Daily Nugget #1:
The book of James is actually a letter, written between AD 44 and 49 and may have been the first New Testament (NT) book written.
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Melbourne has been sweltering under multiple heat waves, temperatures soaring to record highs and humidity drenching us in sweat.
Recovering from COVID, we’ve been indoors for 10 days, turning on every fan in the house and trying to keep our sanity.
The heat nor COVID slowed down the boys, who continued to build forts, jump on the trampoline, and chase each other around the house. But Roy and I could feel our resilience wither away.
We finally got our freedom and sought the beach and air conditioning. What sweet relief, to feel cooled.
How do you survive the heat?
My poor neglected plants have turned brown and if they live past this week, it will be a miracle.
Only those with deep roots can withstand such harsh weather.
“Neither I nor the poets I love have found the keys to the kingdom of prayer,
And we cannot force God to stumble over us where we sit,
But
I know that it’s a good idea to sit anyway.
So every morning, I sit, I kneel, waiting,
making friends with the habit of listening,
hoping that I am being listened to. . .
There, I greet God and my own disorder.
2021 is past, but it will never really be behind us.
Especially for those who lost loved ones in 2021.
Those lives – fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, friends – created ripples of joy and pain, hope and despair – as they battled health conditions, grappled with the twists and turns of circumstances, and faced a global pandemic. They fought bravely.
As their loved ones now live with an ache that cannot be filled, the question remains, what is the legacy of a life?
2021 has been a year of disappointment and loss for many. We started the year optimistic about “returning to normal” and were sorely frustrated to be back in lockdowns.
We lost momentum, opportunities, community, and even loved ones.
There has been so much negativity – bad news, anxious thoughts, dark feelings, challenging exchanges, and overall tension in society in 2021.
How do we persevere through such a year? How do we keep our motivation day after day?
The Bible suggests, we can’t. We don’t.
The Bible says, we should stop and take time to be renewed. We are not meant to push through towards burnout.
We were created to rest.
Have you ever felt the relief and gratitude of being forgiven?
I have.
I have said or done things that have hurt those I love, and as my heart weighed heavy with guilt, I have experienced the freedom that forgiveness brings.
Last week during our zoom sharing we explored this passage in Romans:
22 We are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ. And this is true for everyone who believes, no matter who we are. 23 For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. 24 Yet God, in his grace, freely makes us right in his sight. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins…27 Can we boast, then, that we have done anything to be accepted by God? No, because our acquittal is not based on obeying the law. It is based on faith. 28 So we are made right with God through faith and not by obeying the law. Romans 3:22-28
No mater who we are, we are made right with God through faith in Jesus. Faith in what? Faith in Jesus, that He has indeed freed us from the penalty for our wrongdoing by taking our place. Faith that God forgives – not once, not twice, but 70 times 7 times and more. Faith that our works (good or bad) are not what determine our salvation but our trust that God, who began the good work in us, will “continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns” (Philippians 1:6).
4 When people work, their wages are not a gift, but something they have earned. 5 But people are counted as righteous, not because of their work, but because of their faith in God who forgives sinners. 6 David also spoke of this when he described the happiness of those who are declared righteous without working for it: 7 “Oh, what joy for those whose disobedience is forgiven, whose sins are put out of sight. 8 Yes, what joy for those whose record the Lord has cleared of sin.” Romans 4:4-8
I recently got a notice of infringement for going 5 km over the speed limit. $227. Imagine if they decide to erase the record – what joy, what relief!
That’s nothing compared to the joy of knowing all my sins have been forgiven, my life record made clean.
That kind of joy is life-transforming.
Got some walls you can’t get around? Joshua had them too.
40 Years of wilderness wanderings had brought Israel to a mountaintop overlooking the land of promise. But there was a problem – the promised land was occupied. Jericho had to be conquered (see Joshua 6).
This week’s Bible reading challenge is exploring Ezekiel 37 – a powerful text about hope. And we all need hope at this time.
Ezekiel 37:1-6 (NLT)
The Lord took hold of me, and I was carried away by the Spirit of the Lord to a valley filled with bones. 2 He led me all around among the bones that covered the valley floor. They were scattered everywhere across the ground and were completely dried out. 3 Then he asked me, “Son of man, can these bones become living people again?”
“O Sovereign Lord,” I replied, “you alone know the answer to that.” 4 Then he said to me, “Speak a prophetic message to these bones and say, ‘Dry bones, listen to the word of the Lord! 5 This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Look! I am going to put breath into you and make you live again! 6 I will put flesh and muscles on you and cover you with skin. I will put breath into you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.’”
What an awesome, spooky experience for Ezekiel!
Last week my family and I went to the zoo. I don’t normally love zoos but I love Werribee Open Range Zoo because the animals have a bit more room to roam. My favourite animals are usually the African animals – meerkats, cheetahs, hippos, zebras, and giraffes. I love the safari that takes you through the park and gets you up close to some of the animals as they go about doing their own thing. Mostly the animals are just standing or lying around. For this reason, my husband is not a big fan of zoos. He finds it boring because the animals are not doing anything.
This trip to the zoo proved us both wrong.
This is Jane. She is also known as “Nightbirde,” her stage name. She recently got a golden buzzer by Simon Cowell for her performance on America’s Got Talent and her song was # 1 on US iTunes song sales chart the next day.
It’s not just her singing that’s extraordinary – it’s her story and her character. She has been battling terminal cancer for the past two years. But she remains grateful and hopeful. She sees her pain but she also chooses to see the mercy- this is an excerpt from her blog: