A Little Thankful Consideration

And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him. Colossians 3:17

So, amongst your Black Friday choked inbox, here comes a little message of giving thanks to God. If it seems like you've been seeing BF emails for weeks, then I'm right there with you. It is interesting that Paul writes to the congregation at Colosse to give thanks in whatever they do in word or deed. Not every word of mine has been constructive to others and some have been quite mean, but I'm to give thanks for that? Thinking again, perhaps if I recall often that I will be giving thanks to God for my words, then I will take more care with those words. If that deed is not one that I would feel right in giving thanks to God, then maybe I don't need to be doin' that thing I want to do?

In remembering that we are to give thanks to God for word and deed, we may want to give a little consideration to what it is we say and do. Yes, the internet needs a big dose of that!

Thanks and glory to God our Father on this Thanksgiving weekend,

Bucky

Thanksgiving Eve 2025

And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.  2 Corinthians 12:9

Yesterday, I got to show off some of my weakness to a few kind folks. Strength and power are more compelling to my flesh as trophies to present to my fellow humans. As I get older though, weakness comes to the front and center more often than any strength I still possess. However, in this famous verse we read once more today, Paul makes an offer that is difficult to argue with: boasting of my infirmities, as Paul came to prefer, and gaining the power of Christ to rest on me. Does Paul mean that the One who stopped the storm with a few words, walked on water, and healed the blind would rest His power on me in my weakness? But not in my strength? It is like when the light of the Lord shines brightest in the darkness. Imagine that. Amen.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving in Christ our Lord!

Bucky

Lazarus the Spectacle

Now a great many of the Jews knew that He was there; and they came, not for Jesus’ sake only, but that they might also see Lazarus, whom He had raised from the dead. John 12:9

Throwing some sort of blame at anyone for wanting to see a man who had been dead four days and then raised to life might be hypocritical on my part. Any of us would want to question Lazarus about his experience. But did anyone miss the man beside Lazarus the spectacle? Lazarus and Jesus were right there at the table. Wouldn't the one who raised Lazarus have more knowledge of what went on with the whole dead then alive thing?

We live in a time of big shows, blockbuster movies, sold-out concerts, and popular evangelists. Even the holidays that begin this week have a lot of stuff offered up to us that is beside the point. All of this distraction might lead a person away from the centerpieces of the holy days, giving thanks to God and celebrating the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Lots of spectacle to enjoy, let us remember the reason.

Bucky

Trust His Goodness

For the LORD will have mercy on Jacob, and will still choose Israel, and settle them in their own land. The strangers will be joined with them, and they will cling to the house of Jacob. Isaiah 14:1

Gotta song stuck in my head. I will not inflict it on you. God has a nation stuck in his mind, and he sent Isaiah to tell of future mercy and preference. For those who believe in Jesus, we also have a special place for Israel in the heart. Jesus was born of that people by his mother Mary. As were the disciples he chose, and Paul the apostle he sent. Jesus is to us that special mercy God promised. But there must be more since most of Israel did not recognize the Messiah when he came to them. The future-ness of this prophecy indicates an ongoing mercy, choice, and joining. And who are these strangers? Joining sounds like a wedding of some sort. 

Prophecy leaves many questions, but we trust that God is good.

Bucky

Stay On The Lord

You will keep him in perfect peace,
Whose mind is stayed on You,
Because he trusts in You.
  -- Isaiah 26:3

And just like that it was a week before Thanksgiving. Hope you are almost ready. 

Oh, the past is full of regret monsters waiting to ambush the unwary traveler in the halls of memory. And isn't the anxious imagination always ready to paint the worst sort of visions of a future that we will never see? Is it any wonder that the prophet Isaiah handed down the word from God to keep our minds stayed on Him? Perfect peace often eludes us because our minds are not trusting in the Lord our God. Instead we run back into regret or forward into anxious dread while our Lord and Savior await us in the present. 

Dear Lord, please help me, I pray, to keep my mind stayed on You! 

Bucky

A Captured Soul?

Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: "Behold, I am against your magic charms by which you hunt souls there like birds. I will tear them from your arms, and let the souls go, the souls you hunt like birds." Ezekiel 13:20

Magic charms and captured souls seem right out of the fantasy genre to us. God has a different opinion on that according to His word passed along by the prophet Ezekiel. From the story, we also find out that the women of God's chosen people were doing prophecy, but not authorized prophecy from the Lord God. Thus by false prophecy and magic charm bracelets, they went out to hunt souls. This is not a foretelling, but a telling by the Lord of what His people are up to at that time. Therefore, as we go about our lives today, we must ask what might be trying to capture souls right now - yours, mine, or any soul?

Be wary, remain watchful, someone out there hunts souls. None of us wants to become a captured soul.

Bucky

The Best Advocate

But we are all like an unclean thing,
And all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags;
We all fade as a leaf,
And our iniquities, like the wind,
Have taken us away.
  -- Isaiah 64:6

A man gathered up his righteous good deeds and took them to lay before the throne of Heaven. Immediately a messenger of the Lord swept them up in a dustpan and dumped them in the fires outside the holy city. The man tried to blame the messenger, but in his shock he had failed to note which one it was who had done away with his good deeds. The court looked at him; the man felt a guilty sweat break out on his face as another messenger began reading a list of his charges to the court. His sins, he noted, had begun to pile up rather alarmingly at the very place his righteous deeds had been. If even his good work had been burned like filthy rags, what would his sins look like? What was going to happen to him?

We do not have to enter the judgment like this man. Believe in the One who died to pay for all our sins, and show up to court with an Advocate, Jesus our Lord.

Bucky

According To His Word

Let Your mercies come also to me, O LORD—
Your salvation according to Your word.
  -- Psalm 119:41

Ah, a tube of biscuits, what a great way to startle the morning. 

A critical component of our faith is that the word of God is absolutely true. If God should renege on even one promise or prophecy, we are lost and leading the most miserable of lives. The psalm writer here calls upon salvation from God according to His word. God speaks by His word, and His word belongs to God. Anything less and we have serious problems with eternity and such. So, be happy that words like Almighty and omniscient belong to God alone. 

Your word is very pure;
Therefore Your servant loves it.
  -- Psalm 119:140

Bucky

A Bit of Thanksgiving

Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place. 2 Corinthians 2:14

We have for ourselves a peculiar thing where our government shuts down if not funded by money it may not have. Well it's over for this present iteration. We may get another one next February. After that stink in Washington D.C., we could use a better fragrance in the air of this place.

Paul the apostle of Christ Jesus often wrote these amazing little notes of thanksgiving and praise. Paul wrote, "and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place." Wonderful! We often think that it is our doing that carries the most weight, but it is the work of our Lord Jesus in us that carries the fragrance. Any triumph we have in this life must be from His leading us in Christ. Without that leading we would tend to go off in any direction of selfish pleasure or inglorious sin. So, let's air out this place by following Jesus our Lord!

Bucky

Looking For The Good News

A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches,
Loving favor rather than silver and gold.
-- Proverbs 22:1

In the pursuit of wealth game, I will admit that others have greater skill than I do. Looks like I'm in a position to take Solomon's advice then. Hmm, in this competitive world, not every person I have met will remember my name as good, or look upon me with loving favor. So what is left for me to present to the Judge when this all comes to a close? Fortunately for me, I have heard good news; a gospel with salvation in it for the lost sheep of the world. Even a person with a bad name, hated by all, and useless in gathering riches can come to the Savior and rejoice in Him. Now that's some good news!

Praise God for the gospel of Jesus!

Bucky

Served Many

For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many. Mark 10:45

A respectful Veterans Day to all those who served their country in the armed forces. For many of us the model of our service is Jesus the Christ. Did I fit that model perfectly when I went to the Marine recruiter that day? Sorry, no I was looking out for myself and that seemed like the answer to life, problems, and everything. Others will recall their own reasons for joining the military, but each of us I believe come to appreciate our service more as the years go by. Perhaps it was those years of Sunday School or the sermons we sat through, but somewhere in each of us was the desire to serve. It may be that the Son of Man who came to serve many, had some of us in mind for military service even before we were born. So, praise God for allowing us to serve our nation.

May God bless all those who served!

Bucky

The Beloved Name

Today marks the 250th birthday of the United States Marine Corps. And contrary to what some would have you believe, I have only been around for a small portion of those years. I mean about 25% isn't such a large portion is it? It is rather a larger portion than I would have expected though. Now I'm feeling a bit older. Maybe something further back, King David reigned in Israel around 3,000 years ago, a certain son of David was beginning his ministry in Judea 2,000 years ago, and in 1025 King Cnut of Denmark ruled over England, Denmark, and parts of Norway. If you want to pronounce his name how I want to pronounce it, we would both be in trouble in his royal court. The Cnut ruled over 2 1/2 countries, so let's stop giggling and be serious! Okay, I had to pause for a minute or two there, but I'm back.

Historical names may look funny to us on the written page, or even sound humorous to us in speech. And that, my beloved friend, is why God's name was not spoken and Jesus bears a name only He knows. Once we are fully cleansed by the blood of the Lamb and restored to our Father in Heaven, we will treasure the names of the Lord in a loving way.

In the name of the Lord Jesus,

Bucky

Become Humble Children

Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.  Matthew 18:3-4

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, Text Revision, costs $181.95 on Amazon. I'm not going to purchase one because I think such texts without qualified education can be dangerous.  What I wanted to know was the page count, 1050! And what I learned was that the reading age was 1 year and up. If I find a 1-year old child reading this sort of manual, I might be a bit frightened. Parents will recall the terrible twos; imagine that in a kid with a complete knowledge of mental health disorders! 

While there are precocious children, that might be a bit far fetched. However, perhaps not so far away from our capabilities as what Jesus tells His disciples in our scripture today. Humble yourself as a little child? Become as little children? We worked for decades in schools and careers to become as adults. At least one of us still isn't sure he has made it that far. Now we must turn it about and go the other way? It is of course no different than Jesus telling Nicodemus that he must be born again. It is this work of our Lord's Spirit that we do not understand and must accept in faith. And it might take a bit to reach the full effects. 

Raise a glass of orange juice to becoming as children again!

Bucky

Great Son Of Many Peoples

And it came to pass in the days of Amraphel king of Shinar, Arioch king of Ellasar, Chedorlaomer king of Elam, and Tidal king of nations... Genesis 14:1

With this verse taken out of its story, we have a bunch of names adrift with their little titles. Is Shinar a big place with lots of people? Is Chedorlaomer named for loving a type of cheese? And who is this Tidal and how many nations is he king over? As names often have a meaning in the old scriptures, Tidal is 'great son', and goyim, translated as 'of nations' also means 'of many peoples'. So this man is said to be the great son of many peoples. That's interesting, you might say with a bit of the ol' sarcasm, but why study the Bible that deeply? Is this not just part of the setting of a story that will soon involve Abraham?

For one reason, we are there. Not literally of course, but with each name of a leader in the histories comes a group of people like you and me. Goy or Gentile or the pejorative 'dogs', we are there in the pages of Bible history. Not kings and great sons, but common people who may get to see a man such as Abraham or a woman such as Sarah go by, walking with God. While the Bible is packed with prophecy, and we would like to study that and get some advance knowledge of tomorrow, we also study the histories and see what Tidal may have done that we can learn from. However, as with many names of old, Tidal may appear once or twice and never be heard from again. At which time ol' Tidal makes a mockery of my big point and, well, how many times does your name appear in Bible history? For those of you named after Biblical persons, maybe quite a bit!

But, God loves Tidal too, and I hope that ancient king believes in the Son of God,

Bucky

Don't Doubt God's Plan

Though he was delivered up according to God's determined plan and foreknowledge, you used lawless people to nail him to a cross and kill him. Acts 2:23 CSB

You may have noted an election day passed by yesterday. This morning some election results may be to your liking, while others may cause disappointment. In Peter's sermon our verse for today shows how God's plan may look rather like a huge defeat for those of us who believe in His Son. As Peter spoke, Jesus had ascended up to be with the Father and Peter could not point to the man and say, "He's right there!" To some standing there, Peter may have appeared to be preaching from the deck of a sinking boat. Yes, it does seem as if I preach this after each election: don't doubt God's plan. I do this because I know that whoever is elected and whatever amendment is added, someone out there needs some reassurance that God is still working His plan.

So, trust in God and His plan!

Bucky

Ask Of The Lord

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. John 1:1

We need words to communicate in several forms. Letter mail, e-mail, phone calls, and speech all use words. When I cannot think of anything to write to you in the morning, I call upon the Word to ask for words. John the apostle in setting down his testimony of Jesus on paper used words to tell of the one he came to know as the Word. Now that is an odd thing to think of one who called John his friend. If you and I must endure that separation between one of us going to sleep in this world and our reunion in Christ, we likely will not think of one another as a personification of a word or words. In the first chapter of his testimony, John goes on to explain how he came to call his Lord and friend the Word.

May Jesus the Christ, the living Word of God, bless you this day.

Bucky