Salvogesis

You cannot take care of both your soul and your worldly goods at the same time. If you want worldly goods, give up your soul; if you want to protect your soul, renounce worldly goods. Otherwise, you will be constantly divided and you will not receive either one or the other.  When you are alarmed or upset with something worldly. remember that you will have to die. and then what you used to think was an important misfortune will become an insignificant nuisance in your eyes. - Epictetus

 Anti-Bully Day is coming. I saw a bullying meme the other day comparing vaccine mandates to seatbelt mandates with the implication being that just as no one is opposed to seatbelt legislation, no one should be opposed to vaccine legislation. My mind immediately recalled the time last century when BC updated its motorcycle legislation. The courts decided that BC’s helmet legislation discriminated against a particular religious/cultural group; so, they struck it down. The government of the day then decided to implement new helmet legislation for motorcycle riders. This is from the ‘new’ legislation:   MOTORCYCLE SAFETY HELMET EXEMPTION REGULATION Exemption 1 The following persons are exempt from the requirements of section 194 (3) of the Motor Vehicle Act: (a)a person who (i) practises the Sikh religion, and (ii)has unshorn hair and habitually wears a turban composed of 5 or more square metres of cloth.   I do remember the debates at the time. I remember ...

  This image pops up in my 'memories' on Facebook every year around this time. There was a building that we used to frequent in inner city Toronto when we lived and worked there with The Salvation Army. It was certainly a rough building in a rough area of town. Many of our congregation and people who frequented our café/soup kitchen and food bank lived in this building. I would lead Bible studies there once a week and other members of The Salvation Army would regularly clean out people's rooms so they could get rid of bed bugs or help each other out in some other way.   One day when I was visiting a friend or helping someone out in someway on the 11th floor I saw this on the elevator door. A few people were initially upset with this (maybe even for my sake because they didn't want me to be hurt). I laughed though and immediately took this picture as I took this graffitied elevator door as a blessing. I was blessed to know that our team's caring for and loving people...

He humbles those who dwell on high, He lays the lofty city low; He levels it to the ground and casts it down to the dust. Feet trample it down— the feet of the oppressed, the footsteps of the poor. The path of the righteous is level; you, the Upright One, make the way of the righteous smooth. Yes, Lord, walking in the way of your laws, we wait for You; Your name and renown are the desire of our hearts. I think the humbling of the exalted and the uplifting of the humbled is important to Isaiah. We have chatted about its meaning previously: God wants to gather us close to him like a parent picking up his children, or even a farmer picking up soil or seeds or anything else he can hold in the palm of his hand that he loves. Sometimes, as the Lord is picking us up we have a desire to reach heights quicker or greater than He is lifting us at the moment and as a result we try to lift ourselves up; we leap from the Lord’s hands. When we do this, of course, we wind up falling to the ground. We ...

Can you be angry with one who is sick with some disgusting illness? Is he to blame that his presence is unpleasant to you? You should treat moral illness in the same way. "However", you would say, "humans have the intellect to understand their vices." This is true. This also means that you have an intellect; you can help your neighbour to understand his vices and bring him to a better life. Treat his blindness, and awaken his soul, without displaying your impatience and superiority, - Marcus Aurelius

This week was Chinese New Year. At Chinese New Year events they often give each person a loonie. What we will do for that is donate a loonie to Partners In Mission for each person here today. The other thing I associate with Chinese New Year is what most of us associate with Chinese food. Fortune Cookies. I often think it would be neat to have a Christian Chinese Food Restaurant where instead of fortunes in the cookies there would be scriptures or proverbs. So today I have proverb cookies – well proverb plastic eggs for us. Heather will hand them out. You can open yours up and look at it. Don’t lose it. I am going to ask people to read them out. And then we will share in a blessing from each one. Who has Proverbs 3:5? Read it out please. Trust in the Lord with all your heart     and lean not on your own understanding God confounds the wise (1 Corinthians 1:27); the sin of the book of judges shows just how much trouble can come when we ‘do what is right our own eyes’. The truth...