Today’s Scrip-Bit 10 July 2020 1 Corinthians 1:25.

1 Corinthians 1:25.     ​Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
 

Grace and peace and LOVE from our heavenly Father be unto you this Friday morning my fellow believers in Christ Jesus! It’s a new day and His mercies are new! Glory be! And the message is that we must abide in Him, regardless of the uncomfortable and dangerous circumstances that surround us, we must be strong and not falter, not give up, for he who endures to the end will be richly rewarded! And all God’s children said a loud and grateful ‘Amen!’ 

Yeh friends, there’s no other name in the universe like that of Jesus, our Lord and Saviour, to whom NOTHING is impossible and through whom we can do ANYTHING He desires of us! So let’s take courage, strength and assurance from those facts today nuh and keep on keeping on, keep on fighting the good fight for which we were created so that we can eventually win the crown of glory that we’ve been so faithfully promised! Sermon done! (smile) 

It’s time to hear what the ordinary workingman has to say. ‘TGIF! Thank God is Friday oui! And best of all, the weekend is upon us! But what a hot week this has been! Oh brother, both outside and inside, especially in the blooming slave master factory that don’t have no air conditioning! Steups! 

What a cheap man! He refuse to spend the few dollars to put it in, even though they tell him it going to make the machinery last longer, not to mention his employees. We all lost a couple pounds this week, including him, slaving in the boiling heat! To tell the truth though, sometimes the AC not even good enough at home to quench the fiery heat during the nights and them. It’s what you call a real heatwave…and it looks like it going to last even longer. 

Just hope the weekend not too bad nuh so I can get some much needed rest… And then this pandemic and strife thing still going on, with no end in sight to them either…What a bam bam! Pandemic, strife and heat! What a glorious trio! And not even a drop of rain to put out the fire. Although Toronto got a good deluge this week for an hour or so that cause a whole lotta flooding and damage, but nowhere else on the outskirts had anything but a li’l drizzle. 

But what yuh going to do eh? Life’s never been easy…and nobody ever said it was ever going to be either. Yuh just have to live it as best yuh can…look yuh best and be yuh best, enjoy the fruits of yuh labour and say thank God for Fridays and weekends yes!’ 

Ah mih people, the ordinary workingman might not have a lot of book learning, but he does have life experience that no amount of formal education can ever teach, and it would be very wise of us to pay some attention to his pronouncements, because remember the Lord uses the simple and foolish to upset the applecart of the wise and powerful. 

As Bruh Paul so nicely and wisely put it to the fractious, infighting and thus divided church at Corinth. ‘Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer (debater) of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching (the message preached) to save them that believe.’ (1 Cor. 1:20-21) 

Yeh friends, it wasn’t by wisdom that the world learned of Christ Jesus, but by the message of the cross preached by simple men and women, to those who chose to believe. As Bruh Paul continues: ‘For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom. But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness. But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.’ (1 Cor. 1:22-25) 

Oh my people, even on His worst day, God’s foolishness and weakness is much wiser and much stronger than man’s best! For remember, He said quite plainly that His ways and thoughts are way above ours. (Is. 55:8-9) And logically, they would have to be for Him to do all the awesome things that He’s done. So please let’s pay serious attention to Him nuh, for though it might sound like foolishness to the world’s way of thinking, it’s actually wisdom in spades. 

Now let’s go home showing true wisdom, falling on our bended knees and offering up prayerful sentiments to Him in the form of our Friday Chant. All together now: ‘Oh Lord, thanks for getting me safely through this past week. It’s been pretty rough…some of it from work, as many of us are now back to work in varied ways, but most of our anxiety still comes from all the confusion and havoc that the Covid-19 virus still causing. We not accustomed to that Lord, and it really telling on us. 

And now, on top of all that, we have racial riots and protests to put up with. Oh Lord, yuh know we can’t handle it on our own and desperately need Your help. Yes, heavenly Father, with your omnipotent help, and our trusting faith, we know that we can stand strong and steadfast and defeat both the virus and the unrest in our streets. 

So Lord, we sincerely ask you today to give the governments and those involved in the forefront of this serious and unexpected storm, the sure and wise guidance to handle the situation properly, with the least amount of loss to life and property as possible. And please help those of us who must go out to work amidst all the confusion, to be responsible and to stay safe, so that we can avoid any more serious setbacks. 

And Lord, we fervently pray that You’ll use this situation to also bring a lot of backsliders back to your fold, show them the error of their ways. It’s also a good opportunity to introduce a whole new flock, who will embrace your LOVE and compassion because of the way we, your faithful believers, handle the situation. Yes Lord, please use this pandemic and the unrest in the streets as a means of restoring faith in You, so that our sinful world can wake up and smell the coffee, sweet and strong! We pray this in the name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ! Amen!’ 

And having said all of that, our only recourse now is to be faithful believers, both in word and deed! Much LOVE!

…whether times are good or bad…Christ is ALWAYS the answer…

Today’s Scrip-Bit 13 July 2018 Lamentations 3:22-23.

Lamentations 3:22-23.   It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.

And the world continues to unfurl as it should; that’s according to Almighty God’s universal plan! Oh, for sure we don’t understand it; why all the strife, anger, hatred, poverty, sickness and economic deprivation eh? 

But we need to understand that God’s mind and ways are so much higher, bigger and greater than ours, so that if He even explained it to us, we would not be able to understand it with our comparatively puny and finite minds. And all we really need to be concerned about is simply doing whatever He asks us to do, both as individuals and as the body of Christ, His Holy Church. Amen! 

That’s why the workingman doesn’t pay too much attention to the strife-filled world we currently live in, even on Friday the 13. (smile) Hear him sing his weekend song. “TGIF! Thank God it’s Friday! And I don’t care whether it’s Friday the 13th, or whatever other day they have with a set of poppycock notions about evil befalling you if you do some foolishness like walking under a ladder, or a black cat crossing your path! That’s pure nonsense! 

But let them believe whatever they want yes! That’s their business! All I know is that we going to be eating and drinking and having a good time once it’s a Friday and the weekend and we have some time off from the massa slave-work. Thank God for Fridays and the weekends oui!’ 

Yes friends, it’s indeed Friday the 13th, and a lot of superstition is going to be running rampant today. It’s a good thing, that like the ordinary workingman, we are not troubled by such stuff. We too are going to celebrate the weekend, but not just to the outrageous limits that he does. So let’s chant our Friday Chant nuh, which tells exactly how we will spend our weekend. 

In unison 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!’ 

Yes my brethren, ours is a much more relaxed and responsible kind of weekend, preparing ourselves to go back out and do Jesus’ work the next week. If we overdo the weekend, then we’ll be of no use whatsoever to ourselves or to Him. And you must have noticed that we’re still on the compassion Bit. (smile) 

Well that’s because there are so many scriptures on compassion and it’s oh so important in our Christian faith and we are definitely not as good at it as we ought to be. Just look at our topsy-turvy world nuh! Don’t you think that if we had just a bit more compassion circulating in it that it would be a much more wonderful place to live? It surely would be! 

Here’s what Jesus wants, what He came to earth and practiced and died for; so that we could have compassion on each other, forgive others the way that God forgives us. And remember His words: ‘But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.’ (Matt.6:15) That puts it so plain and straightforward; if you don’t forgive, you won’t be forgiven. And showing compassion is just one part of the plan. 

Listen to how Jeremiah puts it. ‘It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.’ 

Oh friends, I do hope that seeing that scripture every day for the last few days has caused our compassion meter to rise up some, else these messages would be all for nought. But let’s get to the compassion scriptures before time and space run out on us. Listen to the Good Book, re our Lord and Saviour, the Master of compassion. 

‘And there came a leper to him, beseeching him, and kneeling down to him, and saying unto him, If thou wilt (are willing), thou canst make me clean. And Jesus, moved with compassion, put forth his hand, and touched him, and saith unto him, I will; be thou clean. And as soon as he had spoken, immediately the leprosy departed from him, and he was cleansed.’ (Mark 1:40-42) Glory be mih breddren! How wonderful is our Saviour eh? Most wonderful! 

And the scholars offer these explanations. ‘1:40. The leper assumes a respectful, if plaintive, posture. His beseeching is not based on Jesus’ ability but on His willingness.’ Yuh see friends, even the leper knew and recognized Jesus as the Great Healer. He didn’t doubt that He could heal, just whether He was willing to. 

Unfortunately though, many of us believers today don’t have the kind of faith that leper had, and are not completely convinced that Jesus could heal us even in these times of calamity and untold frustration. How sad! 

‘1:41. Jesus is moved with compassion to help. Mark’s picture of Jesus is not of an unmoved problem-solver sweeping serenely and unemotionally from incident to incident. See Hebrews 4:15.’ 

No friends, our Jesus was, and is as emotional as one can get! And we’ll end today with that most appropriate scripture the scholars just quoted, because I know most of us won’t look it up, and it’s very important to our understanding of Jesus and our faith. 

‘Seeing then that we have a high priest, that is passed into (through) the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession (faith). For we have not a high priest which cannot be touched (sympathize) with the feeling of our infirmities (our weaknesses); but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly (confidently) unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.’ (Heb.4:14-16) 

Oh mih people, there’s no better remedy for our problems than taking them to Jesus in prayer, because He experienced temptation and frustration just like we do, but in His status as God too, He did not sin. That’s why He could pay for our sins and now sits as an intercessor for us at the right hand of God, being able to empathize with our earthly problems. Won’t you come to Him today, and experience His compassion. It’s the antidote for all that ails you. Much LOVE!

…in earthly or heavenly form…Jesus just exudes compassion…