Sunday’s Blessing – 06/22/2025 – Summer Begins

Sunday’s Blessing – 06/22/2025 – Summer Begins

Seasons are a great reminder that life will bring changes, and with those changes we may have to adapt to the place we find ourselves. For six months, days have been gradually getting longer until the Summer Solstice, which is the longest day of the year. We hardly notice the change because it happens so slowly. Beginning today, days begin getting shorter until the Winter Solstice, which is the shortest day of the year.

This phenomenon occurs in many areas of life. Children grow up, seemingly overnight, because we cannot see their progress each day. It’s only when something gets our attention that we suddenly realize they have grown.

These things illustrate the meaning of “process”. The mechanism is put in motion and continues until something affects its progress. Life in general is much like this.

The fraternal twin of process is “event”. Events can happen suddenly, or may be planned, but their duration is short-lived. A party, for instance, could be a surprise or a well-thought-out affair. Either way, events have a planned start and stop time. Once it’s over, it’s over.

Some events can impact us so deeply that it initiates a process which could last for the rest of our lives. The birth of a child is a great example. The event of giving birth begins with labor and ends with delivery. But that is only the beginning of a much longer process of raising the child. The other end of that spectrum is death. Death can sometimes be preceded by a process (such as a long illness), but many times comes suddenly.

The end result of any event is determined by how we react. In the case of giving birth, a parent could neglect the child, or worse yet, abuse the child, causing great harm physically or emotionally, or both. In the case of an unexpected death, the ones left behind have choices to make about how the sudden loss of a loved one will affect them. Obviously, the person will no longer be there. But beyond that, those left behind must find a way to keep living.

These changes in life can be likened to the seasons. Although there are no “events” which mark the change of seasons, we can use this mindset to help us adapt to a new way of living. Just as we change our outer surroundings to accommodate the change in seasons, like clothing, exterior preparations (sealing up for winter, planting for spring, etc.), décor and colors, and the list goes on, we can also make changes in our personal life to accommodate the unplanned changes. We can expand our horizons by moving to a new place, getting a new job, pursue education, take up a hobby, etc. We must fight the urge to sit down and do nothing.

The spiritual application is to find a way to seek help outside of our own strength and understanding. Embrace the truth given to us in scripture. Allow the wisdom of God to guide us. Allow the Spirit of God to empower us. Allow the love of God to keep us in peace.

Now for today’s blessing. It’s a simple one straight from scripture:

The Lord bless you and keep you;

The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;

The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

Sunday’s Blessing – 06/15/2025 – Father’s Day

Sunday’s Blessing – 06/15/2025 – Father’s Day

The past month or so I spent time writing about the sabbath/selah/rest of God. I’ve learned a lot as I spent time reading and meditating on what God thinks about the sabbath from both the Old and New Testament perspectives. I came to realize they are exactly the same. There are two different things here. There is The Sabbath, which is the seventh day of the week, and considered to be a weekly festival which God gave His chosen people, the Jews, for them to remember all God had done for them.

There is also simply sabbath. This is a time when we “suspend” our activity and just commune with our Father. This is not relegated to a day of the week. It is not church attendance. It is not the fourth commandment. It is a time when we let everything else go for a while and spend that time talking and listening to God. The word meaning of sabbath is: intermission, to cease, to rest. In today’s vernacular it might be: “time out” or “chill”.

King David understood sabbath and built into his psalms a pause, called selah, which mean: “suspension” or “pause”. This nuance in musical terms could mean an actual suspended chord or progression of sound. Our minds hear the musical suspension and naturally begin anticipating the resolution; the resolve.

When I saw this, I immediately understood why sabbath means so much to God. In essence, sabbath is faith. When we suspend our efforts, our plans, our purposes, our pursuits, we experience sabbath rest. There’s no struggle or strain. We come to realize that God is the source of everything we need. This is faith: the essence of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. This suspension brings the anticipation of the resolution or resolve in our life.

The resolve leads us to act, not in faith, but in trust. We heard from the Father in the sabbath moment, then go from there trusting in what we heard from Him. This is how we live our life-song. We play and sing the words and melody given to us by the Holy Spirit. It builds up to a point of suspension where we have to pause and seek counsel from the Maker, then continue in the cadence, trusting God’s voice.

Now for today’s blessing:

May the Lord teach you to play your life-song 

To bring glory and honor to Christ and His Kingdom

So those in your world can be blessed

Including you, the minstrel and soloist of your life

May you encounter the Father on this Father’s Day

As you learn of Him through the renewed fellowship available through Christ

To hear His heart, to recognize His voice, to follow His dreams for you

As you continue to compose new movements in the song of your life

Sunday’s Blessing – 06/08/2025 – Pentecost Sunday

Sunday’s Blessing – 06/08/2025 – Pentecost Sunday

One of the most important aspects of our salvation is when Jesus fulfilled His promise to send the Holy Spirit to the earth to fill those who would become identified with Christ through His death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and seating at the Father’s right hand. This is the process of salvation described by Paul in Ephesians 1 & 2. Before Jesus ascended to take His position of authority next to the Father, He promised to send “another” comforter. This word “another” means one of the same kind. Jesus explained that He had been “with” them, but the One coming later would live “in” them, to empower them to be witnesses of all they had seen and heard.

For many years, I had missed one vital part of this process. Most “plans” of salvation I had heard placed the onus of being saved on the individual. It included things like, “if you believe and confess, you would be saved,” or “be baptized for the remission of sin,” or … There are many more. While these are verses in the Bible, they do not encapsulate the salvation experience. The end result of salvation is to be “in Christ.” I have only found one way for this to occur: the Holy Spirit must baptize us into Christ. Who does He baptize? Those who have identified with Christ in all of the aspects mention by Paul: the death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and seating of Jesus.

Pentecost is not an “experience” for the believer. It was an “event” in the history of God’s saving of humans on earth from their sin and restoring fellowship with the Father which was lost because of sin. There is no salvation without Pentecost (the sending of the Holy Spirit to the earth). The Holy Spirit, or paraclete (I’ve heard described as “one who walks along side together with”), would be sent to help us. He would lead us into salvation by showing us the love of the Father. He would then baptize us into Christ. And finally, the Holy Spirit would dwell in us to empower us to be witnesses of this “love of the Father” to our world.

It's important for us to remember these things. That’s why I am enjoying learning about liturgy; not as a way of expressing my Christianity, but to strengthen my  Christian experience by constantly being reminded of why God did all He did to provide a way back into complete fellowship with Him.

Now for today’s blessing:

May you encounter the Holy Spirit in every way

So you may know, completely, the love of the Father

Which is the only reason Jesus came – to show us the Father

So you could be restored into full fellowship with Him 

My you learn to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit – the inward witness

So you can share outwardly all that He has brought about in you

By baptizing you into Christ, guiding you into the Truth about the Father

So you could receive all He has provided for you in the New Covenant

May this Pentecost Sunday become a time of revelation

May the Holy Spirit bring you to full understanding of why He came

So you would be able to live in the perpetual Sabbath Rest

Which is found in Jesus Christ, your Lord

Sunday’s Blessing – 06/01/2025 – The Sunday Between Ascension and Pentecost

Sunday’s Blessing – 06/01/2025 – The Sunday Between Ascension and Pentecost

There is not a lot of information in scripture about the time between when Jesus ascended to heaven to be seated at the right hand of the Father and when Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to fill believers, giving them boldness to testify of the love of God brought through the death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and seating of Christ. We know the disciples and others went to the upper room where Jesus had what is now referred to as The Last Supper.

And while staying with them he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said, “you heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”

So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” 

Acts 1:4-8 (ESV)

For years, I tried to live the Christian life without knowledge or the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer. It was not part of the teaching in the churches of my youth. I now understand more fully the work of the Holy Spirit, and that Jesus sending the Holy Spirit was part of our redemption.

So here we are, in the ten days between the Ascension (Jesus going up) and Pentecost (the Holy Spirit coming down). The last two acts of Jesus which completed our salvation were Him being seated on the Father’s right hand (where we are positionally with Christ after we are saved) and Jesus sending the Holy Spirit to inhabit the Believer once the Spirit baptizes us into Christ (salvation). God provided everything for us through Christ so we could be restored into fellowship with Him, our Creator.

Now for today’s blessing:

May you learn to live from the position of being seated with Christ

So you may be able to trust the Father for every aspect of your life

So you may know the true nature and character of the Father

And live a life full enough to bless other along the way

May you live yielded to the Spirit’s presence inside you

So you may be led by the Spirit in every way

So you may be empowered to be a witness of the hope that is in you

And always have something to give to others who need hope

Sunday’s Blessing – 05/25/2025 – Week of Ascension

Sunday’s Blessing – 05/25/2025 – Week of Ascension

As we consider selah/sabbath/rest, one of the last acts Jesus did on earth was to ascend to Heaven to be seated at the right hand of the Father. This would be His posture until He returns for His Bride, the Church. Spiritually, we are also seated with Him at God’s right hand. It is here that we also rule and reign with Christ, though we are still here on earth.

We remain here after our conversion to be ambassadors for the Kingdom of God on the earth. We are to be ministers of reconciliation, bringing mankind back to their rightful place of fellowship with the Creator.

Being seated on God’s right hand is the ultimate in rest. God rested after creation. Jesus rested in the tomb after completing His mission to fulfil righteousness by keeping The Law blamelessly. Now He is resting at the Father’s right hand, interceding for us continually.

The final act (that we are aware of in scripture) before His return is to send the Holy Spirit to fill people who are born again, recreating them to be sons and daughters of the Most High God. We will celebrate this day a little later which is called Pentecost.

Now for this week’s blessing:

May you know the reality of your position in Christ, which is to be seated with the Father

From which you can experience a life of joy and peace, living in the favor of God

Enjoying fellowship with the Creator as friend to friend

Until we actually get to see Him face to face

May you learn to rest in in this relationship, no longer struggling to qualify

But instead, learning to abide, since you are already qualified through Jesus

No longer working or straining, but instead enjoying the fellowship

Forever with Him, the Keeper of our heart

Sunday’s Blessing – 05/18/2025

Sunday’s Blessing – 05/18/2025

For the past few weeks I’ve been talking about sabbath. There is “The Sabbath”, as mentioned in the Ten Commandments, and then there is just sabbath. They mean the same thing; one is just more formal than the other. The root meaning of sabbath is “suspension.” God “suspended” His creation on the seventh day in Genesis. This was the original sabbath. Later in The Law, The Sabbath was implemented as part of the requirements for being in covenant with the Father.

Jesus came and fulfilled all the law and the prophets had spoken, but did not do away with sabbath. Instead, He became our sabbath. He became our rest. He caused us for the first time to be able to live a “suspended” life; a state of being able to respond to the Holy Spirit. When music reaches a suspended chord, our ears almost demand a resolution. When watching a show, the build suspense to keep you pulled into the story, then bring the resolution by solving the conflict which created the suspense.

In this same way, God has introduced “suspension” in us so we will remain aware of His presence and keep us moving toward the purpose for which we were created. Never lose a sense of awe for the Father, or a sense of being drawn by the Holy Spirit, or a sense of wonder in seeking Christ.

Now for today’s blessing:

May you never consider the Christian life mundane

But instead maintain a yearning for resolve in each day

Remaining suspended, aware, awaiting the direction of the Spirit

And faithful to place you feet as the Light of God directs you

May you spend sabbath moments considering all God has been

To only grow in your understanding of what He is

And propel you forward into all He wants to be in you

So you may be the ambassador for the Kingdom in your world

Sunday's Blessing – 05/11/2025 – Mother's Day – The Christian Sabbath

Sunday's Blessing – 05/11/2025 – Mother's Day – The Christian Sabbath

If you remember from Exodus when God called Moses to lead God’s people out of Egyptian bondage, Moses asked, “Who should I say has sent me?” God responded with, “Tell them I AM sent you.” When Jesus used this same declaration in these seven occurrences in John, the people hearing Him speak knew exactly what He was saying. He was describing the character and nature of God. Bread is an essential part of human diet. Light is required for our very lives. We must enter the Kingdom of God through The Door, who is Jesus. He is The Way, The Truth, and The Life. Jesus is a Good Shepherd. He is also The Resurrection and The Life.

I omitted one in that list. This attribute which Jesus declared of Himself is what led to me pursuing this study in the first place. “I AM The Vine.” Look at this one in detail.

I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. John 15:1-7 (ESV)

The branch cannot bear fruit by itself. The only way is to be attached to The Vine. If you are in Christ, you are a branch connected to The Vine. The branch has no responsibility for anything except to bear fruit. The Vine supplies everything needed for the branch to be productive. If the Vine is healthy the branches are healthy. Branches do not have to find water. They simply drink from the Vine. Jesus said, “Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you.” The branch doesn’t have to worry about our eternal destiny, because Jesus has already declared it over us, “It is finished!” Jesus was teaching us about sabbath rest. We do not labor to enter into this rest. The Holy Spirit places us into this rest when He baptized us into Christ.

This Sabbath Rest we find in the New Covenant of God, one based on faith in Jesus Christ, was sealed by the Holy Spirit who dwells in us (sent by Jesus as He promised when He ascended) to empower us to simply produce fruit. Jesus modeled this rest for us using Himself as an example.

One day he got into a boat with his disciples, and he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side of the lake.” So they set out, and as they sailed he fell asleep. And a windstorm came down on the lake, and they were filling with water and were in danger. And they went and woke him, saying, “Master, Master, we are perishing!” And he awoke and rebuked the wind and the raging waves, and they ceased, and there was a calm. He said to them, “Where is your faith?” And they were afraid, and they marveled, saying to one another, “Who then is this, that he commands even winds and water, and they obey him?” Luke 8:22-25 (ESV)

Even in death, Jesus was able to be at peace. He could “rest” in a tomb for three days, knowing He would be raised up to live again.

They went on from there and passed through Galilee. And he did not want anyone to know, for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him. And when he is killed, after three days he will rise.” But they did not understand the saying, and were afraid to ask him. Mark 9:30-32 (ESV)

This is the very place which God wants those who have believed in His Son, Jesus, the Christ, the Messiah, our Savior, to live every day of their life. Living from a place of “it is finished”, in the sabbath rest provided in the sacrifice of Jesus. Paul said it like this:

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Colossians 3:1-4 (ESV) 

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. Romans 8:1-5 (ESV)

Peter described it this way, in comparing our salvation with Noah. Noah entered a place of “rest” in the ark for 40 days and nights, relying on the promise that God would deliver him and his family.

For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him. 1 Peter 3:18-22 (ESV)

Baptism, as Peter describes here, is not the immersion in water, but it is the baptism of the Holy Spirit into Christ, which is what saves us. Noah was “baptized” by the ark which God instructed him to build. In this same way, our identification with Christ is completed by the Holy Spirit baptizing us into Christ, placing us with Jesus at the right hand of the Father.

I firmly believe the reason God was so adamant about the Sabbath when He gave Moses the Law on the mountain, then had Moses remind the people on multiple occasions, then commissioned a Sabbath festival to be observed every week, was so we would learn to live in total peace when we were in right relationship with Him. Eden was the picture of how God intended us to live. Sabbath was the restoration of that fellowship, and Jesus became the embodiment of this rest. In Him we have all we need.

Now for this week's blessing:

May the Lord grant you complete understanding of the Rest available in Christ

Not a period of natural sleep, but a spiritual "pause" from any feelings of requirements

So you may relate to your Father with complete transparency, with joy and acceptance

Knowing that you are loved without limits by the God without limits

May you return from these moments of "suspension" refreshed and encouraged

So you can "be" to the praise of His glory, not "do" the works of obligation

For others to see and hear the voice of the Spirit in your words and your countenance

As you walk out the reflection of your Lord while being "finished" until the day of His return

May you keep your mind and heart fixed on your position in Christ

Seated next to the Father, firmly in the grasp of His love and kept by His power

Where nothing can remove you from this place ... NOTHING!

And live at rest in Him