Today’s Scrip-Bit 17 May 2019 Psalm 55:22.

Psalm 55:22.   ​Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee: he shall never suffer (permit) the righteous to be moved (shaken).
 

Big day people, big day! It being Friday and the start of the long Queen Victoria Day weekend! It’s also fairly sunny and warm, so you can imagine the barbecues will be fired up this weekend, the weather permitting, and the trek north, east and west to cottage country has already begun! You can’t go south, else you’ll end up in Lake Ontario. (smile) 

Wow! It’s a big weekend in this wonderful and blessed land of Canada with oodles of celebrations, parades and gratuitous political speeches! (smile) So please know that the enemy will be out in full swing in a decided effort to infiltrate as many believer’s souls as possible, that’s why I’m making Granny’s Plea so early: ‘Sonny boy, drunk or sober, please mind yuh business!’ The Lord’s also asking that of us my people! 

Meanwhile the ordinary workingman is just bursting at the seams, dying to declare his plans for the weekend: ‘TGIF! Thank God is Friday oui! And thank Queen Victoria, whoever she was, bless she long departed soul for this long weekend too! It ought to hail the start of summer frolics, if the weather would only behave! 

Mama Yo! Food and drinks are at the ready! The barbecue is all cleaned up and primed with gas! I can just smell the meat cooking and the waters flowing as me and mih friends celebrate these few days off from the slave master job. And ah know that Monday he’ll be vexed like anything because he got to pay we for not working! Oh thank God and Queen Victoria for this long weekend yes!’ 

Yes friends, some of us do exhibit the same frame of mind, but we have to be a li’l less bacchanalian in our celebrations, (smile) for that’s when the enemy is liable to find a chink in our spiritual armour, and is thus able to establish a finger or toe hold there.

And we definitely don’t want that to happen, we want to do our best to stay on the straight and narrow path that leads to Jesus, that’s why our Friday Chant is somewhat more discrete and less bacchanalian. (smile) 

So let’s chant it now nuh, as if we really mean it. As one: ‘Oh Lord, thanks for getting me safely through another week of work! It hasn’t been easy, but with your generous help, I made it through.

Now, please help me to get sufficient fun, fellowship, rest and relaxation in these two short days off, so that I can be renewed and refreshed in soul, body and mind, to go back out and do it all over again next week, furthering your glorious kingdom with each step I take. I pray this in Jesus name. Amen!’ 

Yes my fellow believers, we can, and should enjoy the long weekend with our friends and families, but let’s not overdo it nuh, like Jeeves would say, a li’l more circumspection please! (smile) Unfortunately, not all of us will get a three-day weekend, because this holiday, in honour of Queen Victoria’s birthday, (May 24) seems to be an official holiday only in Canada.

In any case, it would only have been celebrated in the British Commonwealth of nations, over whom Queen Victoria reigned from 1837-1901, the second longest reigning monarch after the current Queen Elizabeth the second. 

And today, in these extremely dangerous and ungodly times, it is necessary for us to know and hold on to words of excellent advice and wisdom like these from Bruh David, in his cry against deceitful friends. ‘Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee: he shall never suffer (permit) the righteous to be moved (shaken).’ 

Now if you call yourself a follower of Jesus and don’t believe that, don’t have it written indelibly in your heart, mind and soul, then you’re simply wasting your time! That’s because the Lord’s favour will only come upon us to the extent of our faith and trust in Him. 

Hear Bruh David again, this time from Psalm 37. ‘Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in him, and he shall bring it to pass. …The steps of a good man are ordered (established) by the Lord: and he delighteth in his way. Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down; for the Lord upholdeth him with his hand. I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed (descendants) begging bread. He is ever merciful (merciful all the day), and his seed (descendants) is blessed.’ (Ps.37:5, 23-26) 

And that’s gospel truth my people! In these evil times the only person and thing we can truthfully hold on to and be not afraid of disappointment is the Lord God Jehovah and His everlasting and truthful Word! Hear how Peter puts it nuh: ‘Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time: Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.’ (1 Pet.5:6-7) 

And that friends, we can never doubt, else why would He have sent His only son, Jesus Christ to die on the cross at Calvary sacrificially for our sins, while we were yet sinners? Because HE CARED! And He still does, even though we’re still sinful and disobedient! That’s just His very nature! 

So that means Bruh David is on the right track when he declares (yes!) in Psalm 56, his confident prayer for help: ‘What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee. In God I will praise his word, in God, I have put my trust; I will not fear what flesh can do unto me.’ (Ps.56:3-5)

What words of immense faith, trust and assurance my believing brethren! Hope we can declare the same things and truly mean them, because that’s when we will truly prosper and succeed in this evil world. 

And if by chance you don’t believe Bruh David and Peter, then listen to Jesus in Matthew 6:24-34, from His Sermon on the Mount, where He warns us that we cannot serve two masters at once – God and mammon.

And if God created all of nature so beautifully, and still keeps it looking beautiful after all this time, then why wouldn’t He look after His greatest creation, humankind, even better eh? 

But we have to seek God and His kingdom above everything else, then, we’ll get what we need. That’s just the way it cracks up friends, so you either do as Jesus says, or you don’t. The choice is yours. But please remember there are repercussions for every decision we make, or do not make! Much LOVE!

…if God isn’t first in EVERYTHING we do…then we’re shortchanging ourselves…

 

Today’s Scrip-Bit 21 December 2018 Lamentations 3:22.

Lamentations 3:22.   It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.
 
Aye mih people, it’s a brand new day with new mercies, LOVE, forgiveness, blessings and all the other good things that our magnanimous and ever-LOVING God showers down on us each and every single day! Glory be! Give Him much thanks and praise for His enduring goodness and LOVING-kindness to the undeserving children of men! Yes friends, is our God ever good to us! 

And would you believe that with only four days – not four shopping days (smile) to Christmas that we have rain in our area and not the crazy white stuff called snow! I’m surely grateful for that, although the skiers and other snow people won’t be thrilled.

Sorry people, but the Controller of the universe apparently feels for rain right now, not snow, and consequently there’s nothing we can do about it! But have no fear, we will get our fair share of the white stuff…in God’s time, that is! 

And the workingman has not forgotten us in these most celebratory times. Hear him sing his song: ‘TGIF! Thank God is Friday – the weekend! And only four days till Christmas too! Oh how we going to make merry and celebrate Christmas…but I already doing that yes!

I eating mih home made bread with ham flavoured with chow chow an’ pepper sauce! Brother does that ever taste good! Nice heavy bread with substance, not them light fluffy chupidness they sell in the bakery an’ call them bread! 

Then ah washing it down with sweet sorrel or ginger beer…an’ black cake and ice cream for dessert. Yuh smell how the alco strong in the cake? If yuh eat too much it soon black yuh up yes! (smile) And all we doing is going round to other people’s houses, singing carols and sweet parang music, an’ eating and drinking up all their Christmas goodies! Oh Christmas is such a wonderful time! Thank God for Fridays, weekends and Christmas oui!’ 

Yeh friends, Christmas is indeed a wonderful time, and all the celebrating is good, but it should not be paramount in our lives. The birth of our Lord and Saviour is what should hold first place in our lives this Christmas season, for it’s the very reason for the season! Without the birth of Christ, there’d be no Christmas! 

So why have we allowed that fact to be obscured by the foolishness of the man made festivities eh, where shopping and other bacchanalian activities seem to be honoured above the birth of our Saviour? Yuh can’t even say ‘Merry Christmas’ to some people! All they want to hear is the foolishness bout ‘Happy Holidays!’ What holiday is it eh? CHRISTMAS! So say it loud and proud: ‘MERRY CHRISTMAS!’ 

And forget the nonsensical watering down of the time when our God gave us His greatest gift ever: that of the birth of His only Son Jesus Christ, so that He would grow and show us the Father, and eventually die on the cross at Calvary to atone for our heinous and abominable sins! Brother! How can we not celebrate and give oodles of sincere thanks for such wonderful occurrences eh? 

My Christian brethren, please let’s not fall into the enemy’s trap of considering Christmas as more of a worldly time than it is eh. It’s ALL ABOUT CHRIST! So please let’s keep the CHRIST in CHRISTMAS! Keep it first place, like we ought to keep God first place in our overall lives! End of sermon! (smile) 

And I’ve talked so much about keeping Christ in Christmas that I almost forgot about our Friday Chant. Hn! So please let’s chant it up now with the same enthusiasm that the workingman placed in his song. Altogether now: ‘Oh Lord, thanks for getting me safely through another week of work! It hasn’t been easy, but with your generous help, I made it through. 

Now, please help me to get sufficient fun, fellowship, rest and relaxation in these two short days off, so that I can be renewed and refreshed in soul, body and mind, to go back out and do it all over again next week, furthering your glorious kingdom with each step I take. I pray this in Jesus name. Amen!’ 

Ah friends, it’s not as worldly as the workingman’s song, but it serves our purposes rather admirably; keeping us away from the excesses of the world, and more in line with the straight and narrow path that’s Christ desire for His people. That finally brings us to our Bit; a most wonderful piece of encouraging and reassuring scripture: ‘It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.’ 

And is that the gospel truth or what my faithful brethren! If it wasn’t for the Lord’s compassionate heart and intense care for us, we’d be long burnt up like the noonday sun burns up the dry grass! That’s why we need to take our Christian faith more seriously than many of us are doing. But hear how poor Jeremiah continues as he laments over his trials and tribulations nuh. 

‘They (the Lord’s mercies) are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him. The Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him. It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.’ (Lam.3:23-26) 

Oh my people, those are indeed words of eternal wisdom! If we sincerely believe in God, then we have to HOPE and WAIT for His timing and dispensation! Nothing else makes any sense. And if you don’t believe me, then listen to the scholars’ explanation of that last section. ‘3:26. Jeremiah’s observation resembles those of other saints who have expressed great grief of soul (Hab. 2:20; 3:17-19; cf. Job 40:3-5; Ps.37:7; 73:23-27; Is.26:3; 2 Cor.1:7; 2 Thess.3:5).’ 

Yuh see friends, even though the great saints suffered trials and tribulations, and more than most of us do nowadays too, they all felt the assurance of hoping in and waiting for God. And I just looked up all those scriptures the scholars noted, and they are indeed interesting and inspiring stuff. So please look them up yourselves so that you too can be enthused and reassured! That’s the only sensible way to live this life my people! Much LOVE!

…ONLY because of Christ’s birth…is there Christmas…let’s remember that…and act accordingly…