Mom won’t notice if one cookie is taken from the jar.  Dad won’t notice if I use this tool.  But we discover quickly they do notice.  As kids most of us thought our moms had eyes in the back of their head!  When I became a mom, I learned that it is a special knowing coupled with wisdom that God gives us to protect our kids.  For instance, the sound of the lid coming off the cookie jar is a dead giveaway.  The giggling also helped to secure the investigation.

Guess what?  Nothing gets by God, either.  He knows all, created all, is in control of all, and wants to protect us and provide for us because of his relentless, unconditional love for us.  His love is unchanging, full of grace and mercy.  God’s Word, all of it, “new and old”, is telling us of God’s love with the Way to love him back, even when our hands are caught in the cookie jar of life! 

That Way is now through Jesus Christ, His Son.  “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”  John 3:16, NIV “We love Him because He first loved us!”  1 John 4:19, NIV

Those who have no regard for God, as David writes and sings, has no love in their hearts.  For God is love. 

“My beloved friends, let us continue to love each other since love comes from God. Everyone who loves is born of God and experiences a relationship with God. The person who refuses to love doesn’t know the first thing about God, because God is love—so you can’t know him if you don’t love.”

“This is how God showed his love for us: God sent his only Son into the world so we might live through him. This is the kind of love we are talking about—not that we once upon a time loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to clear away our sins and the damage they’ve done to our relationship with God.”

“My dear, dear friends, if God loved us like this, we certainly ought to love each other. No one has seen God, ever. But if we love one another, God dwells deeply within us, and his love becomes complete in us—perfect love!”  1 John 7-12, The Message

THIS is why nothing gets past God’s notice.  He loves us!  Bullies controlled by evil will not win at the end of it all.  So, pray for your bullies.  God knows that you battle them.

Worship and Wisdom, Psalms and Proverbs

Psalm 36, The Message

A David Psalm

36 ^1-4 The God-rebel tunes in to sedition—
    all ears, eager to sin.
He has no regard for God,
    he stands insolent before him.
He has smooth-talked himself
    into believing
That his evil
    will never be noticed.
Words gutter from his mouth,
    dishwater dirty.
Can’t remember when he
    did anything decent.
Every time he goes to bed,
    he fathers another evil plot.
When he’s loose on the streets,
    nobody’s safe.
He plays with fire
    and doesn’t care who gets burned.

^5-6 God’s love is meteoric,
    his loyalty astronomic,
His purpose titanic,
    his verdicts oceanic.
Yet in his largeness
    nothing gets lost;
Not a man, not a mouse,
    slips through the cracks.

^7-9 How exquisite your love, O God!
    How eager we are to run under your wings,
To eat our fill at the banquet you spread
    as you fill our tankards with Eden spring water.
You’re a fountain of cascading light,
    and you open our eyes to light.

^10-12 Keep on loving your friends;
    do your work in welcoming hearts.
Don’t let the bullies kick me around,
    the moral midgets slap me down.
Send the upstarts sprawling
    flat on their faces in the mud.

TRUTH:  NOTHING gets passed God’s notice.  “Yet in his largeness nothing gets lost; Not a man, not a mouse, slips through the cracks.”  GOOD to know and believe, right?

Proverb 16, The Message

Oh, how these words of wisdom follow up our Psalm of worship for the day! 

God’s promises…

Mortals make elaborate plans,
    but God has the last word.

² Humans are satisfied with whatever looks good;
    God probes for what is good.

³ Put God in charge of your work,
    then what you’ve planned will take place.

⁴ God made everything with a place and purpose;
    even the wicked are included—but for judgment.

⁵ God can’t stomach arrogance or pretense;
    believe me, he’ll put those upstarts in their place.

⁶ Guilt is banished through love and truth;
    Fear-of-God deflects evil.

⁷ When God approves of your life,
    even your enemies will end up shaking your hand.

⁸ Far better to be right and poor
    than to be wrong and rich.

⁹ We plan the way we want to live,
    but only God makes us able to live it.

WISDOM:  God has the last word.  Put God in charge.  God is love and love us.

Abba Father,

What glorious words of worship and praise this morning that teaches us that you are in control.  You make all things good from whatever the world of evil tries to throw at us, or use us in his schemes.  You win at the end of the day.  You help us live for you when we turn fully to you committed to follow in your ways.  You are God and we are not.  I love you back with all my heart, mind and soul.  Help me to live the life you intended for me to live with You.  Thank you for Your Presence in my puny life.  You make all the difference.  You are the difference between life and death.  To you be all the Glory!

In Jesus Name, Amen