Because Of His Mercy...

Titus 3:5-7: 

"He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy.

 He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit,

 whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, 

so that, having been justified by his grace, 

we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life."

You are invited to join us as we worship on Good Friday

and Easter Sunday!

Harmonica players have a special place in my heart

so I chose this version of a favorite hymn for this post

Nothing But the Blood of Jesus- Buddy Greene

 

Does mercy not make worth the while of ‘smile and try again’

For mercy meets us in each mile it metes, of joy and pain

Life’s flight of forward measured mien would be a fear-filled Must

Without love’s merciful Unseen to anchor hope and trust

Oh Lord, increase faith’s sacred claim, as we press to the Prize

Let Your Name be the only name our worship magnifies

Let the sword of the Spirit (which is your Word) be our might

For by your mercy, we are brought/bought from darkness into Light

May the mercy that you have shown fill us and overflow

From vessels made of skin and bone, so everyone may know

That You loved us so much you sent Your Son to pay the price

So that no one may perish but all have eternal life

Because of your mercy oh Lord our faith is not in vain

By Your mercy grace has restored mankind to You again

The deceiver, the enemy of God is overthrown

Once and for all you shed Your blood sin’s verdict to atone

Your sacrifice has washed away the need for bull and ram

For blood of beast could never pay, only a perfect Lamb

So by the mercy of the One who beheld Calvary

I AM became the scapegoat for the likes of you and me

Oh, let the wonder of such love give weary souls a lift

God loves each one of us so much He still holds out His Gift

Of ‘all who believe will not perish but will be forgiv’n

And receive everlasting life; not death and hell, but Heav’n

Mercy holds wide the door; the Ark of Safety is not sealed

Look up, do not ignore the stripes whereby mankind is healed

Whereby Hope is an anchor though life's storms may surge and toss

Mercy secures faith’s armour in the power of the cross

© Janet Martin

Isa.53:4-6

Surely He took on our infirmities and carried our sorrows; 

yet we considered Him stricken by God, struck down and afflicted.

 5But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities;

 the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.

 6We all like sheep have gone astray, each one has turned to his own way; 

and the LORD has laid upon Him the iniquity of us all.…

Heb.9:22

...without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.

Heb.10:19-25

Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place

 by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us

 through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 

 let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings,

 having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience 

and having our bodies washed with pure water. 

 Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. 

 And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, 

 not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, 

but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

To God Be The Glory Forever

 To God Be The Glory

To God be the glory

He did not withhold

The wonderful story

The cross would unfold

From death’s scene, so gory

From grief’s gloomy knell

Christ rose in victory

Over death and hell

To God be the glory

Death did not prevail

For sinners so sorry

His blood will not fail

Faithful to the finish

He suffered the cost

Nothing could diminish

His love for the lost

To God be the Glory

His beloved Son

Fulfilled His Love Story

With ‘Thy will be done’

Knowing Mercy’s offer

Would make scoffers laugh

Yet willing to suffer

On scorner’s behalf

To God be the glory

Whatever we face

Is not without mercy

From love’s nail-scarred grace

Whatever the sorrow

We must suffer through

To God be the glory

For He suffered too

To God be the glory

All who have believed

Will share in the Victory

That Jesus achieved

Through Redemption’s story

Of Never Again

To God be the glory

Forever, amen

© Janet Martin

Lent to Lose (in order to find)

On Sunday our message was from Matthew 16

 including the challenge in verse 25;

"For whoever wants to save their life will lose it,

but whoever loses their life for me will find it."

Oh, how easy it is to forget

Life is a gift, lent!

...a gift with sacred reckoning

on how it is spent

Only Trust Him-Alan Jackson

This poem is inspired in part,

by a family tragedy...

On Sunday night my nephew's 19 mo. old son went missing on their farm.

His body was recovered on Monday in a manure pump.

Please pray for strength and comfort

for my brother Stuart and their family and

esp. for my nephew and his wife, Charles and Andrea!

Sometimes the certainty of sorrow tries to steal the glow

And make us worry ‘bout tomorrow and what none can know

Sometimes senses of satisfaction lose approval’s nod

As love suffers the hard attraction that points man to God

Sometimes the trouble we are born to tests want’s willful way

Tempting man with doubt’s first question ‘did God really say?’

For we see only the pieces; the picture as a whole

Must wait until God’s will releases body from the soul

Sometimes people are prone to ponder Mercy’s Upper Hand

But we were born to trust and wonder, not to understand

Born to find strength in surrender, not in a fist we raise

Born to be a humble spender of numbered, gifted days

Sometimes our own idea of what should or should not be

Makes us rebel against replies of ‘be it unto me’

Sometimes sudden loss reminds us not to take for granted

What we soon will leave behind us, back to He who lent it

© Janet Martin

 

 

 

From a Fount That Forges Memories...

Happy 2nd Birthday, sweet grand-daughter!

...though without a doubt the celebration is bittersweet this year!

This is not quite the poem I had in mind but

 circumstance sort of moved the heart in this direction today!

Details here on

Divine Design

From a fount that forges memory’s fond mementos, mercy-lent

Pours the future to a suture that weaves pictures, echo-bent

Who knows what will flow from heaven to bestow laughter and tears

Where dawn kindles what dusk dwindles until ‘lifetime’ disappears

From the hand of God (no other, lest we confuse hierarchy

And forget the One who numbers days before one came to be)

From His hand, (the fount of mercy) time’s momentous stream runs rife

Until the will of the Giver returns to Himself, each life

Sacred is the surge of seasons, slowly reeling farewell in

Holy is the toll of twilight, siphoning the soul from skin

Precious is each gifted hour, arranged step-by-steppingstone

Faithful is the loving Father drawing his dear children Home

© Janet Martin

Your eyes saw my unformed body; 

all the days ordained for me were written in your book

 before one of them came to be.

Psalm 139:16

Divine Design (updated)

.(here is the update mentioned this morning)

Last night my nephew's 19 mo. old son went missing

on their farm.

His body was recovered today in a manure pump.

Please pray for strength and comfort

for my brother Stuart and their family and

esp. for my nephew and his wife, Charles and Andrea!

I will say of the LORD, 

“He is my refuge and my fortress;

My God, in Him I will trust.”

Psalm 91:2

Psalm 18:2

The LORD is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer. 

My God is my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield,

 and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.

Psalm 94:22

But the LORD has been my stronghold,

and my God is my rock of refuge.

What a Friend We Have in Jesus

No matter what designs the must of trials we pass through

In Thee oh, Lord we place our trust; our refuge is in You

With gaping wounds of heart and soul, beneath the blows of loss

We plead for faith to make us whole by looking at the cross

For when life’s cup of joy is marred by sorrow’s agony

You reach with Hands redemption-scarred; our refuge is in Thee

The places that once brimmed with love and laughter’s harmony

Are full of tears, our visage dimmed with groaning sympathy

To Thee oh, Lord we pour our prayer; when understanding fails

Help us to place our burden where Your faithfulness prevails

To lean upon your promises for they are kind and true

No matter what designs the test, our refuge is in You

© Janet Martin

 

Wealth of Wonder and Love

 

Wishing you a wonder-full and lovely day!

This morning is a gray, rain-drop spangled lake

rather than the golden wake of a few dusks ago...

What if this would be enough; life’s wealth of wonder and love?

What if we were satisfied with the joy that these provide?

What if our words would brim with thanksgiving’s heartfelt hymn?

What if this was happiness; finding more by wanting less

Life is rich when love/God is first; wealth of days, wonder-immersed

In spite of hard hills and holes, love and wonder still consoles

Waking worship’s madrigal, making life so worth it all

While we learn to cherish more, so much to be thankful for

Let's not seek plunder of stuff but more of wonder and love

Overflowing cups of praise from a decanter of days

Taking sparkles from life’s fount, making every moment count

Filling fortune’s treasure trove with wealth of wonder and love

What if, for all that we lack we found something to give back

Finding in love's kindliness the secret to happiness

Deepening, as years go, reverence for  'you and I'

Finding love and wonder's laud grounded in the grace of God

© Janet Martin

And let the peace of God rule in your hearts,

 to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful. 

 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom,

 teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, 

singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.

Col.3:15-16

Ah, This Is Faith

Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering;

(for he is faithful that promised;)

Heb.10:23

Living Hope- Phil Wickham

We do not have the eyes to see the ins and outs of doubt and dread

We cannot know the high and low of ways and means that lie ahead

That happiness of Mercy’s ‘yes’ is but the prelude to its ‘no’

Ah, this is life, where joy and strife run rife through grace whereby we go

Sometimes we strain to seize the rose forgetting beauty’s brutal stem

And he who suffered painful blows beneath its thorny diadem

How mercy bore without reproach, the horror of Golgotha’s tree

He did not choose to use His throne to refuse God’s authority

For this is love, the author of each sacrifice we choose to make

Without reproach, but simply for the glory of the Giver’s sake

Who offered to give all He had to prove the Father’s love for we

Who could not bridge the awful gap between God and humanity

Then pray, today our goal would be to wholly, humbly honour He

Jesus, who did not despise us, though He could behold Calvary

The brutal blows, the blood-bathed woes before His triumph over death

Then pray today our goal would be to praise His name with every breath

...for this is hope, to know in Whom we have believed and fully trust

In He whose sacrifice achieved once and for all, redemption's cost

Ah, this is faith to hold fast to the truth that His Word has made known

Until we touch the scars that tell how death and hell were overthrown 

© Janet Martin

Invisible Onus

 

While waiting for wild gales to subside a bit before going out

I seized the extra-poem opportunity without delay 😊

Opportunity is a bud begging to bloom!

It alights on the break of day like bird upon a limb

It spreads its fare like a buffet waiting to be a hymn

A sacred supplication from the moment we awake

An open invitation to be willing to partake

To rich and poor its coffer spills, minding ability

So we may seize its offer; it is Opportunity

It grants the chance to hope and pray, to do the best we can

To work with what we have today, and love our fellowman

To be a good steward with what God allots to our care

And not get caught up in the fruitless thought-life of ‘compare’

To bear the yoke of circumstance with meek humility

Aware that life is like a dance with Opportunity

…a bittersweet succession of love’s laughter, pains and aches

It lets us learn life-lessons, not through failure, but mistakes

It does not shake its head and sigh of us, ‘it is no use’

But with each day of granted breath we are without excuse

By the grace of the Giver, to embrace what waits to be

Where life is like a river rife with Opportunity

…that spills its ilk of silk and steel in an ethereal sup

Sometimes a milk and honey meal, sometimes a hard road up

Where nope and yup pour from a cup without jangle and form

Where Hope is but a wraith-like rope that dangles in the storm

Until it is the anchor of the Soul, then we will be

Equipped by faith that makes us whole, for Opportunity

© Janet Martin

As we have therefore opportunity, 

let us do good unto all men, 

especially unto them who are of the household of faith

Gal.6:10