verseoftheday

Friday! Proverbs! A stone is heavy, and sand a burden, but aggravation from a fool outweighs them both. Proverbs 27:3 CSB A nice word picture here of heavy things in the physical realm, things that can be hard to shift, and comparing them with the words and ideas of people in our lives.  How do we shift heavy stones? If they're too big, too heavy we need to recruit someone to help.  Maybe it's the same when someone is "winding us up" or "wearing us down" with their aggravation, we need to recruit someone to help.  To help us gain perspective, to get some distance, to devise a strategy or response so that the other person's aggravation, whether it's about us or someone or something else, doesn't become our burden, our weight to carry.  I wonder what the writer of this Proverb would advise us today when the sources of aggravation can come at us through tik tok, Instagram, snapchat, the radio, TV, internet and there's noise all the time.  I wond...

Our bodies are buried in brokenness,  but they will be raised in glory.  They are buried in weakness,  but they will be raised in strength. 1 Corinthians 15:43 NLT There is going to be a fundamental change to us.  Paul recognises that in this life there is brokenness and there is weakness in us, and that is going to be transformed! Brokenness to glory. Weakness to strength. Good is going to come from those things, I don't know how that works, but it is.  The impact down the generations of sin, the impact of others actions and our own will be reversed, redeemed into something good.  This is the hope that we have. #corinthians #hope #thebestisyettocome

And if our hope in Christ is only for this life, we are more to be pitied than anyone in the world. But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead. He is the first of a great harvest of all who have died. 1 Corinthians 15:19-20 NLT Paul has quite a go here at the church in Corinth - there must've been people saying that this life is all there is.  Without Jesus resurrection there is no resurrection for any of us.  Without Jesus resurrection Paul is saying following Jesus is just a bit sad.  Easter is just around the corner, a time when we rightly remember the cross and all that means, Jesus not just entering into the story but becoming human, suffering as we do. Paul reminds us here that it's the empty tomb that is just as critical for our hope as the cross.  We have a hope for this world, and it's more than that.  We hold hope for a new heaven and a new earth, where all injustice is dealt with, where all our aches and pains and tears are completely redeemed....

May those who rejoice at my troubles be humiliated and disgraced.  May those who triumph over me be covered with shame and dishonor.  But give great joy to those who came to my defense. Psalms 35:26-27 NLT "Give great joy to those who came to my defense." It can be the easiest thing to look away, look the other way, pretend we didn't see, didn't hear, don't want to know when someone has been hurt.  We excuse it with "I don't know what to say" or "I don't know how to help". We minimise the harm someone has suffered.  Harm and hurt occur in community, and so does healing. "Give great joy to those who came to my defense" shows that. David's saying his moral community stood with him.  Stood with the one who was harmed, stood against the one who did the harming.  David wasn't in this alone, and neither should those in our community who need our care, support, honour, love, to bring healing and hope.  "Give great joy to...

O Lord, you know all about this.  Do not stay silent.  Do not abandon me now, O Lord.  Wake up!  Rise to my defense!  Take up my case,  my God and my Lord. Declare me not guilty,  O Lord my God,  for you give justice.  Don't let my enemies laugh about me in my troubles.  Don't let them say,  "Look, we got what we wanted!  Now we will eat him alive!" Psalms 35:22-25 NLT David is in the middle of something and this is his cry.  He's not saying God isn't there, just wants him to act.  To sort it.  To fix it.  He's been treated unjustly and simply wants justice, someone to stand with him, be on his team.  There's days when we all want that, need that.  From our perspective in time we can look back and see that God had intervened many times in the Hebrew world, and yet God's people kept moving away from Him.  And then Jesus arrived.  God dwelling with us, which always reminds us we're not aban...

Sunday Psalms: O Lord, oppose those who oppose me.  Fight those who fight against me.  Put on your armor,  and take up your shield. Prepare for battle,  and come to my aid.  Lift up your spear and javelin against those who pursue me.  Let me hear you say,  "I will give you victory!" Psalms 35:1-3 NLT This feels like a BIG song, an epic call on God to bring victory, yet it seems that really it's about justice.  Who else rescues the helpless from the strong? Psalms 35:10 NLT They repay me evil for good.  I am sick with despair. Psalms 35:12 NLT David is crying out for justice. For things to be put right.  And he doesn't have the resources to do it.  Can you relate? And he asks God to armour up on his behalf, to take up his cause and make things right.  In this song we don't know what the injustice is, but we can hear his heart that he expresses through this picture of wanting God to pick up his javelin and deal to whoever it is w...

I'm the least important of the apostles. I don't deserve to be called an apostle, because I harassed God's church. I am what I am by God's grace, and God's grace hasn't been for nothing.  ...it wasn't me but the grace of God that is with me. 1 Corinthians 15:8-10 CEB Paul hadn't forgotten his past, that's not something we can just do, but his focus is on God's grace at work both in him and through him. "God's grace hasn't been for nothing" is as true for you and me today as it was for Paul.  God's grace hasn't been for nothing in you.  God's grace hasn't been for nothing in you.  Will we let Grace continue its work in us today. Will we let Grace work it's way into our world, bringing hope where there has been none, justice where there has been none, water to allow life to spring up, light where there has been darkness.  Let the grace of God that is in you out into the world that needs it, needs you as it'...