A Framework for Faith/Spiritual Vision

Through such unaccustomed acts of government, when things reveal through the will and power of the Governor that which they do not accomplish as a part of their functioning day to day, there come about the miracles of which Scripture tells.

  - Augustine Hibernicus, On the Miracles of Holy Scripture (Irish, 7th century)

Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever.

  - Psalm 136.1

Psalm 136 is an antiphonal psalm - a recurring phrase, probably meant to be sung by the congregation, follows each declaration of the worship leader. It's even set up in two columns in the Hebrew Bible to facilitate use of this psalm antiphonally. Psalm 136 covers all of creation and redemption, and seeks to engage all the people of God in acknowledging His sovereignty.

Jess Slusher and I were discussing the sovereignty of God yesterday afternoon. God's attention to us, and to all the vast cosmos, extends to every single particle, every nook and cranny, every power or force, and everything we normally tend to think of as "laws of nature."

There are no such "laws." What we see in gravity, in the fact that water boils at 212 degrees F at sea level, the binding properties of atoms, and so forth are not things that "just happen" because that's the way stuff is. These things happen because the steadfast love of the Lord endures forever and reaches to everything. He tenderly, attentively, and exhaustively cares for, sustains, and recreates all that He has made, all the time.

Jess and I delighted in the experience of so great and loving a heavenly Father. So if you ever run short of things for which to give thanks to God, just look around. Nothing that is, is by virtue of its own inherent nature. It is because God sustains it. It works because God moves it. It serves us this way or that because God employs it to do so. All creation is His servant for our good (Ps. 119.89-91), for building up the body of Christ, and for advancing His Kingdom (Eph. 1.19-22).

He composes, holds, moves, vitalizes, sustains, and causes to fulfill its unique purpose every created thing. If we look carefully and think deeply enough, it should not be too hard to see in all this steadfast love of God for His creation, ever-new and ever-richer measures of His love for us.

Today at The Fellowship

ReVision - The sex scandal in the Roman Catholic Church just will not go away.

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T. M. Moore