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Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. For our God is a consuming fire. -- Hebrews 12:28-29

My favorite band plays my favorite song.

Now if only Mac and the boys would lead a group to clean up the dump...

Source: Hubblesite.org

A good thought here:

Quite often in the Scriptures we read of kingdom of God. It has to be interpreted by its context. It might have a narrow meaning, such as the kingdom of heaven, as in Matthew. Or it could extend to all that God is Sovereign over. The kingdom of heaven is a kingdom that belongs to the Son. He is the King that is coming to take over that kingdom some day.

However, we read in Ephesians 1:9,10 that Christ is made Head over all things in heaven and earth. And we have to find out what the all things may be and also what heaven is meant.

In Colossians 1:20 we read about a reconciliation of the all things in which He is to have the preeminence. And they are in heaven and earth.

These and other passages show us that these all things in heaven and earth are the church and the principalities and powers in the heavenly places. The church at present is on earth, but some day will be in the heavenlies. Hence it is said right now to be translated into the kingdom of His dear Son. This then is not the kingdom here on earth which is Israel's hope, but a great kingdom beyond the stars which He also obtained by His faithfulness and obedience, even to the death of the cross.

There are some Christian faithful who believe our call is to restore the earth so Christ can reign here. Well, yes. Earth is part of His realm, and stewardship is a good work.

Paul reminds us that His kingdom is so much grander than that. What is grander still: Those who are in Christ are His brothers and sisters, adopted by the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. His realm is our realm. And that realm doesn't end at the limits of our atmosphere or the depths of earth's oceans.

Let me give you this to chew on: Jesus said be faithful in the little things so that we could be trusted with the big things. I don't think we really grasp just how big those things - the universe-spanning gardens and castles of His Kingdom - really are. If we did, I think it would bring new energy to our ecology efforts.

As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” 

“Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life. As long as it is day, we must do the work of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

Having said this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes. “Go,” he told him, “wash in the Pool of Siloam” (this word means Sent). So the man went and washed, and came home seeing.

-- Luke's Gospel, Chapter 9

This man was born blind. His eyes weren't damaged as a child by a disease or an injury. He never had them to begin with - at least not working ones.

Jesus could have gone the "your faith has made you well" route, or just laid a hand on him. But this time Jesus makes mud from dirt and spit and puts it on the man's eye sockets. How come?

He and His Father used dirt to make whole people back in Genesis 2. I think Jesus was using dirt again to make him a set of working eyeballs.

Just a thought.

God gave Solomon wisdom and very great insight, and a breadth of understanding as measureless as the sand on the seashore. Solomon's wisdom was greater than the wisdom of all the men of the East, and greater than all the wisdom of Egypt. He was wiser than any other man, including Ethan the Ezrahite—wiser than Heman, Calcol and Darda, the sons of Mahol. And his fame spread to all the surrounding nations.

He spoke three thousand proverbs and his songs numbered a thousand and five. He described plant life, from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop that grows out of walls. He also taught about animals and birds, reptiles and fish.

Men of all nations came to listen to Solomon's wisdom, sent by all the kings of the world, who had heard of his wisdom.

-- Young King Solomon in 1 Kings, Chapter 4, (NIV)

I, the Teacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem. I devoted myself to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under heaven. What a heavy burden God has laid on men! I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

What is twisted cannot be straightened; what is lacking cannot be counted.

-- Old King Solomon in Ecclesiastes, Chapter 1 (NIV)

[artwork: Barry Moser's 'King Solomon']

"As nightfall does not come all at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware of change in the air - however slight - lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness." - Justice William O. Douglas

"An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy; because there is a limit beyond which no institution and no property can bear taxation." - John Marshall

"Any people that would give up liberty for a little temporary safety deserves neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin

"Government is not reason; it is not eloquence. It is force. And force, like fire, is a dangerous servant and a fearful master." - George Washington

Woke up with this one on my heart, over and over. Love that last verse...

Eternal God unchanging mysterious and unknown / Your boundless love unfailing and Grace and mercy shown / Bright Seraphim in celestial flight around your glorious throne / they raise their voices day and night and praise to You alone

Hallelujah Glory be to our great God

Hallelujah Glory be to our great God

but we are weak and frail helpless in a storm / surround us with your angels hold us in your arms / our cold and ruthless enemy his pleasure is our hurt / rise up oh Lord and he will flee before our sovereign God

Hallelujah Glory be to our great God

Hallelujah Glory be to our great God

let every creature in the sea and every flying bird / let every mountain every field and valley of the earth / let all the moon and all the stars in all the universe / sing praises to the living God who rules them by his word

Hallelujah Glory be to our great God

Hallelujah Glory be to our great God

Jon Rutz:

The fruits of the spirit are one of the most oft-quoted groupings of spiritual values in the whole of Christianity. The fact that they’re described as fruits indicates that they grow with time, and eventually provide nourishment. The fact that they’re of the Spirit means that we can’t produce them on our own. After reading over them a few times, it occurred to me that taking a closer look at how the fruits of the Spirit relate to the realm of environmental stewardship can be a very fruitful (sorry) exercise...

IT'S THE WEEKEND of my 45th year on earth.

I was lucky fortunate enough blessed to spend part of it Saturday with my lovely bride on the rocky beaches surrounding Sachuest Point [photo]. It was a million dollar day. Brilliant sun, a fresh breeze, and a little soreness in the legs from the bike ride and mile hike around the park. On the back side of the point we dropped off the trail onto the beach, and took a side tour of the boulder strewn coastline.

I love this spot. Scattered in and among the sandstone boulders you can find formations of quartz in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Some run like white ribbons through the darker rock, while pink and white boulders a foot or more in diameter are piled together in other places. I'm sure much of it remains deeply buried in the surrounding rock.

So there I was, hopping from one giant crystal to another, holding my best friend's hand, and muttering aloud about how Christians and quartz are a lot alike.

No, seriously. LOL! Bear with me for a sec...

Quartz is interesting stuff. 

Quartz is the most common mineral on the face of the Earth. It is found in nearly every geological environment and is at least a component of almost every rock type. It frequently is the primary mineral, >98%. It is also the most varied in terms of varieties, colors and forms. This variety comes about because of the abundance and widespread distribution of quartz. A collector could easily have hundreds of quartz specimens and not have two that are the same due to the many broad catagories. The specimens could be separated by answers to the following questions: color?, shade?, pyramidal?, prismatic?, druzy?, twinned?, sceptered?, phantomed?, included?, tapered?, coated?, microcrystalline?, stalactitic?, concretionary?, geoidal?, banded?, etc. Multiple combinations of these could produce hundreds of unique possibilities.

Beyond its varieties and colors, quartz has a fascinating - and useful - piezoelectric property:

If you squeeze a quartz crystal, it generates a tiny electric current. The opposite is also true: if you pass electricity through quartz, it vibrates at a precise frequency (it shakes about an exact number of times each second).

It's this ability to resonate when energy is applied to it that makes it useful for wristwatches, clocks, radios, computers, and cellphones. Quartz crystals are also found inside test and measurement equipment, such as counters, signal generators, and oscilloscopes.

Beyond its use in electronics, quartz can be used to make glass, electrical components, lenses and optics, abrasives, gemstones, and ornamental and building stones. Some folks even use the sounds that quartz bells and bowls make to encourage meditation, or hang it around their necks as theraputic crystals.

AREN'T WE LIKE THAT? We who make up the Body of Christ are everywhere on the earth. Some of us are tucked deep inside dark boulders, some run like ribbons through other lives, and some stand alone for the world to see. Some are sharp edged, and some have had these edges worn by the tides and wind. Some are cloudy, some bright. But all have the same simple composition of mind, body and spirit.

When we are re-formed by our Creator we become useful in a million different ways. He can use us to build strong foundations or pathways. We can help others see better, wear off rough edges, and become His ornamental stones to bring beauty and joy and value.

When He shapes us and passes His Spirit through us, we resonate with Him in sympathetic harmony. We become useful for communicating, or discernment, or bringing faithful stability, or helping others simply mark time whether that time is moving swiftly by or begrudgingly crawling along. It is not the largest or greatest among us that are the most used for this purpose, but often the smallest and the rarely-seen.

Polished by Him, our voices and our music can bring healing and joy and praise, and offerings of prayer.

I could go on but I'm sure you get the idea.

The next time you pick up a piece of quartz, see it as an example of how all Creation is designed to reflect and respond to God's glory.

Jesus said if men became silent in their testimony to His lordship "even the stones would cry out." Maybe He was thinking about you and me and quartz.

The Edict of Worms was issued on this day in 1521 by Emperor Charles V, declaring Martin Luther an outlaw and a heretic, banning his literature. It also made it a crime for anyone in Germany to give Luther food or shelter.

The Papal nuncio at the Diet, Girolamo Aleandro, drew up and proposed the fierce denunciations of Luther that were embodied in the Edict of Worms, promulgated on May 25. These declared Luther to be an outlaw and banned the reading or possession of his writings. It permitted anyone to kill Luther without legal consequence. Lots more here.

And a bit of Luther on ecology:

If God is to create or to preserve a creature, God must be present and must make and preserve God’s creation both in its innermost and outermost aspects.

Sweden's Carl Gustav Boberg penned the timeless hymn we translate today as "How Great Thou Art." Based on Psalms 8, it's a wonderful testimony of how creation reveals not only God's majesty but His matchless grace and love as well.

According to the wiki Boberg wrote the poem "O Store Gud" in 1885 with nine verses, including these:

När tryckt av synd och skuld jag faller neder,
Vid Herrens fot och ber om nåd och frid.
Och han min själ på rätta vägen leder,
Och frälsar mig från all min synd och strid.

(When burdens press, and seem beyond endurance,
Bowed down with grief, to Him I lift my face;
And then in love He brings me sweet assurance:
'My child! for thee sufficient is my grace'.)

När jag hör dårar i sin dårskaps dimma
Förneka Gud och håna hvad han sagt,
Men ser likväl, att de hans hjälp förnimma
Och uppehållas af hans nåd och makt.

(O when I see ungrateful man defiling
This bounteous earth, God's gifts so good and great;
In foolish pride, God's holy Name reviling,
And yet, in grace, His wrath and judgment wait.)

The inspiration for the poem came when Boberg was walking home from church near Kronobäck, Sweden, and listening to church bells. A sudden awe-inspiring storm gripped Boberg’s attention, and then just as suddenly as it had made its violent entrance, it subsided to a peaceful calm which Boberg observed over Mönsterås Bay. "From the woods on the other side of the bay, he heard the song of a thrush…the church bells were tolling in the quiet evening. It was this series of sights, sounds, and experiences that inspired the writing of the song..."

He wrote this in 1885 by the way, in those dark ages before the creation care movement or the NCC's eco-justice program. How did he ever manage it?

When we hear the name Jonah, what immediately pops into our heads is some old guy sitting in a whale. What we don't usually do is chew on how he got there.

Jonah's problem was thinking God's power was limited to the Tabernacle.  It was sort of an Old Testament version of Jason and the Argonauts.  God was somebody you could outrun if you tried.  When the old prophet got word God wanted him up in Nineveh, Jonah figured that by hustling himself to Tarshish, clear on the other side of Gibralter and about 2,800 miles in the opposite direction God wanted him to go, he'd be well clear of God's reach.  Jonah was looking for that place on the map that had pictures of sea monsters.  You know the place.

Well, not only was God not hindered by distance, but He met Jonah out at sea, sort of the same way Jesus would meet His disciples almost a thousand years later. 

Peter got Jesus' outstreched arm.  Jonah got a fish.

The point here is to ask how we think about ourselves and how we go about God's business on the planet.  My hunch is a lot of us think we come to church to meet with God, get ouselves spiritually filled up, get all wisdomed-up, get all worshipped-up, and then we take leave of God to go fix what's wrong with the world. Sure, God's right there behind the pulpit somewhere, between the altar and the choir director.  But once we leave the building we're pretty much on our own to do God's work as we see fit, whether that is tackling climate change or mountain top mining or improving recycling rates or improving the lives of shelter animals. Right?

Nope.  As Paul wrote, there's no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus who walk not according to the flesh, but to the Spirit. As the pastor said today we look at life through a fleshly microscope when we should be looking through God's panoramic lens.  When we see things that way it makes our vision narrow. 

What's your microscope - Government?  Greenpeace?  Your local save the planet non-profit creation-care gig?  Are you out there doing your thing with what you hope is enough of God that you stuffed into your pockets before you left last Sunday morning?

The truth is God's Spirit is everywhere.  His power is unlimited.  God's love is infinite.  He sees everything, knows everything, and can do anything.  In your heart do you really think you can just check in with Him once a week and flee from Him the rest of the time?  Do you really want to think God's just giving you a load of stuff to do and then booting you out the door to struggle through it on your own? 

Or would you rather run headlong into His arms and join Him in the work that He is ready to share with you in the great outdoors?  He is a carpenter.  Expect Him to have you hold one end of the board while He holds the other.  He is a yoke-sharer, whose yoke is easy and burden is light. He is the one whose cross was not erected in the back of a cathedral, but on a hillside at the edge of town for all to see.

You and I were never meant to do alone the work that the Father intends to share with us, wherever that work requires us to be.