Jacob's Last Meal

Now therefore, please take your weapons, your quiver and your bow, and go out to the field and hunt game for me. And make me savory food, such as I love, and bring it to me that I may eat, that my soul may bless you before I die.” Genesis 27:3-4

The story of Jacob and Esau is so full of lessons that we could teach and preach on this for days. Lots of cooking and eating seems to be involved though, and swirling around in the stew are Esau's birthright and finally his paternal blessing, both of which he lost in the kitchen so to speak. One Esau esteemed too lightly for the sake of his hunger pains, and the other he was tricked out of by his mother and younger twin brother. The story is such a full one from the Bible that we find it easy to pass a judgment on any of the four main characters. Foolishness, falsehoods, fraternal fakery, favoritism, and God didn't step in to halt any of it? Do we judge God too? Paul reminds us in Romans that, no, that would not be a good idea. Paul even said that God had favored Jacob over Esau. Wow, who knew that so much drama would surround poor old Isaac's last meal.

Yes, I just looked up and saw that title too. Rejoice! That is a fruit off the tree of my fumble-headedness. No need to judge there, simply inspect the fruit and know that I am capable of mistakes like any other writer. And may I add, "Oopsie!"

Love to you in Christ Jesus,

Bucky

Serving Well and Finding Favor

So Joseph found favor in his sight, and served him. Then he made him overseer of his house, and all that he had he put under his authority.  Genesis 39:4

There are those times when we pick out a favorite among a group with no good reason to support the choice. Here in our verse for today, we see that Joseph found favor and served someone. Shouldn't that be the other way around? Do we not first earn the favor by working hard at the service? The preceding verses in this part of Joseph's story do not quite put it that way though. Potiphar saw that the Lord was with Joseph. So how did Potiphar see so well in this case and so poorly in the later one? Whoops, bunny trail. That is a subject for another day. What we are talking about today is favor and service. Certainly good service should earn favor, but in Joseph's service the master of the house saw something more than just the work Joseph did. Potiphar saw success brought about by the hand of the Lord on Joseph. Now, young Joseph was not just sitting there like a big ol' lazy good luck charm, he had to do the work and no doubt did it well. However, Potiphar saw something more that comes from the Lord's favor resting on Joseph. And, in the sequence of the verses in this story, the Lord was with Joseph first and not after the Lord or Potiphar saw how well or hard or smart Joseph worked. 

The Lord is our enabler first in all our work, give the glory to Him! 

Bucky

A Most Important Giving Of Thanks

After these things I heard a loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, saying, “Alleluia! Salvation and glory and honor and power belong to the Lord our God!  Revelation 19:1

A great many things come to mind this day for thanksgiving, but one stands out to me above the rest: our salvation. In this verse towards the end of the Revelation there is a clear attribution of our salvation to the Lord our God. Exactly where the honor and glory belongs even from my earthbound and down point of view. This is one case wherein joining the great multitude with early gratitude for all that God has done for us just seems right and proper. The Lord our God saved us through His Son and today we give thanks to God. 

Thank You, dear Lord our God, for saving a great multitude from every nation, tribe, people and tongue. Amen. Come Lord Jesus!

Bucky

You Have Music Lessons Ahead

Sing to the LORD with grateful praise; make music to our God on the harp. Psalm 147:7 NIV

Tomorrow we celebrate a holiday of grateful praise to God our Father. And, you have music lessons ahead of you on the harp. Hey, no resistance now, this is a command straight out of the Bible. Oh, you only use the authorized version of the Bible. No problem:

Sing unto the LORD with thanksgiving; sing praise upon the harp unto our God. Psalm 147:7 KJV!

Now you can learn to sing on the harp in those lessons. At times we may wonder why those who insist upon absolute obedience to the Bible are not more accomplished harpists. The command seems simple enough as we read it in our verse for today: Sing and make music to God on the harp. And yet few churches can boast of a harp on the stage. And men, from my observation of orchestras and other music groups, we are behind in harpist count to the women at about 99 of them to every one of us. The harp symphony of the Pharisees in our Lord's time must have been quite the sound! No mention of that anywhere in the Bible though, Were they disobedient too?

Ah, the day before a big holiday, and one to feel a little gentle humor in the soul as we celebrate with thanksgiving to God. It is verses such as this one that remind us of God's mercy and grace to us through His Son Jesus. Try as I might in my might to obey every word of the Lord, it is a verse like this that will bring me up short every time. Noise I could make on a harp, but music? Even my singing tends to wander about the keys and notes a bit, much like a puppy checking out every tree and bush. Thanksgiving though? Yes, now there I can do some good with you as we give thanks to our Lord for His grace, love, goodness, faithfulness, and joy!

Love to you as we go giving praise and thanks to our Lord,

Bucky

The Week Of Grateful Attitude

Oh, give thanks to the LORD, for He is good!
For His mercy endures forever.   --  1 Chronicles 16:34

Thanksgiving week! Woohoo! The week of a major holiday is often cause for celebration. Please make sure that you allow yourself some of that celebrating. Sometimes we think everything must be perfect for us to be joyful, have happiness, and celebrate. With that attitude, we will wait a long time for a celebration. Other times we might think that to allow in some happiness is to set us up for a fall to come afterward. And so we again fail to drink fully of the cup of celebration the Lord has given us. Oh, wait for the time when we judge that happiness is deserved? Again, probably a long wait. 

Thank You, our dear Lord, for this week when we are reminded that a grateful attitude will bring us to the place of joy, happiness, and celebration in You! 

Bucky

Steadfast Love and Faithfulness

You came only yesterday, and shall I today make you wander about with us, since I go I know not where? Go back and take your brothers with you, and may the LORD show steadfast love and faithfulness to you.” 2 Samuel 15:20

Above the Israelites of old stands David, their second king but perhaps foremost among the kings for the ups and downs of his reign. And it was all his fault as this current crisis in our verse for today came down through the years from the king's scandal with Uriah's wife. At this moment in history, David is going into exile away from the Lord's city of Jerusalem, and he stops this guy, Ittai, and tells him that he does not have to go. You may read the entire story at your leisure, but Ittai chose faithfulness. We often see the negative examples in the Bible for our education, but this is one of choosing faithfulness.

May the Lord bless you today with His steadfast love and faithfulness!

Bucky

Do We Forget Sometimes?

For the LORD is good;
His mercy is everlasting,
And His truth endures to all generations.
   - Psalm 100:5

Psalm 100 is a short little ditty, just five verses in length, but it is a psalm of thanksgiving. A holiday that, by the way, is but one week from today. I hope you were able to get all the pieces and parts for your Thanksgiving feast! But, back to that title question. Do we sometimes look at the Lord as only judge and executioner? Have we fallen for that Old Testament oppression theory that says God is the mean one? That would be odd when reading this verse from a psalm in that same part of the Bible. Or perhaps it is not that, but we think that maybe His truth didn't quite make it to the current generation of youths. Thoughts such as that are equally at odds with this verse from the psalm of thanksgiving. In case any of that has crept in on us, we'll just have a little prayer.

Thank You, dear Lord, for Your goodness and everlasting mercy. Thank You also Lord God that Your truth has come to this generation and all the generations past, present, and future. Amen.

Love in Christ,

Bucky

The New Life In Christ

But Jesus said to him, “No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.” Luke 9:62

It's a work review, isn't it? Before we can even get started becoming that super-Christian ideal, we are already unfit by way of His review? The world would have us believe so. By now in life we have received so many work reviews, both formal and otherwise, that we may well think of Jesus as the most perfect of job reviewers who we can never hope to satisfy. No, no, no, little sheep! Jesus Himself did the satisfying at the cross for us. We are now the beloved sheep of His pasture. Not that His love was absent before, but our knowing of it was missing in action. When we took up the plow, the new life in Christ, we were given this mission of leaving behind the past. Forgetting might be nice, but conscience and those darts of the enemy will throw the shame of our past at us time and again. However, the guilt and shame of our past sins and trespasses must be plowed under each time they rise like weeds in this new field of our Lord's.

Nope, not easy, but that is why we live this new life in Christ our Lord!

Bucky

My Father's Good Pleasure

Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Luke 12:32

In the years of kings and kingdoms, one child might inherit the kingdom but not all of them. What often trips us though is that bit at the start that says, "Do not fear, little flock." One fear we can lay to rest is that of being a second or third child and ending up with nothing at the end. Jesus states that it is our Father's good pleasure to do this, and who can stop God from doing His good pleasure? Right, no one or our definition of 'the Almighty' is flawed somewhere. The Almighty gets to do what He wants and a good pleasure seems like something He would want to do! So, do not fear, little flock, God has sent His good pleasure through His Son, our Lord Jesus, and we have good reason to not fear.

Have a fearless day in Christ our Lord!

Bucky

​Windy Night!

He who observes the wind will not sow,
​​And he who regards the clouds will not reap.
     -- Ecclesiates 11:4

By golly, we do observe the weather a bit out in these parts. Those parts of course being pretty much wherever humans are this morning. In my defense, I would tell King Solomon that it is more the exceptions that I observe than the normals. This verse is one of those pastoral sorts of images that tell each of us to quit gawping at the sky and get back to work. Certainly it is okay to notice the weather, but if talking about and gazing at the sky is all we do then the seeds don't get planted and the watering isn't done and we end up with a field of weeds that does no one any good. Dreams are okay too if we take them to God in prayer and set about the plan of action He lays out for us, though He may only let us see one step at a time. However, dreaming all the time results in no action in any direction and the dream will remain only a sort of floaty wish out there in the ether of the dreamer's mind.

Solomon is of course not telling us to be so blind to the weather that we walk into the side of a tornado and get sucked up to our destruction like a bug in a Shop-Vac®.

Love the Lord your God, and love one another,

Bucky

Veterans Day 2021

The elder and honorable, he is the head;
The prophet who teaches lies, he is the tail.
    - Isaiah 9:15

Well it's Veterans Day and I'm up, mostly, and noticing that I left the crackers open last night. Oops, guess it's old and senile veterans day too. Some of my elder veteran readers will be saying, "You ain't seen nothin' yet, sonny," or something like that. Which does bring back reminders of those times past when I arrived at Camp Lejeune and began hearing similar lines from the Marines who had seen a thing or two. As new experiences piled up, one day I would be the one greeting the new arrivals with that 'just you wait' sort of news. Is it news to you? 

Surely not, for every organization, church, company, or group we join will have its elder members greeting the new ones with their tales of the days of yore back when they were in the fight of their lives long before 'yew' was born. Here in our verse today, Isaiah passes along the word from God that it is not simply many years that gets the job as head, but honor too. The false prophet obviously does not act honorably with his lies, and an old fool wouldn't be of much help to the new folks in a group either. However, a guide, benefactor, patron, in other words, an elder with experience who uses it with honor, such persons do help the younger ones along. This is why we like to turn to the word from the one the prophet Daniel saw seated on the throne who was called the Ancient of Days. 

To all who are veterans of life on this earth, let us read together the word of life who is Jesus our Lord!

Bucky

A Way Across

And besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that those who want to pass from here to you cannot, nor can those from there pass to us. Luke 16:26

The Greek word chasma: a gaping opening, a chasm or gulf. That is what stands between that rich man in Hades and the place Lazarus rests with Abraham. The word is for a space that none can cross, and Abraham says as much in the tale Jesus told in Luke 16. If a person wanted a tale to frighten him or her into coming to Jesus, this one does the trick quite well. Ending up in burning pain with complete awareness of the situation and the ability to see a place within shouting distance that is so opposite of that, and yet have no way to cross the gap between or to send a message to your siblings to prevent their ending up in the same place is so not cool, and so hard to find an appropriately horrible phrase to describe it! Then we read Abraham state, "so that those who want to pass from here (where it's nice!) to you cannot." Who in their right mind would want to do that? Love might want to cross over and rescue those in such pain and misery, to bring light to such awful hopelessness. Yes, a person of love and goodness might want to save the lost even in the depths of Hades. And a person in the scriptures did indeed call Himself the way, the truth, and the life.

Grace and peace to you in Christ Jesus!

Bucky

Old Timey Good News

Proclaim the good news of His salvation from day to day.

It's part of a verse today and I didn't give the reference to you. However, one can easily see this must be one of Peter's or Paul's commands or even one line of those famous benedictions. Some of you Bible scholars are already thinking, "No, I think that is from somewhere else..." Right you are! A thousand years before our Lord was born in Bethlehem, even before Micah had indicated by the word of the Lord that little baby Jesus would be born there, David said this in the Psalms and in 1 Chronicles 16:23. The news of our Lord's salvation was already some old timey good news when Jesus was born; the people of David's time just had to wait a bit before the good news would come to the Earth. We also celebrate the old time good news of the Bible, and we too are in a waiting period for His return.

How long will it be? I do not know! Not knowing the date and hour of His return is fine by me. Every preacher and charlatan who has claimed to know the day has turned out to be a quack, or worse a murderous false prophet. Like our spiritual ancestors in David's time, we can wait in the Lord!

Happy Monday in Christ!

Bucky

Fulfill My Joy

... fulfill my joy by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Philippians 2:2

In the NKJV, Paul has a lot of commas in his writing, even sentences spanning several verses. Picking just one verse may be a challenge at times with this translation of Paul's writing. However, this morning I was given this verse, and this verse we will use. Already I can see some problems with our current state, four of them actually: like-minded, same love, one accord, and one mind. If I can find just one brother or sister in Christ that agrees with me on everything, then one or both of us is holding back something. For us all to be those four things Paul hoped for, I'm thinking that it will have to come from one source, and that one won't be any of us. It is of critical importance to us that God sent His one begotten Son, who said that He was the one way for us to come to the Father our God.

Praise God that His one Spirit is bringing us together in Him!

Bucky

Leaving Him...Not!

Thus says the LORD:
​
​​“What injustice have your fathers found in Me,
​​That they have gone far from Me,
​​Have followed idols,
​​And have become idolaters?  Jeremiah 2:5

It seems to be a part of our history from near the beginning. God gives something and the humans wander far from Him. The Garden of Eden was given to Adam and Eve, and they grabbed the first sin. Noah and family were given a washed Earth, later there was more sin. Israel was given a promised land, and they too went far away from the Lord as we read in our verse today. Finally, God sent His Son, Jesus, and through Him we may have eternal life just for believing in Him. But still many wander far from Him. Jesus will return here and reign for a thousand years, but what happens at the end of that period? Yes, some will go off with the Accuser and wander away one more time. So, the Word establishes that this has happened and will again. What is the point to remember? That all along the way, many do not wander off and some still seek Him out, including you and me!

Have a wonderful Thursday in Him who is named Wonderful!

Bucky

Hide The Truth?

One day King Zedekiah sent for Jeremiah and had him brought to the third entrance of the LORD's Temple. “I want to ask you something,” the king said. “And don't try to hide the truth.” Jeremiah 38:14

Hide the truth? Is this where Jeremiah the prophet pulled out that line we hear so much, "You can't handle the truth!" No, that was a movie, but reading the next verse we see that, well, yes he did say that in a longer form.

Jeremiah said, “If I tell you the truth, you will kill me. And if I give you advice, you won’t listen to me anyway.” (v15)

At the first we are a bit taken aback that the king would even think that Jeremiah would hide the truth as it came to him from God. However, we know from the scriptures that the king also had a much larger contingent of false prophets close at hand. You might say that the king was accustomed to hearing lies from his prophets. The one voice of truth therefore had to contend with the king's doubts.

How many of us, I wonder, get up and read the Word of God only to later work out a way to hide the truth from ourselves? Never? Do you recall a verse about the heart and its desperate wickedness? Jeremiah wrote down that one too, check out chapter 17, verse 9.

Love to you in Christ our Lord,

Bucky

A Cloak of Perfection

Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does corruption inherit incorruption. 1 Corinthians 15:50

For a moment today let us imagine we are a party in that old role playing game. One character, Morty, just happens to have acquired in his dungeon travels a Cloak of Perfection. Our party encounters an overwhelming force of baddies in our adventure today and doom is certain, except for ol' Morty.

"Morty!" the leader yells, "put on your Cloak of Perfection!"

Morty does as commanded and with perfect form and perfect execution slays the entire force of evil baddies all by himself. Morty begins to turn...

"Stop!" the wise old magi exclaims, "take off that cloak before you see us Morty!"

Why would this magi do that? Well, the magi explains to the party, if Morty wearing his Cloak of Perfection looks at his party, he is not going to see perfection. He might even see just another party of evil baddies, and what do you suppose perfect Morty might do to that party?

During this time of waiting on our Lord to return, while many have yet the same chance we did to choose to believe in Jesus, we are being reborn from the inside out by our Lord's Holy Spirit. Putting on a cloak of perfection over our imperfection, or as Paul calls it, corruption, would leave a hidden problem of epic proportions.

Let us with patience and love wait on the Lord.

Bucky