Key Verse from the Psalms today there is this statement: With a freewill offering I will sacrifice to you. A “freewill offering” is and offering that is not required by law, or as a pledge, or vow, or tithe. It is an “over-and-above” offering – more than just the bare minimum. It is an offering arising out of generosity, a gift of thanks as a return for blessings. It is the kind of Gift the righteous make often because they are Greatly Blessed and therefore Greatly thankful. It may seem silly, but it reminds me of that old adage that goes, “The harder I work, the luckier (or richer) I get.” It might come out like, “The more I thank God, the more he blesses me,” or “The more I Praise / Love / Obey / Serve / Seek God, the more he blesses me.” That sounds pretty great to me. But, it doesn’t make us great. Having all we need is often not enough because there remains whatever we want. God knows about those things, too. In my experience when we ask God for those wants, he generally has four kinds of answers: [1] Yes. [2] No. [3] Hang on, I have something better in mind. [4] Are you kidding me? But we really, really want it, so we ask. Not a Great move.

In our Key Verse from James, he tells us we ask, but we ask wrongly because we ask for what will fulfill our wants – our passions, our lusts, our pleasures, our selfishness. Selfishness is the opposite of what God wants from us. He wants selflessness. He even made a Final Offering out of his Daily Offering, and showed us how to be selfless. Now, being selfless does not mean we are nonentities, some sort of invisible drain of energy. We recently took a peek at James 2:18, 26 – ¹⁸But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith. ²⁶For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is also dead. Is our Daily Offering “our works?”

ʻŌmea, what if our Daily Offering included a commitment of prayer, fasting, and giving alms? What if we choose to lay down our lives – even just a teensy bit – for someone else, or for lots of someone-elses? Wouldn’t that be Great? Wouldn’t that earn us a moment of “Well done, my good and faithful servant?” Would we be good Disciples if we could choose to be like that? Zoom right over to Matthew 10:18 for the answer: ¹⁸Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. Well, Jesus is God alone, but the man asking him what he had to do to get eternal life didn’t know that. If we know that God alone is Good, then our being good isn’t Great, it’s just good, probably just barely good enough (See 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!’” It seems like the way God has it worked out, no matter what we do to make us stand out, it’s not Great. The Disciples were trying to figure that out while walking behind the Great Shepherd, arguing about who was the Greatest. You know how that turned out. It’s in our Key Verse from Sunday’s Gospel.

Mark 9:35 – ³⁵He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all. This one reminds us of Matthew 20:26-28 – ²⁶“It will not be so among you; but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, ²⁷and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave; ²⁸just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

We’ve used this song before, but it fits so well with this precept of servanthood. The Servant Song (↔ Music Link) gets right under the wants that separate us from God’s will and feeds the fulfilled needs God has placed into our lives. We spend so much energy teaching our children and each other the importance of greatness, the necessity to strive to be seen as above all the rest. Is this wrong? Are we not to live up to the full potential we have within us? Should we hide and not express the Great Gifts God has poured so generously into us? Yes, Belovéd, we must certainly NOT fail to make full use of God’s multitudinous Gifts. But of course you and I know that we must use them for HIS Glory, not ours. That is what Jesus, Truly Man and Truly God, expects from us. But it’s hard!

I saw this written on a sidewalk in Los Alamos, NM when I was between my sophomore and junior years. There were @more scientists per square foot than anywhere on earth, and I guess it showed up in the kids’ way of thinking. Being inferior is not great, and neither is being picked on for not being nerdy. In Los Alamos, eggheads were great and regular kids were, … well, inferior. Yet, both kinds of kids are called to Greatness.

It’s so hard to be Great, and that’s why greatness isn’t so great. Worldly greatness is a lousy substitute for being Great. I found out on the evening news Monday night that I’d missed the Emmys again – for about the 52^nd time. We want that recognition in our lives so very much. When we think of that want, it is helpful to have an infrequently used memory verse in mind:

Isaiah 14:13-14 –
¹³You 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;
¹⁴I will ascend to the tops of the clouds,
    I will make myself like the Most High.” Well, he kind of got greatness – the greatest failure of wants. 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; ³⁷for 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 in Los Alamos. 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. YOLO-F!

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

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

NEW ADDITIONS:

DG – multifocal squamous-cell carcinoma spreading fast.

KCG – advancing Parkinson’s

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Aloha Friday Message – September 13, 2024 – What Did Jesus Do?

September 13, 2024

2437AFC091324 – What Did Jesus Do? ← 😊 PODCAST LINK

Mark 8:31-32 – ³¹Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. ³²He said all this quite openly.

James 2:18 – ¹⁸But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith.

Psalm 116:9 –
⁹I walk before the Lord
in the land of the living.

Isaiah 50:5 –
⁵The Lord God has opened my ear,
and I was not rebellious,
I did not turn backward.

Aloha nui loa, ʻŌmea! You may think that the title of today’s post for the Twenty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time is pretty self-evident. We have the entire set of the Gospels as an account of his lessons and deeds, and we have over 2000 years of tradition and teaching on those lessons and deeds. You would be right to comment in that way. We certainly know what Jesus did; but today I am using that question as a “revision” of the movement that went around the World a few years ago – WWJD – What Would Jesus Do. The intent was to help us discern (there it is again, the series emphasis on choosing) what is the right path of action in our lives. WWJD is a good idea, and useful still today. We know what Jesus did, and we can – and should – pattern our lives after his life. That’s why we have the title. Now, why are the readings “upside down,” the Gospel first and the Old Testament reading last in our Key Verses?

This passage in the Gospel of Mark shows us the first of the three times that Jesus warned the Disciples of his coming passion and death. You can find similar accounts in Matthew 16:21-23, Luke 9:21-22, Luke 9:43-45, Luke 18:31-34. and here in Mark 8:31-38 (you might want to review those later). Here in these passages we have one of the many answers to “What did Jesus do?” As a True Prophet, he predicted his persecution and death, and his prophecies about that were 100% correct. We are told (in Luke 18) The disciples did not understand any of this. Its meaning was hidden from them, and they did not know what he was talking about. Today, of course, we know, and we wonder how they could have missed the point. It was not that the Lord put the meaning behind an impenetrable wall; it was that no one could conceive of the idea that a man, a man who was the Messiah, could be killed, much less be brought back from death. That was simply impossible – but with God, all things are possible. That’s just the way it works in the Absolutely Perfect Plan.

Moving on to the passage from the Letter of James, we have the conclusion of his comments about faith and works. The Letter of James is a beautiful treatise on the tenets of living a Christian life. It is a very pleasant, well-composed essay about the ethical boundaries the Christian Community should respect and teach. It is a collection of the respected teaching of someone who had a strong commitment to Christ as Lord and Savior, James the Just. The “letter” was distributed and studied widely throughout the Diaspora. For the next 300 years or so there was ongoing debate as to whether or not this document was something that should be included in the uncontested (canonical) literature but it was finally ratified by the Third council of Carthage in 397 AD. It always traveled with the name JAMES attached to it.

We have a modern example of works committed by and through faith in St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Although in her own account of her life she stated that she experienced the darkness of loneliness and even abandonment, to her, God’s Light was overwhelming and she became as a shadow in its brilliance. Because of this long period of her life she experienced the consequences of being unloved and unwanted. This “God-shaped hole” in her heart gave her greater empathy for the poor and neglected – for those who were bereft of love by everyone but God. She, who felt she had not the faith to be strong, was stronger in her faith because of her works. She did what Jesus did. She faced death in the land of the living. With God, all things are possible. That’s why she lived and died knowing YOLO-F.

“In the land of the living” is a theme in the Key Verse from Psalm 116. Some translations say, “I will walk….” To me, this is a terrific answer to the existential question, “Why am I here?” I am here to walk before the Lord in the land of the living. In this living World, I experience the magnitude of God’s blessings, the relief in his Mercy, the opportunity to not only improve my life, but also to improve the lives of others; with God all things are possible – even in the Land of the Living. My entire purpose for being here, for being alive, is to be in God’s presence as his servant – which is my reasonable service of worship (See Romans 12:1). It is here in this life on his Earth that I can learn and understand that I am, you are, we are HIS creation – he chose to create us! – and all Creation rightly gives him joyful thanks and praise.

Together we are to walk in the sight of God and man – not just in the sight of other earthlings – but in full view of God and neighbor. We truly must consider both in choosing what we do because we know God always sees us. Recall the words of Hagar as she gave thanks for the angel of the Lord who came to her to rescue her and her child. She was told that they both would live – although her child would live a difficult life – and she called the Angel of the Lord El-roi אֵל רֱאִי El ro-ee “The God Whom I See Who Sees Me.” We cannot deny that God sees us at all times in all places in the Land of the Living so that we may one day be seen in the Land of Eternal Life. Let our prayer be that we will do what Jesus did. In God all things are possible.

We come lastly to Isaiah 50:5. In this passage, Isaiah is talking about hearing God. We are reminded of Isaiah 30:21 – And when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left, your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.” Oh, Belovéd of God! How often we have heard his voice guiding us and – by our works, by the words of our tongues, by our thoughts – we have replied, “Nope. Not gonna do it. I can pick my own way to walk in the land of the living.” And then we intone, “I confess to Almighty God, and to you, my Brothers and Sisters, that I have greatly sinned in my thoughts and in my words, in what I have done and what I have failed to do ….” Have we in our own lives in the land of the living done as Israel did and rebelled against the Lord? Have we given false worship, false contrition, false testimony of the Love of our God for us sinners? Instead of repenting, have we just turned our backs on God as a discommendation – a reproach instead of praise – in response to his Mercy? Can we paraphrase Joshua and say, “As for me and my house, we will not rebel for rebellion is idolatry.” Shall we be the ones who refuse to Rescue The Perishing? (↔ Music Link)

No, ʻŌmea, we know that there is no liberty in rebellion. Liberty is Freedom and Freedom is the ability to do what we ought to do, and that goes back to Romans 12:1 – the transforming sacrifice of repentance which is to fully submit to the Father all that we are, all that we have, everything we do. We must do as Jesus did. There is a Calvary ahead for all of us as we take up our cross (I am my cross) and follow him there. (↔ Music Link) And why did he go, what must we do to follow him there? The answer is in John 12:26 – ²⁶ serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor. With God all things are possible, so let’s just do what Jesus did, keeping our eyes and ears open, and let the Devil do his own thing without us.

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

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

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

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Aloha Friday Message – September 6, 2024 – Ephphatha!

September 6, 2024

2436AFC090624 – Ephphatha!

Isaiah 35:4-5 – (GNT) [1]
⁴Tell everyone who is discouraged,
          “Be strong and don’t be afraid!
          God is coming to your rescue,
          coming to punish your enemies.”

⁵The blind will be able to see,
and the deaf will hear.

Psalm 146:5-9 –
⁵Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob,
          whose hope is in the Lord their God,
⁶who made heaven and earth,
          the sea, and all that is in them;
who keeps faith forever;
⁷ who executes justice for the oppressed;
          who gives food to the hungry.

The Lord sets the prisoners free;
⁸ the Lord opens the eyes of the blind.
The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down;
          the Lord loves the righteous.
⁹The Lord watches over the strangers;
          he upholds the orphan and the widow,
          but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.

James 2:1, 5 – ¹ My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favoritism, really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ? ⁵Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters. Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him?

Mark 7:33-35 – ³³He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. ³⁴Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,*” that is, “Be opened.” ³⁵And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly.

Matthew 4:23 – ²³Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people.
* ἐφφαθά (ephphatha) {ef-fath-ah‘} This is a Greek transliteration of an Aramaic word which means “Be open,” אָפִחַח in Aramaic; in Hebrew is paqach (paw-kakh’)

ʻŌmea, I pray that you will let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving praise and thanks to God the Father through Christ in the powerful gentility of the Holy Spirit. Our title today is a word most of us will never hear, even if we are present when it is spoken. It occurs only once in the New Testament, and that is in today’s Gospel Key Verse. It is unusual because it is an Aramaic word, a word so specifically appropriate to the situation that it was included into the Greek text of the Gospel of Mark.

Another, similarly powerful occurrence of Aramaic is in Mark 5:41 – ⁴¹He took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha cum*,” which means, “Little girl, get up!” *other translations spell this as koum. Other Aramaic words in the New Testament include Abba, the phrase Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?, Jesus’ plea from the cross. Among the remaining Aramaic words is raca an insult in Jesus” day among Jews, it meant (in our vernacular) “airhead.” Aramaic words which occur in the Gospels of Mark and Matthew illustrate that Jesus spoke to God as his father in common, everyday words, and did not use obscure “magic spells” for that purpose. Aramaic was the common, day-to-day language at that time; Hebrew was mostly ceremonial for worship and (in a sense) politics when arguing over religious interpretations of the Law.

Why was this obscure word chosen? To begin answering that question we need to go back to The Beginning – actually the beginning of the end – in Genesis 3:4-5 – ⁴But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die; ⁵for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” We can see by the context that the word opened does not refer to a physical occurrence, but rather a perceptual one. it might be paraphrased as “you will perceive and comprehend,” or “you will experience the realization that….” The verb and/or adverb OPEN occurs in that particular sense in many Scriptural passages in both the Old Testament and the New Testament – in the Old Testament as paqach (paw-kakh’), and in Greek as dianoigó as in Mark 7:34, or anoigó as in Luke 1:64. Dianoigó means “completely opened,” as in freed, liberated, no longer impeded and is often used in a contextual sense. Anoigo, on the other hand, means a physical opening, like opening the mouth of a fish (See Matthew 17:27), or a door (See Luke 11:10), or The heavens (See Acts 7:56).

Ephphatha, is like the Greek word dianoigo; it means completely opened and emptied of all obstructions. The man was deaf and had a speech impediment, yet after Jesus’ clear command in the common language of the man and the people around him, the man was completely cured, and spoke and heard perfectly. Mark makes a very convincing point that it is Jesus who affects that cure, and that he did it without employing anything but his own power. His actions form the basis for the Ephphatha Rite.

The Ephphatha rite is included in the Baptismal rite for the Baptism of infants, and can be included as an optional rite for the Baptism of adults in the Order for the Christian Initiation of Adults. In either rite, the Priest touches the person with his thumb and says, “The Lord Jesus made the deaf hear and the dumb speak. May he soon touch your ears (he signs the cross on each ear) and your mouth (he signs the closed lips) to proclaim his faith, to the praise and glory of God the Father.” In this we see the signification that one needs the Grace of God to hear and to proclaim the Gospel. This “opening” is in the sense of dianoigo. It is a spiritual inauguration in anticipation of future encounters with the Lord in Word and Sacrament. It is a complete opening which anticipates the faithful attention to keeping one’s ears open – for “faith comes by hearing, and hearing from the Word of God (See Romans 10:17) – and prepare our lips to address praise to God as in Psalm 51:15 and Hebrews 13:15. These are both good “memory verses” for reflecting on what we should be doing with our speech. See also James 3:5-12 for some insights into what happens when we fail to follow through on the leading we receive in the Ephphatha rite as our obligation to praise, thank, and love God.

As we see in our Key Verse from Isaiah, there is a longstanding promise that God will open the ears of the deaf and bless the eyes of the blind. These things are impossible for earthlings to command, but for God, nothing is impossible. The Key Verses from Psalm 146 show us that God is faithful, he has created everything, he brings justice to the oppressed, he frees those who are imprisoned. He lifts up those who are burdened, and loves the righteous. The Lord watches over the disenfranchised, but for those who are collaborators in wickedness he rains down on them their just rewards of ruin by sword, fire, and pestilence. That sounds particularly severe in this modern age – especially if we consider the laissez-faire attitude so many people have, the loosey-goosey, ambivalent, relativism of “What’s true for you may not be true for me.”

Now, there’s a terrible sin! It is a true saying that “What we do says who we are. Actions speak louder than words.” We recognize that when people are denying God, they are denying that there is a knowable Truth. It is, in fact, the Truth Eve and Adam wrongly believed they could access on their own. In Matthew 7:15-17 (GNT) ¹, Jesus tells his Disciples (and therefore us, Belovéd) – ¹⁵“Be on your guard against false prophets; they come to you looking like sheep on the outside, but on the inside they are really like wild wolves. ¹⁶You will know them by what they do. Thorn bushes do not bear grapes, and briers do not bear figs. ¹⁷A healthy tree bears good fruit, but a poor tree bears bad fruit.” Who are the false Prophets today? Look around us; they are everywhere in everything, even where we least expect them.

They have a lot of different job titles – brownnoser, suck-up, apple-polisher, back-scratcher, teacher’s pet, lackey, minion, knave, politician, wolf in sheep’s clothing, sycophant, all of them fit the term con artist – you get the idea. These are people who will tell you anything they think you want to know. These are people who court our loyalty through favoritism. They make us feel important either by well-worn flattery, or by belittling and devaluing others. If we are honest about our past, we know that, at some time, we have all been trying to make wine from snowflakes. In doing so we miss out on being rich in faith and [becoming] heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him.

Alrighty, we’ve gone a long way ‘round to get to the purpose of this. Why choose “Ephphatha!?” That word, that concept, was chosen because of the Greek word, dianoigó. Wa-a-a-y up at the top I wrote it is about “completely opened,” as in freed, liberated, no longer impeded and is often used in a contextual sense. Now, think back through the histories and prophecies in the Old Testament, the parables and letters in the New Testament. Do they not tell us to be open to whatever God sends us, to be prepared to communicate in whichever way he chooses? We definitely want our ears open to hear the Word and our lips liberated for proclaiming the Word. We want our tongues to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. We want every possible “catchment system” in our lives to be valid ways to receive and share the word.

What is the value in opening our hearts “just a little bit” to let in a ray of Sonshine when we can throw open the tabernacles of our hearts and let in the Light of the World – Jesus? Couldn’t we let ἐφφαθά open more than just our ears and mouths, our hearing and speaking. Could we let it be the opening of our agape – ἀγάπη – Love, the unconditional Love God shows to us in giving his Only Begotten Son as reparation for OUR sins? Come on, we’ve all got them, and some of them are doozies. Every single one of them can and will be forgiven for those who are willing to go to a one-on-one with Jesus as this unnamed man did. That’s something we can do – be willing to go – but look what else happened.

Sunday’s reading stars with verse 31 in Mark 7. Here are verses 31-32 (↔ Click Link) :
³¹Then he returned from the region of Tyre, and went by way of Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. ³²They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him. SOMEONE took the man to Jesus so that the man might be touched – and healed – by Jesus. Might that be a role we are called upon to take up, to Ephphatha our hearts in compassion, and lead someone else to Jesus’ loving touch and gentle but mind-blowing healing?

What if Ephphatha became the one word that characterized what we do? Would that tell the World who we are? Putting it another way, if we were arrested for being Christians, would there be enough evidence to convict us? And so I invite all of us to pray for those who are indeed Christians, and who are indeed arrested, imprisoned, tortured, and sometimes executed because they are Christians. What would their Ephphatha look like? Does ours look that open to God’s will? Jesus took the man aside, away from all the hubbub and gave him what he needed. If it came right down to that, would I, would you, would we be willing to say, “Yeah, I’m open to that?” Well then, Ephphatha!! Open me! (↔ Music Link)

And remember, IYDKYDK, so Listen Up and open up with everything you’ve got! (Yeah. You better click that link.)

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

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

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.

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Aloha Friday Message – August 30, 2024 – WHAT DO WE WANT TO DO?

August 30, 2024

2435AFC083024 – WHAT DO WE WANT TO DO?

Deuteronomy 4:6-8 – ⁶You must observe them diligently, for this will show your wisdom and discernment to the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, “Surely this great nation is a wise and discerning people!” ⁷For what other great nation has a god so near to it as the Lord our God is whenever we call to him? ⁸And what other great nation has statutes and ordinances as just as this entire law that I am setting before you today?

Psalm 15:1-2 –
^t1O Lord, who may abide in your tent? [Tabernacle]
Who may dwell on your holy hill?

²Those who walk blamelessly, and do what is right,
and speak the truth from their heart;

James 1:21 ^b-22 – welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save your souls.
²²But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves.

Mark 7:21-23 – ²¹For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, ²²adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. ²³All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.

Aloha nui loa, ʻŌmea! Today we have another instance where suddenly we can see that there is a series happening, and we had not recognized it. the series is about “Everybody makes choices.” How often have we all used that as a disparaging remark? Yes, we make choices – As Mark Twain opined, ““Good decisions come from experience, and a lot of experience comes from bad decisions.” Doesn’t that sound about right Belovéd? I have noticed that – once again, without my expecting it – that we are running a series here. The first post in the series was 2433AFC081624 – A Tasty Choice. There we learned that getting to know God is like choosing something by taking a little taste of it. O Taste and see that the Lord is good. We also learned that choices, discernment, decisions – all of these have consequences. One very good choice we can make is to recognize that it is indeed God’s Will that praises go to him before anything else we offer. In the second post in the series – 2434AFC082324 – Choose to Be Chosen – we focused on Joshua’s classic statement, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” (↔ Music Link).” There we learned that the whole thing about God creating earthlings, was that {A} God chose to create us and {B} waited for us to choose to Love and Obey him. He began with a man named Adam, and when Adam failed to choose correctly, God waited until Abram came along and chose to make him the head of Many Great Nations. Abram chose to Love and Obey God, and when God sent him to a strange land with the promise that it would all belong to his descendants, Abram Obeyed and Loved the Lord. Because he chose that course of action God changed his name to Abraham, and he was the father of Isaac who became the father of Jacob, who wrestled with an angel and gained the name Israel. Here is the result of that encounter in Genesis 32:27-28 – ²⁷So he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” ²⁸Then the man said, “You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel * for you have striven with God and with humans, ** and have prevailed.”
*The one who strives with God or God strives ** or with divine and human beings. So, up to this day, when we say the name of Abraham’s grandson – Israel – we are saying “Strives with God.” When other Semitic nations speak about that great country, Israel, they will pronounce it “israh-elies”. Whenever we hear that word we must remember that God chose a righteous man and his descendants to love and obey him. At the founding of that nation, Isaac showed that the nation Israel would always strive with God.

Why, then, did God choose them? Please take a quick break and grab your Bible. Open it to Deuteronomy 7:6-11 (or just follow that link). God chose the Hebrews because they were a tiny nation, a weak nation, a stubborn nation, a fickle nation. They were the least likely to be a people peculiar to Almighty God alone. If they would Love and Obey God, their creator, they would be a perfect example for other nations. They would show that a puny, rancorous, arrogant, rag-tag, family-based group of former slaves could become a great, wealthy, powerful, and well-respected People, a “Light to the nations,” so that other nations would look at them and say, “What a wonderful and powerful God they have that he has done so much for them. Would that he would do so for us!” The People of Israel lived down to their predicted nadir. We have an account of the dreadful condition of the leaders and the People in

2 Chronicles 36:15-16 –
¹⁵The Lord, the God of their ancestors, sent persistently to them by his messengers, because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place; ¹⁶but they kept mocking the messengers of God, despising his words, and scoffing at his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord against his people became so great that there was no remedy. The Apostle Paul reminds us that God sent Judges, and Prophets, and Messengers, and his earthlings rejected them because they kept mocking the messengers of God, despising his words, and scoffing at his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord against his people became so great that there was no remedy. He had already destroyed every living thing except the inhabitants of the Ark, so instead, he sent us his Son, our Savior, for this reason: ¹⁷Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. (↔ Music Link) ¹⁸Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. ¹⁹And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. Those who embrace Wrath do so in their own darkness and – having rejected the Light – they are condemned already unless they repent and believe the Gospel. And woe to those who claim to be believers but lure others into sin and darkness by claiming to be pure, wise, and “woke.” In short, like us – the present-day earthlings who are the Children of God – they refused to “purge the evil from their midst” and brought punitive judgment on themselves. Is that what WE want to do?

It should be no surprise (↔ Click Link) that most of us have the solution to that riddle in our homes, maybe even in our offices, or our vehicles, or our smart phone. It’s the B.I.B.L.E.! That’s what we do here every Friday, we turn to the Word and ask the Holy Spirit to show us God’s own Wisdom. Ah! And there we have it: Reverence for the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. (Paraphrasing Proverbs 9:10 from my logo). We have full, unrestricted access to the Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth – and that is what WE must do, what WE want to be – we can be the Children of God who Love and Obey the Lord in all things. WE can be the ones who are faithful regardless of everything that’s going on around us. WE can be surrounded by all that is evil, like captives in Babylon or Egypt, and we remain faithful.

Hopefully you will recall the anecdotes about the two banners we placed in our kids’ bedroom. One said, “What do you want to do?” and the other said, “THE RIGHT THING.” At times, sporadically and briefly, Israel “did the right thing,” but quick-as-a-wink they were back to idolatry, massive and abominable sins, and desecration of all that God had set aside as Holy. Here we must recall Edmund Burke’s famous aphorism, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” These days, that reference is made to remind us of Hitler, Kim Jong Un, Xi Junping, Vladimir Putin, and the evil-doers. This quote from Burke leads us to another of his quips, “Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.” What do WE want to do? Too often it is “as little as possible.” Instead we must strive to do “as much as we can however little that may be.” Remember, it is the weight of the final snowflake on the mountainside that triggers the avalanche. (See Terry Goodkind ↔ Click Link) Some of us (I stand guilty as charged) use the term snowflake to refer to the overly-entitled, easily offended (think “Karen”), pretentious yuppie-puppies who seem to be offended by everything from road-signs to livestock. They take no responsibility for the havoc they cause in their ignorance. They protest against that which they do not understand, and so their protests are alogical. They ask for permission to cause death and still be held guiltless. THAT is not what WE want to do! These verbal and physical broadsides of protest are very much like the historical broadsides of two navies firing canons point-blank at each other at sea. It is something like death by attrition or mutual annihilation. The best strategy in dealing with a broadside attack is to confront the enemy straight-on, taking a course perpendicular to the attack. What does that mean in policies being attacked by verbal and political broadsides? Think about how many times the Book of Proverbs tells us not to argue with a fool. Collecting these images together, to avoid an avalanche, stay away from locations and positions that are susceptible to avalanche. To deal with a tumbling snowball, get to the beginning of the problem and stop it rather than wait until its momentum is overpowering. What do WE want to do? THE RIGHT THING! And just how do WE do the right thing? How do we know the right thing? Riddle me this: Who or what has the answer to finding the Right Things?

We stop at the Stop Sign, not beyond it, not ignoring it – we stop because it is the law. If the speed limit is 25 mph, we go the speed limit; if it is 35 we don’t accelerate to 42 because the police won’t stop us unless we are exceeding the speed limit by more than 7 mph. WE do what is right because it is right, not because we are afraid of being punished, but rather because WE are committed to being OBEDIENT. WE respect the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of the Real Presence of Christ, and we do not receive the Holy Eucharist if we have skipped a Sunday to go fishing with grampa unless we have first reconciled with God. WE remember that YOLO-F is really, really Real, and so are Heaven and Hell. WE remember what The Apostle Paul said in Romans 12:1-2 – ¹ I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. ²Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God — what is good and acceptable and perfect.

WE do NOT go along to get along because getting along with the World is a failure to get along with God. WE do not make idols of our jobs, our sports or cinema celebrities, our music-industry stars. WE know God’s Laws and “observe them diligently.” WE “do what is right” and “humbly, with meekness, welcome the word that has been planted in US” because we are “doers of the word, (↔ Music Link) and not merely hearers who deceive themselves.” We know what our Lord and Master meant when he told us, it is “from the human heart, that evil intentions come; all these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.” WE cast those things away. WE stop, confess, apologize, and turn around to return to our God when we are distracted by the World. That is REPENTANCE, and God desires and blesses every moment of repentance. Do you ever struggle with interruptions in your prayers, or find yourself distracted about something banal while attempting something devotional? Do this: Stop. Tell God, “I’m sorry. I repent of that distraction. I’m back now.” Then continue to pray. God can, will, and does mark and reward those simple moments of repentance just as surely as he takes note of our greatest, most lethal sins if we Repent and Believe the Gospel ! WE can do that because we are anointed as Priest, Prophet, and King. He is our God, and we are his servants and therefore we are NOT conformed to this world as if we are a herd of lemmings looking for the perfect cliff.

WHAT DO WE WANT TO DO? WE want to be those WHOM God sees as ones who walk blamelessly, and do what is right, and speak the truth from their hearts. Those two banners sum it up, don’t they? Adelphos, it is time to STAND up, SUIT up, GEAR up, SPEAK up, and STAND for Truth, Justice, Freedom, and Right. It is time to do Right things better, and Better things right. It is TIME to Taste and see that the Lord is good! And in HIS Goodness we declare and decree his blessings of wisdom, courage, and strength will come down on all who stand in the gap against the Worldly who call evil good and Good evil (Isaiah 5:20 ← #Clickit!) May the Lord of Hosts preserve us from all their evil in our going out and coming in! Let now the Holy Spirit renew us with the Fire of El Shaddai-Olam’s Sh’khinah Glory. (↔ Learning Link)

We are the People of the Covenant through the Suffering and Victory of Jesus and so we remember what God prophesies about us:
Deuteronomy 20:3 ^b – 4 – “Today you are drawing near to do battle against your enemies. Do not lose heart, or be afraid, or panic, or be in dread of them; ⁴for it is the Lord your God who goes with you, to fight for you against your enemies, to give you victory.” But wait! There’s MORE!
1 John 5:1-4 – ¹ Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the parent loves the child. ²By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. ³For the love of God is this, that we obey his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome, ⁴for whatever is born of God conquers the world. And this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith. We have chosen the Best of All and left the rest of all others behind. When we have been humbled as The Chosen, we are blessed because we choose MOMENT-BY-MOMENT to be the Children of God. (←POWERFUL!!) And, ʻŌmea, why do you think every first-person plural of to be is spelled WE? So that WE will remember that WE are the Body of Christ, WE are the Bride of the King of the Universe. WE are not now and have never been, and will never be alone in this battle … so long as we Love and Obey the Lord as he has commanded. That is what WE want to do, and it is ALL we want to do. WE will not be distracted by the evil surrounding us because we will unite at the foot of the Cross and fight evil by depriving it of what sustains it — vanquish the demons by suiting up. Then get into the fray as the faithful remnant who affirm,

WE MEAN IT WHEN WE SAY,

“Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done on Earth
AS IT IS IN HEAVEN

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

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

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

Posted in Aloha Friday Messages, God's Absolutely Perfect Plan, History, M.A.P., MUSIC!, Permalink, Podcast, Prayer Requests, Reptentance, Series, Standard Prayers, THE APP, YOLO-F
Tags: Art, For sharing, Multiple Scripture references on topic, Music, Prayer Request, Scripture study, Series, Something New, Stories

Aloha Friday Message – August 23, 2024 – Choose to Be Chosen

August 23, 2024

2434AFC082324 – Choose to Be Chosen – ← 😊 PODCAST LINK

Johsua 24:1-18 {excerpts only} – Joshua gathered together all the tribes of Israel at Shechem … Joshua addressed all the people: “If it does not please you to serve the LORD, decide [choose*] today whom you will serve, the gods your fathers served beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites in whose country you are now dwelling. As for me and my household, we will serve the LORD. … But the people answered, “Far be it from us to forsake the LORD for the service of other gods. … Therefore we also will serve the LORD, for he is our God.”
* : bachar choose, choice, chosen, selected from the choice ones

Psalm 34:16-17 –
¹⁶The face of the Lord is against evildoers,
to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth.
¹⁷When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears,
and rescues them from all their troubles.

Ephesians 5:21 – ²¹Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.

John 6:63-69 – ⁶³It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. ⁶⁴But among you there are some who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the first who were the ones that did not believe, and who was the one that would betray him. ⁶⁵And he said, “For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted by the Father.”
⁶⁶Because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him. ⁶⁷So Jesus asked the twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?” ⁶⁸Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. ⁶⁹We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Ah, Belovéd, my heart is harking back to those days of grade school at what was then called Charles A. Bradley Elementary School. There were some great times there. I remember one of the really “coveted” distinctions was to be selected to be on the Honor Guard. There were about a dozen kids chosen to march shuffle-style from the Office to the flag pole and to raise the flag and then lead in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. At the end of the day we marched out and respectfully lowered the flag, properly folded it, and took it back to the office. There were other episodes of choosing that were not so honorable – like standing in a circle and waiting to be chosen to play on one of the two Kick Ball Teams during Recess. Great athlete that I have never been, I was usually among the last – or often the last. When my name was finally called, one of the guys in my class usually said, “God Todd! What a clod!” Sometimes being chosen is pretty gratifying; sometimes it is not. In many instances being chosen requires having to do or be something or someone that serves another – like kickball for example – you have to be able to kick, to run, to score, to catch, and to throw accurately so that your team wins the contest (which to me always seemed mainly pointless anyway). Being chosen in a Covenant Relationship is a lot more complicated and demanding. Consider the history of Israel.

You will recall that God chose Abram and sent him off on a very long trek through very hostile territory. The purpose of the sojourn was to acquaint Abram with the land God had set aside for a group of earthlings that wouldn’t even be identifiable for hundreds of years later – about 400 years, actually. That was when God chose Moses to go to Egypt where his chosen earthlings had been multiplying and – well, let’s call it “incubating” – for that 400 years. Once Moses had gotten them out of the clutches of Pharoah and their slavery there, the Lord chose Moses to convey this message: Deuteronomy 14:2 – ²For you are a people holy to the Lord your God; it is you the Lord has chosen out of all the peoples on earth to be his people, his treasured possession. Why did God do that? it might sound trite or flippant, but “God only knows.” He did what he did because he wanted to do it. He chose the weakest, the most abused, the most fickle descendants of the first decent man (Abram) he found after the Great Deluge and called them to be “a light to the nations,” the singular Nation that would show how God as the source of Perfect Integrity, Endless Mercy, Everlasting Love, And Eternal Salvation. EVERY nation would be able to see how great El Shaddai-Olam is by how blessed Israel became. All they had to do was love and obey him so that they, and everyone in the World, would know as in Isaiah 44:6 –
⁶Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel,
and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts:
I am the first and I am the last;
besides me there is no God.

Now, let’s take a look at the chopped-up Key Verse selection from Joshua 24. Here are the People of God’s Own Choosing, and Joshua is telling them they have already proven themselves to be fickle, selfish, and prone to do whatever their wicked neighbors do so that The Chosen will be more like the eliminated Nations: If it does not please you to serve the LORD, decide [choose*] today whom you will serve, the gods your fathers served beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites in whose country you are now dwelling. As for me and my household, we will serve the LORD. And what did the people reply? “Far be it from us to forsake the LORD for the service of other gods. … Therefore we also will serve the LORD, for he is our God.” Of course we cannot know, but I do believe that God himself said quietly, “We’ll see about that,” because he knew full well they would betray him over, and over, and over again.

Now, aren’t we also like that? do we not profess to know him, to love him, to serve him in his perpetual, deep-and-wide (↔ Music Link) Conventional Love and Grace? When I contemplate that, I rejoice because How can I keep from singing? (↔ Music Link) I say again How can I keep from singing? (↔ ANOTHER Music Link) And still, I know that even as I choose God to give Primacy to, I will fail and betray him through disobedience, and the desiring of no-gods, idolatry that is adultery in the Eyes of the Lord.

Most of the time this happens when we selfishly put our own wants ahead of other’s needs: “I want what I want when I want it,” and, “I know what you want, Lord, but I don’t want that because I’d rather have something (or perhaps someone) of my own choosing.” In the writing of the Prophets Jeremiah, Isaiah, and Ezekiel (and in hundreds of other place in the B.I.B.L.E.) God addresses the topic of idols and idolatry. He calls them “no-gods,” and says through the Prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 44:14-17 – ¹⁴He cuts down cedars or chooses a holm tree or an oak and lets it grow strong among the trees of the forest. He plants a cedar and the rain nourishes it. ¹⁵Then it can be used as fuel. Part of it he takes and warms himself; he kindles a fire and bakes bread. Then he makes a god and worships it, makes it a carved image and bows down before it. ¹⁶Half of it he burns in the fire; over this half he roasts meat, eats it and is satisfied. He also warms himself and says, “Ah, I am warm, I can feel the fire!” ¹⁷The rest of it he makes into a god, his idol, bows down to it and worships it; he prays to it and says, “Save me, for you are my god!” We, who claim to Love and serve the Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our Fathers, (↔ Music Link) [1]

[1] “God of our Fathers” is the National Hymn. Daniel C. Roberts wrote the lyrics in 1876, the Centennial of the United States. The accompaniment in this version was written later by George W. Warren in 1892. It has invoked strong sentiments of Patriotism ever since. Would to God that “We, The People of The United States of America” would learn to sing, take up, and live the lyrics in this majestic poem! **↓

[1] the God who emptied himself and came to be with us as Emmanuel, we take cars, drugs, celebrities, gizmos and doodads, makeup, toothpaste, garments, and any other material or temporal thing we value and we make them into our gods, saying, “This will make my life so-o-o-o much better.” All the while we are saying, “God does not see, he does not care, I can get back to him and he’ll forgive me, but right now … yeah, I’m good with all these things and persons I have acquired.” Don’t we often choose what is the worst of us instead of choosing God Who Is the Best of us?

Every time we act in ways that show we are attempting to exalt ourselves at the expense of others, we are making ourselves to be our idols, making ourselves to be no-gods. No-gods our powerless. They cannot breathe because no Breath is within them, they cannot walk, or move, they cannot speak and so cannot answer, they have to Life, and so cannot give anything to satisfy our wants, much less our needs. When we make other persons (including us), places, things, ideas, or even spirits more important than the One, True, Only, Eternal God Almighty who created us and the entire universe (but is not the Universe), then we have manufactured one (or more) of those no-gods. Here is a little caveat about those no-gods: The usually are inhabited by demonic spirits – yep, persons, places, things, and ideas (I’m thinking politics at this very moment) can be the intermediary for demons. Recall the words of The Apostle Paul in 1 Timothy 4:1-2 – ¹ Now the Spirit expressly says that in later [or last] times some will renounce the faith by paying attention to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, ²through the hypocrisy of liars whose consciences are seared with a hot iron. THESE earthlings should be easily and clearly recognizable as not-gods, and yet our country, founded on Christian principles, is divided over two people with very different claims to the power and integrity of their Christian faith. isn’t just possible that neither one of them is right? Who among us sees a leader who can be said is compliant with Ephesians 5:21 – ²¹Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ? And not just in America, but in any government anywhere in the World? Can any such leader be the one chosen by God?

The stunning answer is yes. Throughout the history of the People of Israel, God chose Nations who had violent opposition to Israel. He chose them to correct their apostasy – their total rejection of their heritage at the chosen people, or as The Apostle Peter put it in 1 Peter 2:9 – ⁹But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people**, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
**Greek a people for his possession peripoiēsin preservation, acquisition, acquiring, obtaining, possessing, possession, ownership; ” ‘a making to remain over and above‘; hence, ‘preservation; preservation for one’s self; acquisition; the thing acquired, or a possession’ “

Now we here in America are looking at a situation where there will be even deeper division among our citizens, where too few of us will be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ. In the past, God has given The Chosen great blessings for their Love and Obedience. When “humanity” chosen or not, failed to honor his Primacy, this is the sort of message he gave us – all of us!

Proverbs 1:25-29 –
²⁵and because you have ignored all my counsel
          and would have none of my reproof,
²⁶I also will laugh at your calamity;
          I will mock when panic strikes you,
²⁷when panic strikes you like a storm,
          and your calamity comes like a whirlwind,
          when distress and anguish come upon you.
²⁸Then they will call upon me, but I will not answer;
          they will seek me diligently, but will not find me.
²⁹Because they hated knowledge
          and did not choose the fear of the Lord

ʻŌmea, please, choose to be The Chosen People, remember the Word the Lord has given us in Jeremiah 9:23-24 – ²³Thus says the Lord: Do not let the wise boast in their wisdom, do not let the mighty boast in their might, do not let the wealthy boast in their wealth; ²⁴but let those who boast, boast in this, that they understand and know me, that I am the Lord; I act with steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth, for in these things I delight, says the Lord. The wise, the mighty, the wealthy – and all the other no-gods – are like the fakey fans in Proverbs 15:12 –
¹²Scoffers do not like to be rebuked;
          they will not go to the wise. It is so simple to remember because our Lord God tells us so many times, like this time: Psalm 34:16-17 –
¹⁶The face of the Lord is against evildoers,
          to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth.
¹⁷When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears,
          and rescues them from all their troubles.

NO no-gods can do that, absolutely none. And here is the result of when the Righteous call out: John 6:63-69 – ⁶³It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. ⁶⁴But among you there are some who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the first who were the ones that did not believe, and who was the one that would betray him. ⁶⁵And he said, “For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted by the Father.”
Choose to be chosen by the Lord, God of Hosts, the first, the last, the only God who deposes all the no-gods with a single breath of his mouth. For this we are joyfully inspired to give Praise to the Lord (↔ Music Link) because of his Absolutely Perfect Plan! Blesséd be God in all his Angels and his Saints chose in righteousness “before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. (See Ephesians 1:3-14 – seriously Adelphos, read it). we must understand that God will give you what we ask for but will base it on our actions, not our words. And this is why I close every message with my pledge to be subject to each and all of you in, and through, and because of being chosen in Christ Jesus for a life of Full-Time Christian Service. I tell you each time …

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

Please pray for me that I can choose to be your servant. (↔ Music Link)

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

**↑

I choose “one Nation under God”

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

Posted in Aloha Friday Messages, God's Absolutely Perfect Plan, History, Links, MUSIC!, Permalink, Podcast, Prayer Requests, Reptentance, THE APP, Video
Tags: Art, Biblical Languages, For sharing, Mercy, MORE Scripture!, Multiple Scripture references on topic, Music, Prayer Request, REPENTANCE, Scripture study, Something New, Stories, The APP!

Aloha Friday Message – August 16, 2024 – A Tasty Choice

August 16, 2024

2433AFC081624 – A Tasty Choice ← 😊 PODCAST LINK

Proverbs 9:6 – (NLT) [1] ⁶Leave your simple ways behind, and begin to live;
learn to use good judgment.”

Psalm 34:4-5 –
⁴I sought the Lord, and he answered me,
and delivered me from all my fears.
⁵Look to him, and be radiant;
so your faces shall never be ashamed.

⁸O taste and see that the Lord is good; (↔ Music Link)

Ephesians 5:15-17 – ¹⁵Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, ¹⁶making the most of the time, because the days are evil. ¹⁷So do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.

John 6:52-53 – ⁵²The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” ⁵³So Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.

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. Today we give praise and glory to God for all the prayers you have offered for me during my hospital stay. I mentioned earlier that I was sick because of a bad altitude. Well, we are slowly climbing upwards to cruising altitude. I’ve started outpatient therapy sessions (O.T. and P.T,). We believe there are several more weeks of work to be done to restore lost muscle and endurance. Enough of that. Let’s see what’s in the queue for today.

The Key Verses for today all suggest the notion of discernment. That is a tough subject, especially when weighing spiritual things and options that affect our future. We might even say options that effect our future in that the choices we make also change our relationship with everything and everyone in our lives because, you know – YOLO-F. Let’s use the process of goal-setting as an example. Goals represent the choosing of a state of being we believe we would prefer. If I want to ace the exam, I have to study. The goal is to earn a good grade. The first objective I need to set to achieve that goal is to crack open the book. Then I need to review any notes I have on the relevant topics. As I work on my review, another objective might be to organize my objectives so that they match the teaching style of the professor – what s/he dwelt on and how that material’s relevance in the class was emphasized. Making these kinds of choices can be fairly easy if we practice them often. Sometimes, though, choices we must make are more difficult. Take, for example, choosing obedience to Christ’s Law of Love.

If anyone of you have participated in the podcasts presented by Ascension Media such as the Bible in a Year (BIAY) or Catechism in a Year (CIY), you will recognize this portrayal of sin as presented by Fr. Mike Schmitz: “God, I know what you want, and why you want it. But I don’t want that. I want what I want, so I’m not going to do what you want.” That is a choice that requires discernment. I look at what God wants, compare it with what I want, and I choose to have nothing to do with what God wants because what I want is more appealing to me. One of the life-choices we often hear discussed as requiring discernment is choosing a vocation.

Does God want me to serve his people as a professed religious, as a priest or deacon, as a layperson serving in one of the lay ministries of the Church? In these situations, the outcome of our discernment is taken more seriously. Going back to preparing for the exam, if I decide to choose playing a videogame online, or going out with friends instead of studying, my discernment is more like telling my professor, “I know what you want, but that’s not what I want.” Our failure to toe the line will most likely result in a failure to get a good grade on the exam. If we turn down the opportunity to serve God in the way he has planned for us, the consequences could be much more dire.

Choices, discernment, decisions – all of these have consequences. We have often stated here that “There are no inconsequential acts,” and “What we do says who we are. Actions speak louder than words.” Often we choose to accept the consequences rather than deny ourselves the gratification of doing what we want instead of doing what we should. IN THE LONG RUN e.g., eternity) Which is actually more gratifying: Pleasing myself or pleasing God? That answer may seem obvious, but most of the time the obvious isn’t so obvious. We choose wrongly.

What would happen if our discernment leads us to a decision that in all things we will always praise God? Wouldn’t that provide a context for all of our other decisions? Praising God in, through, for, and with all that we are, and with all that we have, would be an extraordinary goal – which is surprising because it should not be extraordinary at all. It should be natural and stand always as the primary purpose of our lives. Why? BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT GOD HAS INTENDED FOR US SINCE THE FIRST INTONATION OF “LET THERE BE ….”

It is indeed God’s Will that praises go to him before anything else we offer. We first capture this understanding in Judges 1:2 – ²The Lord said, “Judah [1] shall go up. I hereby give the land into his hand.” You may recall that the top of the Ark of the Covenant had two Cherubim with their wings outstretched toward the center. This was The Mercy Seat, and it was there that God’s Sh’khinah Glory (← Check it out!) rested. Sh’khinah means resting, dwelling, and even throne. Consider, then, the meaning of Psalm 22:3 –
³Yet you are holy,
enthroned [dwelling in] on the praises of Israel. God inhabits the praises of his People! Their Praises of God are his Throne. We lift our hearts and hands and voices in praise to our Creator. Now, there is some disagreement about whether or not it is appropriate for the assembly (congregation) to pray in the orans gesture during The Lord’s Prayer. Technically that posture is assigned only to the presiding priest in the General Instruction of the Roman Missal (GIRM ↔ Click Link) , and laity should not be using it.

Try this: hold your hands in the orans position – out to the side, palms up (See this link). Close your eyes and relax a bit, then say, “God, you are my God.” Now, I am going to give you a music link to one of my favorite hymns by one of my favorite composers – Rich Mullins. Click this music link, and listen to it in the orans position. O God, you are my God. (↔ Music Link)

Did you do those things? Did you try the orans position, and then use it to listen to that song of praise? If you did, then your discernment was that you would benefit from doing that. If you did not than your discernment was “nobody can see me, and besides, that looks silly,” or something to that effect. Please take a moment and think through the intended and unintended consequences of those decisions. I’ll wait.

<<<< PAUSE >>>>

Let’s expand that experience a bit to the moment you’re ready to get up and start your day. You will née to discern between watching Good Morning America (or participating in any other activity), or spending seven-and-one-half minutes in prayer. How obvious is the obvious? If you choose prayer, will you choose to let Judah (Praise) go first? In either of these actions we must discern what is proper (if we are at all interested in being proper), and so we must discern what is acceptable. In order to know what we want to be, we have to know what and where we are. Take Baskin-Robbins for instance.

Going for an ice cream can be a challenging experience for some of us. 32 flavors! What’s my favorite, do I want to try something new, who would ever choose that kind, would this one go well with that one? It is always simple for me. If they have lime sherbet, that’s the end of it; if they don’t, then any sherbet or sorbet will do. If I strike out there, it’s “I’ll have the same as s/he’s having.” Discernment doesn’t always have to be a struggle. If it works, don’t break it and don’t fix it, either. What exactly, then, is discernment?

This far in, we ought to be able to conclude that discernment is a form of decision-making. That implies that there are at least two options to consider. I’m going to list a few and then close it up. How does one become discerning, or put another way, what is the source of discernment? Like all Good things, discernment is a Gift from God – in fact, a Gift of the Holy Spirit. Way back in the book of Isaiah we have a list of Spiritual Gifts:

Isaiah 11:2 – ²The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him,
          the spirit of wisdom and understanding,
          the spirit of counsel and might,
          the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. If that sounds familiar it is because we find a similar list in the writings of The Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 12:4-11 (↔ Click Link) which includes wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of [reverence for] the Lord. Right at the head of that list are wisdom and understanding. In the Book of Wisdom, we read that Wisdom was the first collaborator called by God to watch, enjoy, and wonder at all that God was creating. In Daniel 2:21 we read he gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding. On my logo (← Check it out!), there is a quote from Proverbs 9:10 – ¹⁰The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight. We see a pattern here; discernment is gathering knowledge about anything ranging from something to everything, applying that knowledge to processing a decision, and basing that decision on what is right and just as God expects (Micah 6:8 … again!)

Sometimes I think of it as getting a little sample (like that tiny little spoon at Baskin-Robins) and acting on what I taste. In fact, guess what that word “taste” (Hebrew taam) means in the Key Verse from the Psalm above. It means to perceive, or to experience, to sample (eat) in a small quantity. Ah! As in “we become what we eat!” Take a sample of the Lord’s goodness, or his mercy, or his steadfast love, or any of the other multitude of benefits that well up in our lives “like the dewfall,” take a taste and we will gain knowledge, understanding, wisdom, and discern that, indeed, the Lord is Good! He is so Good, in fact, that we end up praising him and thanking him more and more which leads us to trust, surrender, love, believe, and receive him more and more.

And – you guessed it – all of that brings us “closer” to God (he hasn’t moved away, we have). As we draw closer to God we become convinced by direct evidence that he IS. He is our God. We are his servants. It is in him that In him we live and move and have our being. (See Acts 17:28 ^a) I am, you are we are alive in him because We Are the Body of Christ (↔ Music Link) When I need to be certain about how to live, I Choose Christ (↔ Music Link) because I’m gonna live so God can use me! (↔ Music Link) How shall I serve him, when I ask him, What do you want of me, Lord? (↔ Music Link)? I will be HIS servant by serving his servants (↔ Music Link)

Now, my Belovéd reader, what shall we do? Let’s go out there into the Word with the Good News, proclaiming our Love of God in the lives we Live by discerning what is the will of God for us that we may best serve him by serving each other. Now, that’s the tastiest choice ever!

I will choose to eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood so that I will have Life within me. Can I get an AMEN?

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

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

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] Judah – יְהוּדָה Yehudah the name JUDAH means Praise, ergo, let Praise go up first. We see this illustrated in the Lord’s Prayer. There is the address to God, Our Father, who art in Heaven, then Praise: Hallowed be thy name – Your Name is Holy.

[1] Passages marked (NLT) are from New Living Translation (NLT) – Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.