“If you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”
— Esther 4:14
These are the bold, bracing words of Mordecai to Queen Esther. They’re not just a gentle nudge—they’re a wake-up call. A reminder that God’s purposes will move forward—with or without us—but oh, the cost of remaining silent. And oh, the power of saying yes.
Marti loves to make flower arrangements. When I buy her flowers, I make sure the salesperson at the flower shop doesn’t bother arranging the flowers. That’s half of Marti’s joy in receiving them — getting to express herself through creating a work of art for the dining room table. But this recent creation was a bit of a surprise.
“But this is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel on that day,” says the Lord. “I will put my laws in their minds, and I will write them on their hearts. I will; be their God, and they will be my people. And they will not need to teach their neighbors, nor will they need to teach their family, saying, ‘You shall know the Lord.’ For everyone from the least to the greatest, will already know me,” says the Lord. “And I will forgive their wickedness and will never again remember their sins.” Jeremiah 31:33-34
But Joshua spared Rahab the prostitute, with her family and all who belonged to her, because she hid the men Joshua had sent as spies to Jericho—and she lives among the Israelites to this day. (Joshua 6:25)
King David’s great-great grandmother was Rahab, the prostitute from Jericho. She was a Canaanite, of the people-group that the children of Israel were forbidden to marry. Yet she is of the lineage of David and an ancestor of Jesus. Now that doesn’t sit too well with the laws of the Moses, which goes to show you that the law of the Old Covenant was and is not the last word. There is another covenant — the new covenant — that Christ ushered in, that was evident even then. That covenant is evidenced by the grace of God, and entered into by faith. And Rahab acted on that faith when she found out that the two men in town were from the new nation of Israel and they had come to spy out the city. Rahab, and indeed the whole town, had heard how the children of Israel had crossed the Red Sea and the Jordan River and were successful in all their conflicts so far. She was terrified. And so she, being a smart one, hid the spies when the authorities came looking, because she knew that God was with them and she was hoping to make a deal.
Jesus once warned against trying to patch an old garment with new cloth or put new wine into old wineskins. In the case of the garment, the new unshrunk piece of cloth will tear away from the rest when the clothing is first washed. And in the case of the wineskins, the new wine will be too acidic for the old skins and they will burst. New wine and new skins need to grow old together.
Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. (John 12:24)
On this Memorial Day weekend, we remember those who have fallen in battle, and are especially directed in our thoughts by these heartfelt words from one of our Catch community. Thank you, Tammy.
My dad and all but one of his brothers served. My mom’s two older brothers were drafted. The oldest volunteered. One died at Normandy. One died at the Battle of the Bulge. After a year of red tape, Mom’s oldest brother was allowed to go home. Sadly, because of PTSD, he took up drinking and it killed him shortly after returning home from war.
War? I hate it. Necessary? Yes it is. A day doesn’t go by that I don’t think of my sweet uncles waiting for all of us at the pearly gates. God bless our troops. God bless America. My hope is that everyone remembers why we have this three-day weekend.
The New Covenant is the most important truth about living the real Christian life that too few know about. It runs counter to most of the teaching and assumptions Christians have about being a better person, doing the right thing, being holy, being religious, pleasing the Lord, living the victorious Christian life, and I’m sure a host of other good things we could mention in the same breath — all wonderful things — all totally beyond the reach of any one of us. The problem is, we don’t know they are beyond our reach, so everybody just keeps on trying, and the longer someone works at this, the more frustrated they get. The problem is, we all think there must be someone somewhere for whom this is working. We all even think we know someone like that even though we can’t quite recall the person’s name. Somebody, somewhere has got it all together. Just not anybody I know. But that’s enough to keep us all trying.
Let’s go back to that morning that started off the church with a bang. It all happened in one remarkable day. Estimates say there were roughly 120 believers gathered in Jerusalem during the celebration of the Passover when suddenly there was the sound of a mighty rushing wind, and what appeared to be flames of fire coming to rest on each of the believer’s heads as they began to speak in other languages so that the people around them were saying, “‘Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language? Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs — we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!’” (Acts 2:8-11) Others were saying they must have been drunk.
Jesus is still the message; Grace is still the means; and Grace Turned Outward is still the ministry to the world. Drop everything else and pick this up. This is what it is all about.
For we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. 2 Corinthians 2:15
You are the living temple of God
Walking around this earth. – John Fischer from the song, “Don’t Veil the Door”
The bulk of the ministry happening through your life today happens merely by you being in the world. It does not require any particular effort from you. It merely is because of what you are. And what are you? You are a pleasing aroma of Christ to God.
John Fischer The Catch 