Casting the sins to the currents of God's grace - (Not so) Wordless Wednesday

"The Tashlich (literally, "casting") is a tradition dating back to the Middle Ages in which the sins of the repentant are ceremonially cast into the deep, ever-flowing currents of God's grace. It is a time of both penitence and celebration as a year's worth of shotcomings and failures are acknowledged, accepted, and then washed away so that life can begin again, fresh, with no mistakes in it."

Rachel Held Evans

¹⁸ Where is another God like you,
    who pardons the guilt of the remnant,
    overlooking the sins of his special people?
You will not stay angry with your people forever,
    because you delight in showing unfailing love.
¹⁹ Once again you will have compassion on us.
    You will trample our sins under your feet
    and throw them into the depths of the ocean!

Micah 7:18-19

New Living Translation (NLT)

Loving kindness - (Not so) Wordless Wednesday

“In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.”

1 Thessalonians 5:18

“Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”
Hebrews 4:16

“but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.”

Isaiah 40:31

“But as for me, I am like a green olive tree in God's house. I trust in God's loving kindness forever and ever.”
PSALM 52:8

“Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.”
Colossians 3:12

We are not slaves to the sin - (Not so) Wordless Wednesday

 

“Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace? Of course not! Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it? …We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin. For when we died with Christ we were set free from the power of sin.” 

Romans 6:1-2, 6-7

You were deliberately planned - (Not so) Wordless Wednesday

You aren't an accident.  You weren't mass-produced.  You aren't an assembly-line product.  You were deliberately planned, specifically gifted, and lovingly positioned on this earth by the Master Craftsman.

  Max Lucado

"You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason with your neighbor, lest you bear sin because of him.  You shall not take vengeance or bear any grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself:  I am the LORD."

 Leviticus 19:17-18
The Revised Standard Version

¹² We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!

1 Corinthians 13:12

The Message (MSG)

Man is created to praise, reverence, and serve God our Lord, and by this means to save his soul. And the other things on the face of the earth are created for man and that they may help him in prosecuting the end for which he is created. From this it follows that man is to use them as much as they help him on to his end, and ought to rid himself of them so far as they hinder him as to it. For this it is necessary to make ourselves indifferent to all created things in all that is allowed to the choice of our free will and is not prohibited to it; so that, on our part, we want not health rather than sickness, riches rather than poverty, honor rather than dishonor, long rather than short life, and so in all the rest; desiring and choosing only what is most conducive for us to the end for which we are created.
Ignatius of Loyola 

Thought for today

Faith in Christ

We are often hindered from giving up our treasures to the Lord out of fear for their safety; this is especially true when those treasures are loved relatives and friends. But we need have no such fears. Our Lord came not to destroy but to save. Everything is safe which we commit to Him, and nothing is really safe which is not so committed.
A. W. Tozer

Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.
Matthew 7:7-8
The King James Version

“[To have Faith in Christ] means, of course, trying to do all that He says.
There would be no sense in saying you trusted a person if you would not take his advice. Thus if you have really handed yourself over to Him, it must follow that you are trying to obey Him.
But trying in a new way, a less worried way. Not doing these things in order to be saved, but because He has begun to save you already.
Not hoping to get to Heaven as a reward for your actions, but inevitably wanting to act in a certain way because a first faint gleam of Heaven is already inside you.”
C.S.Lewis ― Mere Christianity