Murray's Musings

In this Moment, Dad looks at the promise of the Holy Spirit.

Luke 24:49-51

49 I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.”

50 When he had led them out to the vicinity of Bethany, he lifted up his hands and blessed them. 51 While he was blessing them, he left them and was taken up into heaven.

Morley’s Comments

In this great passage our risen Lord urges His disciples to endure by assuring them that He is about to send the Holy Spirit to be with them always.  That great promise was fulfilled on the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit descended on up to 120 faithful followers and thus the church was born.

Thank God that He has graciously allowed us to be members of His church, filled with His spirit and gifted to praise and serve Him.

Amen!!

TTFN

Isaiah 53:1-5

 1 Who has believed our message
and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
3 He was despised and rejected by men,
a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.
Like one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

4 Surely he took up our infirmities
and carried our sorrows,
yet we considered him stricken by God,
smitten by him, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
and by his wounds we are healed.

Morley’s Comments

Hundreds of years before God sent His son into the world to seek and to save one who is lost, God granted to His servant, Isaiah, an amazingly accurate vision of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.  Truly, with these stripes we are healed.  Praise God!

TTFN

Today’s Moment with Morley deals with the story of Ruth and Naomi…

Ruth 2: 14-17

 14 At mealtime Boaz said to her, “Come over here. Have some bread and dip it in the wine vinegar.”

When she sat down with the harvesters, he offered her some roasted grain. She ate all she wanted and had some left over. 15 As she got up to glean, Boaz gave orders to his men, “Even if she gathers among the sheaves, don’t embarrass her. 16 Rather, pull out some stalks for her from the bundles and leave them for her to pick up, and don’t rebuke her.”

17 So Ruth gleaned in the field until evening. Then she threshed the barley she had gathered, and it amounted to about an ephah.

Morley’s Comments

To me this is one of the most beautiful passages in all the Scriptures.  The love and devotion of Naomi to Ruth is exceded in Scripture only by Jesus Himself.  There comes to mind that beautiful passage of John 3:14-17 where Jesus has promised to believers: “I will never leave you nor forsake you… Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.”

TTFN

We continue today with Dad’s thoughts on the story of the burning bush.

Exodus 3:1-10

Moses and the Burning Bush

1 Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the desert and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2 There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. 3 So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.”  4 When the LORD saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!”

And Moses said, “Here I am.”

5 “Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” 6 Then he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.

7 The LORD said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. 8 So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. 9 And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. 10 So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.”

Morley’s Comments

This striking story of the burning bush reminds us that God has great plans for His people – one that deigns to use ordinary people like Moses and us in order to implement His plans for the world.

If God, in His holiness, were too holy that He could not use sinners to carry out His plans, then nothing would get done.

Somebody one said humourously…

How odd of God
To choose the Jews.

Each of us might then say — How odd of God to choose me!

TTFN