Musing: Love Endures All Things

Musing: Love Endures All Things

Love endures all things

& we endure all things for Love.

 

For what have we achieved if Love is not ours?

Love is the measure of a life well spent,

The companion in stillness that satisfies,

& joy’s purest fountain.

 

Love believes all things:

Not silly deceptive folly or poisonous fare,

But the noble, right, & true;

For Love thrives in the everlastingly real.

 

Love hopes all things:

It is the end of all the movements of God in a soul

& our eternal prospect.

 

Jesus will not rest until He is satisfied,

Until we are satisfied,

In Love’s full embrace.

 

It is why we forget the things that are past

& press forward to what is ahead – to Love.

 

The greatest of all is Love.

 

Let us Love, for Love is of God.

 

Musing: Babylon Falling

Musing Babylon Falling

Jeremiah 50

14            Put yourselves in array against Babylon on every side,

All you who bend the bow.

Shoot at her!

Spare no arrows,

For she has sinned against the Lord.

 

15         Shout against her all around!

Babylon has given herself up in surrender.

Her foundations have fallen.

Her walls are thrown down.

For this is the vengeance of the Lord:

Take vengeance on her;

As she has done, do unto her.

 

16     Cut off the sower from Babylon,

And the reaper who wields the sickle at the time of harvest;

Do not let seeds be planted in that country nor let a harvest be gathered.

For fear of the oppressing sword,

Let each turn back to his own people

And let everyone flee to his own land.

 

28    The voice of those who flee and escape from the land of Babylon

Declares in Zion the vengeance of the Lord our God:

The vengeance of His Temple.

Listen to the people who have escaped from Babylon

As they tell in Jerusalem how the Lord has taken vengeance

Against those who destroyed His Temple.

 

 

Musing A Riddle: “Brick for Stone”

Musing A Riddle: “Brick for Stone”

Bricks: Human inventions

Stones: Divine creations

 

Bricks: Substitutes

Stones: Original

 

Bricks: Towers

Stones: Altars

 

Bricks: Conformity

Stones: Diversity

 

Bricks: Forced into uniformity

Stones: Freedom in unity

 

Bricks: Compiled by force – Slime

Stones: Joined by love – Mortar

 

Bricks: Identical components in one man’s enterprise

Stones: Individual living members in One Man’s body

 

Bricks: Gathered to central location

Stones: Discovered everywhere

 

Bricks: Come to shrine and “worship”

Stones: Abide where you are and worship

 

Bricks: Custodial decrees

Stones: Divine arrangement

 

Bricks: Tradition of man’s priest-craft

Stone: Truth of God’s Word

 

Bricks: Institutional organized shrine

Stones: Living organism body

 

Bricks: Money gathered maintains custodian & shrine

Stones: Money shared gladly to bless needy

 

Bricks: Conform or be cast out

Stones: Grow into maturity

 

Brick: Nimrod the Hunter

Stone: Christ the Savior

 

Bricks: Let US scatter the tower

Stones: I will build MY church and the gates of hell will not scatter it

Musings: A Poem Green Tree

Luke 23:28,31

 

Green Tree

Striped of leaves

And scattered wild

Bow Thy boughs

Meek and mild

 

Green Tree

Plogged of fruit

Branchly bare

Lopped barren

Far past fair

 

Green Tree

Dragged through dust

Scorched and bleak

Lashed with tongue

Weak with meek

 

Green Tree

Is it so?

Flailed with whip

Scorny flows hate

Blood doth drip

 

Green Tree

Weep not of Green

Shriek now thy cry

If so of Me

What of dry?

 

Musing: Revelation 2 & 3

Repent

2:4,5 I have this against you, that you have forsaken your best first love. Therefore remember from where you have fallen, and repent or else I am coming and will remove your lampstand.

2:14-16 I have a few things against you, because you have some who hold the teaching of Balaam. You also have some who hold the teaching of the Nicolaitans which thing I hate. Repent; or else I am coming to you quickly and I will make war against them with the sword of My mouth.

2:20-22 I have this against you, that you tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, to teach and seduce My bond-servants to commit sexual immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols. I gave her time to repent, and she does not want to repent. Behold, I will throw her on a sickbed, and those who commit adultery with her into great tribulation, unless they repent of her deeds.

3:1-3 I know your deeds, that you have a reputation that you are alive, but you are dead. Wake up! Strengthen the things that remain which were about to die. Repent. Therefore if you do not wake up, I will come upon you like a thief.

3:15,16,19 I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot; I wish that you were cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm, I will vomit you out of My mouth. Therefore be zealous and repent.

Musing: The Bible Proverbs 9

1 Wisdom has built her house

3,4 She calls from the tops of the heights of the city: ‘Whoever is ignorant, simple, let him turn in here!’ To him who lacks understanding she says:

6 ‘Forsake your folly and live, and proceed in the way of understanding.’

13 The woman Folly is loud, brash: she is undisciplined, shameless, and knows nothing,

15,16 Calling to those who pass by, who are making their paths straight: ‘Whoever is ignorant, simple, let him turn in here.’ And to him who lacks understanding she says:

17 ‘Stolen water is sweeter; and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.’

18 But little do they know that the dead are there, that her guests are in the depths of Hell.

 

 

Musings: The Bible John Questions

1:38 Jesus, seeing them following, said to them, ‘What do you seek?’

1:46 Can any good come out of Nazareth?

2:4 Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, what does your concern have to do with Me?’

3:4,9 How can a man be born when he is old? How can these things be?

3:10 Jesus said to him, ‘Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not know these things?’

3:12 If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?

4:11,29 Lord, where then do You get that living water? Could this be the Christ?

4:35 Do you not say, ‘There are still four months, and then comes the harvest’?

5:6 Jesus saw him and said to him, ‘Do you wish to get well?’

5:44 How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and you do not seek the glory that is from the one and only God?

5:47 But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My Words?

6:5 Where are we to buy bread that these people may eat?

6:9 There is a lad here who has five barley loaves and two small fish, but what are these for so many people?

6:25 Rabbi, when did you get here?

6:28 What shall we do, so that we may work the works of God?

6:42 How does He now say, ‘I have come down out of heaven’?

6:52 How can this Man give us His flesh to eat?

6:60 This is a difficult hard teaching, who can listen to it?

6:61 But Jesus, conscious that His disciples grumbled, said, ‘Does this cause you to stumble?’

6:67 Do you also want to go away also?

6:68 Lord, to whom shall we go?

6:70 Did I Myself not choose you, the twelve, and yet one of you is a devil?

Musings: John 10

14 I am the Good Shepherd; I know My sheep and My own sheep know Me.

4 When He brings out all His own, He goes ahead of them and the sheep follow Him, for they know His voice.

5 A stranger they will never follow; in fact, they will flee from him, because they do not know the voice of strangers.

8 All who ever came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them.

9 I am the Door; if anyone enters by Me, he will be saved.

11 I am the Good Shepherd; the Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.

12 He who is a hired hand, and not a shepherd, who is not the owner of the sheep, sees the wolf coming, and abandons the sheep and flees, and the wolf attacks and catches the sheep and scatters them.

27 My sheep listen to My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.

28 And I give them eternal life, and they will never perish; and no one can snatch them out of My hand.