Wesley United Methodist Church, Orange TX

This stained glass ascending dove is from St. Peter’s Cathedral in Rome.   I took the picture from a long way off and then zoomed in on it so it may not be as clear as I would like it.  The dove reminds me that our prayers go to God and are as beautiful to Him as this dove is to us.

Psalm 51:1-10
51:1 Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.

51:2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.

51:3 For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.

51:4 Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are justified in your sentence and blameless when you pass judgment.

Right out of Psalm 51 we have a wonderful prayer.  We confess our sins to God and acknowledge that all of our sin is against Him.  We may hurt or offend people while we are here on this earth but we sin against God because He calls us to always love Him first and our neighbor as well.  Anytime we hurt or offend someone we are moving away from who God calls us to be and that movement away is the worse sin we can committ.  We may never be able to live absolutely sin free lives but striving to be closer to God is what He wants from us.  When we look to move closer to and  live more Holy lives, we are able to appreciate the presence of God in our lives even more.   Always strive to pray like Psalm 51 examples for us.   It will keep us connected to God and to His Holy Spirit.  His presence is what keeps us hopeful, striving to be helpful and generous with all that God has provided to us.

Have a blessed and very peaceful holiday,  

 Randy

There’s a promise in the rainbow and there’s a promise in the scriptures. 

Deuteronomy 30:15-20
30:15 See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity.

30:16 If you obey the commandments of the LORD your God that I am commanding you today, by loving the LORD your God, walking in his ways, and observing his commandments, decrees, and ordinances, then you shall live and become numerous, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to possess.

Wow!!!  What wonderful promises from God.  Such a positive message to the people of Israel, us too, that tells us if we love God and remember how he wants us to live in this world we will prosper.

Remember to love God, remember Jesus Christ’s teachings and remember to love your neighbor.  That’s about as simple as it gets.  Do those things well and the rest falls into place.  There will be no better place to live when we learn to put God, His commandments and His Son Jesus Christ first in our lives.

Have a greatest commandment day,  Love God with all your heart, mind and strength, then love your neighbor as yourself,  

Peace and blessings, Randy

139:14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well.

Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18

139:6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain it.

Have you ever felt that way?  The knowledge of how well God, our creator, knows us.  When we read Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18 we see just how intimately God knows us.   It is crazy that we resist our God, our creator, without even a second thought to all that He has done for us and how wonderfully He has created us. 

Why do we resist God?   He has given us a free will to make decisions about how we live our lives.  He even allows us to deny His existence and  to ignore His Holy Spirit which is always gently leading us into a closer relationship with Him.  Reading Psalm 139 tells us that God is and always will be involved with us even if we deny Him.   That is a great thought; no matter how often we deny Him, curse Him and try to abolish His Will for this world, we will always be called by Him.  I love it when no matter how bad I mess up, God loves me no matter what I do to mess up.  God created us to love and no matter what we do He will not be turned from that purpose.

Have a day that says you know God loves you, 

Randy

Jeremiah 18:1-11

This pottery is around 2000 yrs old.  It is from Pompeii that was buried under volcanic ash.  It may not be as old as Jeremiah’s prophecy but some of it was probably made in the same manner as described in Jeremiah 18.

There is an Artisan at work in our lives.  The scripture from Jeremiah talks of a potter sitting at the lump of clay spinning on his wheel.  He has the power to shape the clay into whatever he wishes it to be.   We can be the Artisan and shape our lives on what our flesh and the world would have us be or we can allow God to guide our hands in the shaping of our lives.  His Holy Spirit will speak to us and let us know the shape we should become.  The unsteadiness of our hands shaping the lives we lead will cause the clay that we are made of to collapse if we do not depend on God’s Holy Spirit to shape and form us into the people He calls us to be.

Jeremiah says that God has the house of Israel in the palm of His hand and can shape it into whatever He chooses.  Hopefully God is working in this country shaping each of us into His people.  Making us a country of people who are willing to witness to and support each other in neighborly love.

Have a blessed, peace filled week,  Randy