Missing One?

Lift up your eyes on high,
And see who has created these things,
Who brings out their host by number;
He calls them all by name,
By the greatness of His might
And the strength of His power;
Not one is missing.  Isaiah 40:26

As a part of my continuing mental challenges, of which there are many, I was trying to reconcile a list memorized years ago with what I thought was its number, and I kept coming up one short. As it turns out, I am not missing a member of the group. I just cannot count and recite the list at the same time. I'm not entirely sure that is a comfort. 

In Isaiah the Lord offers to one and all a comfort - not one of us is missing or forgotten by the Lord! "Lift up your eyes on high," the Lord says through the prophet, "and see..." See what? See whom? And the invitation is to see the Creator, the Holy One of Israel, God our Lord. And the comfort, if any were needed beyond looking to our Lord, is to know in faith that not one of His created things is missing. Unlike His little sheep down here, the Lord can name and count His created things at the same time, for He calls them all by name. And when I see the Lord using names in the Word these days, I no longer think of the Lord God calling out things like horse, cat, or dog, or even man or woman, but names; names like you and I use to call and respect one another. 

And all God's people said, "Great is the name of our Lord Jesus Christ!" 

Bucky

How Old Is This Thing?

With the best things of the ancient mountains,
With the precious things of the everlasting hills,  Deuteronomy 33:15

If the word in Deuteronomy speaks of ancient things, just how ancient must this Earth be? With the exact number of years denoted by the word ancient being a bit vague, I'll have to go with a hearty, "I don't know!" All I know is that sometime way back when, in the days of yore maybe, God took six days and created a lot of good things. I know because the Lord saw that they were good in His word. And on the seventh day the Lord God rested. After that the span of time gets a little tough for me to understand with one name in a genealogy representing one generation or many; and who knows how many except God? I will hazard a guess that the time between Eden and Noah, and Noah and Abraham is either a whole lot shorter or else a whole lot longer than I might think on any given day. How's that for noncommittal? Speaking of which, when it comes to the span of time between the Alpha and the Omega, I am at once content and not content to know it. The curiosity of when will this next thing will happen is intense, and yet the desire to let it rest in the Lord's almighty hands is quite strong too. 

The Rapture? What a beautiful surprise that will be in that twinkling of an eye when the Lord says, "Now!" Have a great day in Christ the Lord!

Bucky

Steady Effort In The Race

Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.  2 Timothy 2:15

We have a new Supreme Court justice, and like most everyone in America you can rattle off the names of all nine of them, right? To set your mind at ease, I tried and got 8 of them. However, at infrequent times for the past couple of years, I have tried to memorize the names and so maybe that isn't so good after all. Perhaps a daily effort might produce a better result? Paul in his second letter to Timothy gives us a method to be approved by God. And it does not involve some Herculean effort for one day but a steady effort, day by day, like the workman of Paul's time. Daily Bible study, not a problem we think from the comfort of a day in the chair. And yet, Paul reminded Timothy, and the apostle reminded the disciple, and Christian mentor has reminded Christian novice, since Paul's time to study the Word daily. That daily steady effort in this race has not been so easy for us. And still, the answer to that difficulty is just a prayer away in our Lord Jesus. He loves to have us read His story and will certainly be our good help in the race.

Have a powerful day in our Lord Jesus!

Bucky

Beginning Again

 For if, after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the latter end is worse for them than the beginning.  2 Peter 2:20

Welcome to the cold of October! And we had snow too. Some Christmas piano music seemed appropriate to the conditions outside this morning, and so I tried to play along but my ups and downs no longer seem to go in the right direction! Piano lessons as a child were provided to us but having stopped practicing and learning some decades ago, my skill at the piano is long gone. In the modern age we like to think of beginning again in areas of our life that have fallen into disuse and so I searched that phrase in the Bible and came up empty. The Word of the Lord does not seem to go there. In faith, looking at the story of Israel and the people's desire to go back to Egypt way back in time of Moses, it seems that the Lord is rather against any beginning again on this journey.

What about being born again as Jesus told Nicodemus in John chapter 3? Is that not beginning again in this life? No, I would say not, for to begin again in this life would be to start over in a life of sin and picking up those natural skills of lying, stealing, coveting, and so on would be our lot for a second time around. And one must assume we would only get better at those things with further practice. No, being born again means to us starting on something entirely new, a new life in Christ which is in opposition to the old life of fallen sin. It is in our new faith quite frustrating to us that the old life tags along constantly trying to get us to begin that again! 

In Christ our Lord we begin anew, like a child. Amen.

Bucky

Looking To The Lord Jesus

Therefore justice is far from us,
and righteousness does not overtake us;
we hope for light, and behold, darkness,
and for brightness, but we walk in gloom.  Isaiah 59:9

It's Friday, is this the most cheerful verse I could find for today? Darkness and gloom? There are those times on the Earth when we have but one direction to look: to our Lord Jesus. For those who believe in the Lord Jesus it is easy to know which times those are. We call them 'all the', as in all the time we look to our Lord Jesus. However, for those who do not yet believe, they may need a time of darkness and gloom to remind them of the hope of the world, our Lord Jesus. It was in  darkness that the lands of Galilee of the Gentiles saw a great light. (see Isaiah 9:1-2). The dark of night as the shepherds watched their sheep was broken by the light of Heaven streaming down to the Earth. And in a time of census and taxation, confusion and travel, a couple could not find a place to stay at the inn in Bethlehem. A time of great change perhaps not unlike our time right now, and from this time came the hope of the world, our Lord Jesus. 

We  hope for light, and the Light of the world has come! Quit beholding the darkness and look to our Lord Jesus!

Bucky

My Thoughts And Prayers

But the end of all things is at hand; therefore be serious and watchful in your prayers.  1 Peter 4:7

The phrase comes up a lot in our daily life as we hear of deaths and tragedies too far away for the speaker to be there immediately. Did  you ever use this in vain? Did you say it and not mean it? That is the contention of a group of scoffers I watched last night, and this morning I have to speak up in defense of the Lord's chosen ones. One called it something like the most useless and throwaway phrase in use today. I will not quote due to the actual words used in that interview. 

What the man said may be true.

For that reason, we who believe in Jesus and pray seriously to Him for those far away must examine ourselves as Paul told us to do and make sure that when we tell someone our thoughts and prayers are with them, that we go into our prayer closet with that person in mind and make earnest prayer for them. And we shall endeavor to do this until the circumstance is resolved. Yes, our prayer list may get long. 

Do you get angry when you hear that someone considers your thoughts and prayers to be a wasted phrase? Mere words spoken to act like you are doing something and care for a person you will soon forget? Excellent! Get angry and be serious in prayer before the Lord for those who think such things as that. Like you, I had not considered that phrase to be indifferent or vain, and when I say my thoughts and prayers are with you, they are! We can be serious in our prayers in Christ, and great good will come for one another from those thoughts and prayers. For as we see in the Revelation, God considers our prayers a serious thing.  

And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, ascended before God from the angel's hand.  Revelation 8:4

Oh yes! Our thoughts and prayers have great value to our Savior! 

Bucky

In Good Fallen Company

So Moses said to the LORD, “Why have You afflicted Your servant? And why have I not found favor in Your sight, that You have laid the burden of all these people on me? Numbers 11:11

Yesterday we studied a bit of Habakkuk and his complaints to the Lord. It seems from our verse for today that Moses had a gripe or two also. If you have griped to the Lord, then you and I are in good fallen company. This does not mean that we should be doing such a thing, but it is a common activity among the fallen in this world. Are we not born again? Why do you call us fallen? Paul examined this at length in his letter to the Romans and the apostle also found that he had this passenger from his old life: that old man of the flesh that plagued him with fallen lusts. It was the grace of God we gained by faith in Christ Jesus that saved us, and not the sudden and abrupt removal of our former fallen flesh. 

Well, darn! I was hoping today to write to you in perfect righteousness, but I'll just have to write in Christ the Lord instead. Of course you will see that is how we are to be presented one day before the throne of God. It is not my righteousness or yours that we need, but the righteousness of Jesus our Lord. Today we walk in good fallen company, then we will be in good risen company before the goodness of God Himself. We will also gain a better grasp on what it is to be good when we see Jesus. 

Why have You afflicted Your servant? Perhaps to remind us of the Good Servant, Jesus our Lord. Praise and glory to our Lord Jesus on this day!

Bucky

Election Relief

These will make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them, for He is Lord of lords and King of kings; and those who are with Him are called, chosen, and faithful.” Revelation 17:14

Paul wrote again to the Thessalonian church to tell them that the man of lawlessness or man of sin must first be revealed before the day of our Lord would come. Reading a little social media would lead anyone to believe that the man of lawlessness is pretty much any and all of our current politicians and office holders. And we know that sort of talk will likely ramp up in the next couple of weeks. So, by way of some election relief, let's talk about the true power coming to take the throne. 

We usually go with the title written on Him in Revelation 19, but here in chapter 17 He is known as the Lord of lords and King of kings. He is also the Lamb. We know that anyone who makes war on a lamb, the regular sheep kind that is, cannot be much of a warrior. However, the Lamb was the one pointed out by John the Baptist as the One who would take away the sin of the world. This Lamb was also the only one in all of Heaven found worthy to open the 7-sealed scroll that is the Revelation of what must shortly take place. And this Lamb is who the haters army of the world will attack in the end. He wins. This is evidently not the regular sheep sort of lamb, but the Lord of lords and King of kings. Which does not go without saying, for it is written in the word and bears repeating. 

Be with Him; be called, chosen, and faithful!

Bucky

And Sleepy Deserves...

Peter and his companions were very sleepy, but when they became fully awake, they saw his glory and the two men standing with him.  Luke 9:32

We fear awakening to a ghostly presence in the room. I suppose this comes from the flesh preferring to have ghosts walk in the door from the street, perhaps even stopping to knock first. We fear awakening to the risen dead standing in our room. The flesh prefers, I'm guessing, that only living persons should surprise us with a sudden awakening in our private rooms. We fear a bright light suddenly shining in the dark of our sleep. I guess the flesh just doesn't wake up like it used to. Peter and his companions awakened to the full deal in Luke chapter 9, the glorious light of our Lord Jesus, two long dead men from their scriptures, and then a voice in a cloud spoke to them. Yes, sleepy in the wrong place deserves a rude awakening but, whoa!, this was one for the record books! Good thing Luke recorded it in his book for us to read. The miraculous went with Jesus wherever He traveled, and maybe Peter and the boys should have been ready for something like this. Would you? Would I? As our Lord comes to us once more, be ready for the miraculous. It seems He never leaves home without it! 

Praise the Lord our God for this new day in Christ!

Bucky 

No Frigid Love

And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. Matthew 24:12 ESV

There is a concern in our land for having too large a prison population. That is of course a concern that will give birth to an impassioned debate about the why of the thing. While I am not a fan of locking people up, I also do not have a workable alternative in mind. Most places do not want to host the former way of penal colonies, and few would want to house convicted murderers, rapists, and other criminals in their homes. Another question does arise though. Are we a sort of ground zero for the increase in lawlessness? Is it prideful to think that we might be such a thing?

When we run up against such large issues in our nation, it is obvious to those who believe that God is our best and only answer. However, we run into another concern there. Do we ask God to prevent that other person from making the wrong decision while hoping that He leaves us free to decide right and wrong? Seems a bit like that ancient tribe, the Hypockritees, known far and wide for their policy of doing the opposite of what they demanded of everyone else. It may be that God has already answered our prayers for easing prison overcrowding and less crime. God had His Son tell us that lawlessness will be increased. If that time has come, then our solution is to pray that we are not part of the many. 

Lord, please don't let my love grow frigid in this lawless age! 

Bucky

The Riches We Spend Daily

Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?  Romans 2:4

Paul reminds us here of the riches we spend daily from God's goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering. Sounds good! Not all of it, and what isn't comes from our side of course. God's goodness is given to us in that He wants the best for us each day and has sent the best, His Son Jesus, to be a propitiation for our sin. God's longsuffering is because we often give back to Him the worst of us. Those who should know faith, love, and joy in our Lord often give back unbelief in a critical moment. We grow angry with the Lord when He doesn't do what we want. And many other sins we give back to the One who is nothing but good to us. And then there is that center one - forbearance.

Forbearance is the time we live in. That time between the fall from the goodness God created in Eden perpetrated by Adam and Eve, and that final redemption to heavenly joy for those who will believe in Jesus the Christ. In between those times is the forbearance of God in that those who will refuse to believe are not consumed by the wrath of our Lord in His judgment against sin. That same wrath was upon us until we came to believe in Jesus and receive His forgiveness and grace. You are reading this and the Rapture of the saints has not yet come? Be glad that all of us had and still have that time of forbearance to believe. It will be some tough sailing for those who come to believe just ten minutes after the Rapture bus has left the station, and far worse for those who refuse the Lord Jesus when the judgment comes. 

It is a good day to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ!

Bucky

Facing The Day

For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.  Romans 8:38-39

(When your mind begins to wander, skip to the last paragraph.)

This morning you are facing the day, just as I am and many others too. We may not be facing quite so difficult a day as a certain nominee to the highest court in the nation, but we are facing the day. If you watch the confirmation hearing, you may notice some people who can run a great many words into a simple question. We can be glad that we are not the one having to respond to those questions today. But is thinking of someone who has it worse today the only way we have of encouraging ourselves? Does that even work when each of us still must face the day we have today? 

When facing the day we must have an encouragement that lasts. Comparing your situation to mine, which I could tell you about at length, will only last until your situation comes upon you and causes your mind to focus on what it must. If I go on at the same length some in our Congress will today, you might be more than glad to get on with your circumstance, however difficult it might be. All of my words up to this point will serve to give us all an idea of what will go on in the questioning of the nominee today. They will try to serve themselves while stunning the poor woman with a mass of words. While it may be a good test to see if a nominee to the Supreme Court of the United States can cut through a haystack full of words to get at the actual question, the look-at-me words inserted to confuse the issue and hold up the political flavor sign all the while obscuring the question to the point of almost gibberish would tend to wear out a person. Hopefully you wore out and moved to the next paragraph before getting to this point. 

What do you need to face the day? Paul was convinced that nothing could separate us from God's love in Christ Jesus our Lord. There we have it. Cut through the blather and know the love of God in Christ. Amen. Face the day in Him!

Bucky 

Neither False Nor Silly

These things He said, and after that He said to them, “Our friend Lazarus sleeps, but I go that I may wake him up.”   John 11:11

"Wake him up? The dude's dead, man!"  The reaction from His disciples today would be only different in style than what our Lord received back in the day. We tend in the flesh to see the death of that flesh as final. Jesus taught us that we only go to sleep as we await the resurrection of our Lord. This stands in stark contrast to the hopeless face of the worldly one who would advise us to experience everything we can here before all is finished. 

I have even got into a bad habit in that respect, sometimes saying, "the condemned man ate a hearty"...pizza, burger, salad, dish of veggies-  whatever final meal the man might want. (A sarcastic "yeah right!" on those last two.) This is absurd on at least two fronts: One, if I am still condemned, then I have not been saved by the Lord Jesus and I should quickly shut up with these messages as my ministry would be false. Two: there are so many more experiences of far greater delight awaiting me in eternity with my Lord that to worry over storing up one more in this land of shadows is a priceless sort of silly. As I wish to be neither false nor silly in my ministry for the Lord, then it is time to cease with that little statement. 

Dear Lord, let me be neither false nor silly in this ministry, but loving and kind. Amen.

Bucky

Does That Remind Us

And all the people who were at the gate, and the elders, said, “We are witnesses. The LORD make the woman who is coming to your house like Rachel and Leah, the two who built the house of Israel; and may you prosper in Ephrathah and be famous in Bethlehem.  Ruth 4:11

O Bethlehem Ephrathah, does this remind us of someone? The people said, "We are witnesses." They may not have known in the moment how far their statement of faith would go, but God was listening to them as He does for us. Israel will be witnesses once more as the end approaches. And of course, the witness who stands out among all of Israel would indeed be born in Bethlehem. The story is about Ruth, Boaz, Naomi, and the elders, but it reminds those who are attuned to Jesus of Him, as does the Old Testament many times from Genesis to Malachi. Once we believe in the Lord Jesus, we cannot but help see Him in scripture. And why shouldn't we, since John pointed out to us that He is the very Word of God made flesh. 

Great is the name of our Lord Jesus in all of scripture!

Bucky

As With That Other Thing

For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.  Matthew 24:38-39

Last week the frozen food delivery company from Minnesota let us know they were quitting in this area. As with that other thing, we can no longer see the yellow trucks delivering to our homes. No, not the Meadow Gold trucks, if you happen to be old enough to recall those yellow things, but the Schwan's trucks. In the rural areas we can see the signs of the times by what we can no longer have delivered to our homes. The milk man gave it up years ago, then newspaper carriers, and now frozen foods. I may have forgotten some others. Letter carriers may be next. When UPS calls it quits, I figure we should just step outside and await the coming of our Lord, because as the folks out in the sticks will say, "No more Amazon packages? We're done here!"

Strangely to us perhaps, none of those things are in the Revelation, the Olivet Discourse, or any of the other prophecies of the end times. Quite the opposite actually, as our Lord states that things will be pretty normal just before He returns. We like to scan the scriptures and listen to the sermons for an announcement: next Tuesday at 4:30, be ready to go - but, we can either be ready all the time through our salvation in Christ, or not be ready at all. For in either case, the surprise will be complete, else Paul would not have used the image of a snatching away. 

Oh to be snatched away by the Lord today! 

Bucky 

Faith In The Only Way

The Father loves the Son, and has given all things into His hand. He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.”  John 3:35-36

The Gospel of John has some stunning statements in its verses, and this one today certainly, uh, one? Loving relationship from Father to Son, a gift so big that it encompasses all things, everlasting life through faith, the choice to refuse to believe and not see life, and then that wrath, there are indeed some big statements here today in two verses of John's gospel. I've done it now; the statements are so big that I'm at a loss for words. Fortunately for us, the Lord Jesus was not lost for words when He spoke these and many others telling us of eternal life. And He simplified for us in John 14 to one and only way, Jesus himself! 

So, how does someone read that the wrath of God abides on those who do not believe, and not believe? Easy, they don't believe. To choose to not believe is to refuse to take the Lord at His word and His word is the Bible. To not believe, they believe, is to opt out and, they hope, walk away to something else. The problem we see as believers is that there is no opt out - only life or no life, the love of Jesus or the wrath of God. For those who choose to believe, faith in the only Way is the only  way! 

Have a gracious day in the Lord Jesus!

Bucky

The People Love Begot

"Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends." John 15:13

Do you trace your family back to Shem, Ham, or Japheth? Can't go quite that far back on the ol' family tree? Maybe Abraham, David, or Solomon? No king or prince graces your family planting for as far back as anyone can trace it? Bubba the farmhand and Clem the factory worker seem to repeat for centuries in many family histories. The genealogy of kings is commonly known among those families that can claim a royal ancestry, but the family tree for most of us is a bit more common in its members. It's a good thing too! We would hate to be chained to some famous family tree when the King of kings comes to take His family home. 

Even before He had gone to the cross our Lord Jesus spoke of His new family. A new nation He would raise up from a people far away. In the Revelation they come from every nation, people, tribe, and tongue. They are the people that love begot on the cross at Golgotha when Jesus died to save them from their sin. The family of Christ is those who will believe in Him (Mark 3:34-35), and we are a family that only the greatest love could raise up from the sin of the world. 

Rejoice in the Lord Jesus, my brothers and sisters!

Bucky

And The Lord God Said

And the LORD God said, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.”  Genesis 2:18

Thank You, Lord! The man said. Unfortunately, the next time our title phrase comes up is in 3:13 and it is a part of that questioning the Lord endures as the man points to the woman who points to the serpent. And the story repeats to this day as each time we think things are going so well, then the next usage, chapter, or day seems to be the opposite and we are in trouble once again. The first fall seems to have cast us off a ledge and down, down the mountainside we go, tumbling and falling throughout our days. Won't someone send a savior to stop this horrible falling? 

Oh disingenuous question! We know now that our Lord did come as Savior to halt the fall of man and save him for all time. We look up and hope that our Lord will immediately transport us back up to the mountaintop free of pain, sorrow, and toil. And the Lord Jesus begins to climb the mountain beckoning us to follow Him. 

If the quickest way were the best way for all of us, then I'm sure that our Lord would transport us right away to paradise. As it seems that the lifetime journey is what is best, then we can rejoice in much time to pray and sing and minister in our Lord Jesus as we make that climb with Him. 

Great and beautiful is the Lord our God!

Bucky